The Athletic Trap: How College Sports Corrupted the Academy by Howard L. Nixon, II (review)

Since the earliest days of organized sport teams in institutions of higher education, tension has existed between the values of the academy and of those who seek to lead, promote, and participate in intercollegiate athletics. Nixon’s book serves the role of contextualizing the multitude of competing priorities university presidents face today as the ultimate decision makers regarding high profile college sport programs. By detailing what he refers to as the “athletic trap,” Nixon provides a rich account of the college sports landscape as it has evolved to exist today. This account is limited to the big time college sport programs residing primarily in six athletic conferences. Similarly, Nixon presents his notion of the intercollegiate golden triangle or IGT, which depicts the powerful entities exerting the majority of influence on the system. The IGT is presented as a conceptual model to be used as a framework throughout the book and as a means of capturing the triad of influence imposed on intercollegiate athletics through money, power, and prestige. The model was fashioned after the “golden triangle” forwarded by Barry Smart (Smart, 2005, p. 144), depicting the global cultural economy of sport that benefits three main partners: professional sport, television, and corporate sponsors. The IGT serves as a structure to aid our understanding of the most significant forces influencing the trajectory of big-time college sport programs. Through an in depth analysis of both the “athletic trap” and the IGT, Nixon captures the difficult issues higher education leaders must contend with, along with the powerful forces that present political challenges to avert meaningful reform or change. To conclude, Nixon presents his own idea for reforming big time college athletics.

In the first chapter, the author briefly acknowledges how commercialization has infiltrated institutions of higher education in multiple realms. Using this glimpse into the history of college sport, we quickly see how commercialization has plagued athletics since its inception with an example of Yale football earning more than a million dollars (in today’s currency), back in 1915. We learn of an outspoken Harvard president who considered football a “brutal, cheating and demoralizing game” (p. 4) as he tried repeatedly to eliminate the sport. Immediately we see how time and again presidents were over ruled by trustees, as in the case of this Harvard president. Yet, the surge in popularity early on was justified as institutions lacking prominence were able to gain national visibility by competing in football. Notre Dame is used as an example here, which works to solidify a long held belief that football can propel an institution into the national spotlight.

We then are introduced to the need for an emerging governing body of college athletics. Here the author succinctly captures the need for governance, while also capturing the notion of “scandals” that have predominantly plagued college sport programs distinguished by their popularity, level of commercialization, and competition. This leads to an overview of the need for what came to be known as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Importantly, the author points out the “new organization established rules to increase institutional control, academic integrity, ethical behavior, and the well-being of student athletes” (p. 5). Despite the many changes that have occurred in intercollegiate athletics over the years, Nixon notes how each of these goals remains at the center of reform efforts to this day.

Next, the collegiate model is contrasted with the commercial model of college sport, which has “created a big-time college sports world populated by highly paid coaches, star athletes playing in front of huge crowds and national television audiences, intense pursuit of higher school prospects, sports media personalities, corporate sponsors and partnerships, branded merchandise” (p. 6), and the list goes on. In contrast, the interests of student athletes are asserted as the organizational focus in the collegiate model. This model includes the welfare of student athletes in the classroom and in...