New Game Plan in College Sport (review)

Last year during a higher education forum, someone posed a question about the status of "big time" collegiate athletics to a the well-known, former president of a university football powerhouse. His response was that restoring integrity to Division I college sports requires university presidents willing to "fall on their swords" in the name of reform. For more than a decade, the higher education community has complained about runaway collegiate athletics while witnessing few substantive changes.

Given that athletic budgets have grown faster than overall university budgets in the last 10 years, college sports deserves greater attention among those concerned about the well-being of higher education. Richard Lapchick's compilation of essays in New Game Plan for College Sport addresses a wide range of issues with an impressive variety of voices. The book provides commentary from faculty, athletic department personnel, university presidents, conference commissioners, leaders of athletic organizations, and athletes.

The book is intentionally pragmatic and experience-based rather than theoretical. Part 1 dedicates 10 chapters to such problems in college sports as poor academic performance among student-athletes and corruption. The book begins with a useful historical analysis from Welch Suggs. Then, Lapchick, in Chapter 2, discusses the integrity of the athletic enterprise with a list of "problems" and scandals uncovered during the two years (2003–2004) of research preceding the completion of this book. Using the term "problem" establishes a negative tone that rings throughout the book. Even though several of the chapters discuss positive developments such as the inclusion of women in college sports, the book clearly problematizes the enterprise. We also found a lack of institutional context, making it occasionally difficult to understand the complexity of decision-making on individual campuses.

John Gerdy in Chapter 3 examines the ballooning cost of athletics in an era of never-ending tuition increases and limited resources. He scrutinizes the trend toward increased spending on college athletics in spite of findings that there is no relationship between such increases and the rate of donor giving, attendance, student applications, or winning. Still, Gerdy's chapters are a largely anecdotal and therefore a hollow discussion on the failure of college sports and its attempt to model professional athletics.

Sharon Stoll and Jennifer Beller in the following chapter discuss more convincingly the ethical dilemmas in college sport, calling administrators and coaches to address moral judgment and reasoning in athletics. They claim that "environmental forces in sports today do not support ethical action" (p. 86).

Part 1 of the book concludes with short chapters explicating the problems of race, gender, gambling, performance-enhancing drug use, sports agents, and the media's negative influence.

Part 2 of the book is the most insightful. Lapchick compiles the voices of multiple university constituents, allowing them to comment from their vantage point. Unlike Part 1 where all the authors agree that college sports are damnable, Part 2 offers various perspectives on possible reasons. Chapter 12, titled "Presidents' Forum," brings together four university presidents to discuss their relationship with athletic directors, philosophy for hiring coaches, and cost containment. Chapter 13 is a forum for four conference commissioners who discuss the future of college sports, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) policy, and the notion of sportsmanship. Subsequent chapters represent views from athletic directors, student-athletes, faculty, and the NCAA's former chief operating officer. Adding validity to the book are two uncommon themes concerning the academic performance of student-athletes and faculty influence in decision-making.

In Chapter 17 Daniel Boggan Jr. sums up the issues presented in the book and notes that advancing reform in sports requires aligning NCAA and institutional goals with presidential leadership. However, Boggan fails to mention how the NCAA's historical impact on higher education and society caused many of the issues it now aims to address. Lapchick concludes with recommendations borrowed from each of the authors. Regrettably, the recommendations seem forced and lack an analysis of their feasibility in current NCAA, institutional, and...