Citation: Dowling, William C. Confessions of a Spoilsport: My Life and Hard times Fighting Sports Corruption at an Old Eastern University. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 2007. Print.
Summary: The book is pretty pretentious honestly, but it does discuss how athletics leads to academic decline and legal scandals, and how universities should probably stop prioritizing college athletics.
Author: William C. Dowling
Key terms include: college athletics, corruption, scandals, academics
Quote: "now and then in our recruitment of athletes, in order to get the type of athlete we need, football, basketball, whatever, at the university of new mexico, to make that program good, to make that properly fill the seats, to make that program pay the bills of the university, we will go find a downtrodden young man, and some of my best friends, some of the best people I know, have come from down in the gutter someplace" (24).
"No college or university can be better than its students" (27).
Francis Lawrence was a tireless advocate of big-time college sports, able to recite readily and with evident conviction the list of reasons typically given for trying to produce winning teams in football and basketball: stronger support from state legislature, increased alumni donations, and revenue from gate receipts..." (37).
Value: This book has already helped me to orient my thoughts and provide an argument against college athletics, specifically with the argument that athletics is bad for academics and leads to legal scandals.
I agree with your evaluation of this book. You should also notice that it is not exactly an academic book, even though it is written by an academic and it is an importnt contribution to the discussion. But Dowling wanted to give himself room for his own strong opinions, which definitely shine through. If he had his way, college students would all be reading Latin and Greek rather than spending time at Greek letter organizations watching football games on TV. I don't think you are going to get students to read Classics even if you put a stop to them watching football.
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