The Uses of Intercollegiate Athletics: Opportunities and Challenges for the University, and: Student Athletes and Athletics (review)

Since its inception during the late 1800s as a student-initiated endeavor, intercollegiate athletics has undergone several changes, evolving into the more familiar entity seen today at many institutions. While much attention has been given to the role that college sports plays at 4-year institutions, one change in intercollegiate athletics involves an increasing importance placed on student-athletes and sport programs at the community college level. As editors of New Directions for Community Colleges: Student Athletes and Athletics, Hagedorn and Horton note that community college athletic programs oftentimes serve as starting points for student-athletes who strive to eventually compete at four-year institutions. In addition to this recent area of importance, society has also witnessed intercollegiate athletics evolving into the multi-billion dollar industry seen at present. Editors Toma and Kramer note in their introduction to The Uses of Intercollegiate Athletics: Opportunities and Challenges for the University that this is evidenced, in part, through media contracts, fundraising initiatives, licensing partnerships, and ticket sales. With the ever-changing nature of intercollegiate athletics, these two publications offer a significant contribution to a variety of professionals involved in college sports, both at the community college environment and at 4-year institutions.

In The Uses of Intercollegiate Athletics, Toma and Kramer suggest that higher education has paralleled the increased financial emphasis seen in athletics, becoming a more commercialized and professionalized entity in our society. Despite having these entrepreneurial similarities, the editors point out that a focus has been primarily placed on the differences between academics and athletics resulting in an unnecessary but longstanding divide between these two university elements. Given the inherent misunderstandings these two entities may have about the other, Toma and Kramer offer a collection of chapters in their book that reveals how athletics can play a critical role in strategic planning to advance institutional objectives. In doing so, the editors have organized their book such that the first 6 chapters highlight the manner by which institutions attempt to forward their agenda by utilizing athletics in their interactions with external entities. Suggs begins in chapter 1 and outlines the rationale behind investing significant financial resources in intercollegiate athletics to enhance the prestige of an institution and the business enterprise that results from such an investment. He further provides a concise analysis of the methods of collecting financial data regarding revenue and expenditures associated with intercollegiate athletics and recent attempts to improve these efforts. Contributing authors of subsequent chapters in this section address the use of television to promote institutional branding and fundraising (Harris, chapter 2; Anctil, chapter 3), the impact that successful athletic programs have on admissions and donor contributions (Fisher, chapter 4), and the strategies behind using conference affiliation and the addition of revenue-producing sports to advance institutional endeavors (Sweitzer, chapter 5; Feezell, chapter 6). The remaining 5 chapters focus on the advantages and complications that may result from using intercollegiate athletics to advance the goals of an institution as described in chapters 1 through 6. Contributing authors focus on faculty-initiated reform in intercollegiate athletics (Lawrence, Ott, & Hendricks, chapter 7), the impact that athletics has on the social and academic integration of student-spectators (Clopton, chapter 8), the multicultural implications of interracial interactions among student-athletes (Hirko, chapter 9), student-athlete engagement in educationally relevant activities and the cognitive/affective outcomes of these experiences (Gayles & Hu, chapter 10), and managing the dual-identities of universities given the business elements of intercollegiate athletics and the educational values of higher education (Buer, chapter 11).

While college sports clearly plays a prominent role at 4-year institutions and has been the subject of a great deal...