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(More customer reviews)For those interested in big time college football and basketball played by students with actual academic standards versus semi-professional sports programs conducted on the fields of college campuses, this book is an easy yet interesting and important read.
Contrary to the NCAA's claim that all its collegiate members engage in amateur sports, Dr. Sack details how Division I college football and basketball programs are not academic-related, amateur sports. As a former big time college football player drafted by the Los Angeles Rams and, subsequently, as a university professor for over 35 years, he presents information from his extensive experience as a scholar and while working for the NCAA and on behalf of college players who submitted complaints against it. His work supports the important role of amateur and student-athletics in its true sense: athletic competition by students as part of the larger educational experience, not sports participation by young men aged 18 and over for the production of revenue rather than the emphasis being on their academic achievement foremost of which is earning a college degree.
Academic institutions, particularly institutions of higher learning, have a responsibility to uphold the public trust by striving for honesty and integrity in their pursuit of truth and scholarship. However, the current conduct of Division I football and basketball programs operate as a sham in portraying players in these sports as mere amateurs when levels academic efforts and graduation rates are so poor. In this evocative book, all that Allen Sack is asking for in his evocative book is honesty. Universities are purportedly one of our society's greatest bastions protecting against such hypocrisy.
Erosion of public trust has resulted from recent revelations of corporate greed and the too numerous illegal allegations of high level government officials over the past few years. Dr. Sack's work illuminates the similar type of actions that goes on in big time football and basketball programs today. Hopefully, this book will be one catalyst to help bring integrity to the way the NCAA operates and drives Division I football and basketball programs to be conducted in an honest way that encourages scholastic achievement as much as winning games and generating revenue.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Counterfeit Amateurs: An Athlete's Journey Through the Sixties to the Age of Academic Capitalism
The debate over big-time college sports, never far from the front pages, has once again moved from simmering to hot. Congress has been investigating the tax-exempt status of the NCAA in part because of questions about how commercialized college sports contribute to educational values. Athletes are challenging the NCAA on antitrust grounds to get a bigger share of the revenue. Against this backdrop, more faculty are beginning to be concerned about what is happening at their own universities and to the educational system as a whole as rampant commercialism further invades campus life through big-time sports. A leader among faculty fighting back has been Allen Sack, a co-founder of the Drake Group whose writings and public appearances, including work as an expert witness, have gained him wide recognition as an outspoken advocate for athletic reform. This book brings together in a compelling way both his personal story of life as a highly recruited athlete out of high school and a football player at Notre Dame under legendary coach Ara Parseghian and his fight, since then, as a scholar-activist against what he calls the 'academic capitalism' of the system under current NCAA rules.Sack distinguishes his own position, as an advocate of athletes' rights, from the reformist stance of NCAA President Myles Brand, who believes that commercialized sport and education can peacefully coexist, and the 'intellectual elitist' position of people like William Dowling, who would like to see big-time college sports kicked off campus altogether. It is a battle with high stakes for all concerned, not least the athletes whose exploitation by the system has been the motivating force for Sack's own campaign, now stretching over several decades.
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