Sociology of Sport VIII Power Point

Sports in Society:

Issues and Controversies

Chapter 14

Sports in High School and College:

Do Competitive Sports

Contribute to Education?

The United States is the only country where it is taken for

granted that high schools & colleges sponsor and fund interschool varsity sport programs.

Arguments for and against

interscholastic sports

Arguments for:

 Involve students in activities and

increase interest in school

 Build self-esteem and other

positive traits

 Enhance fitness and lifetim e

participation

 Generate spirit and unity

 Prom ote support

 Develop and reward valued

skills

Arguments against:

 Distract attention from

academ ics

 Create dependence and

conform ity

 Too m any injuries, too m any

spectators

 Create superficial, transitory

spirit

 W aste resources

 Create pressure, distort status

system

Those who try out for,

make, and stay on school sport teams often have unique traits. This makes

it difficult to say if playing sports is a unique

developmental experience.

Grades may be higher in - season because coaches, parents, and teachers

monitor athletes closely.

The U.S. is the only country in the world where high schools

and colleges fund elite varsity teams and provide special awards and status for athletes.

Experiences of

high school athletes

 Research shows that there are differences

between students who play varsity sports and those who don’t.

 M ost of the differences are due to selection-in,

filtering-out, and in-season control processes.

 Those who play varsity sports often have pre -

existing characteristics making them different from those who don’t play.

Methodological problems

Research on the consequences of playing

varsity sports is difficult to do because

Growth and development among students is related to many factors

beyond playing sports

M eanings given to sport participation

vary by context and from one person to another

Athletes must be studied in context

. . . because the meanings given to sport

participation vary according to:

1. The status associated with being an athlete in various contexts

2. The identities young people develop as they play sports

3. The ways that young people integrate sports and an athlete identity into their

lives

What the research tells us (I)

1. Be careful when generalizing about the educational value of sports

2. Longitudinal and qualitative studies are needed to identify changes related exclusively to sport participation

3. Varsity athletes may be treated differently by significant others

(continued)

What the research tells us (II)

4. Varsity sports exert an influence on the larger student culture in high schools, but we don’t know much about this

5. The impact of sport participation depends on the meanings given to it—

and meanings emerge through social interaction with many people in and out

of school.

Meanings given to sport participation

vary with three factors:

1. The status given to athletes and sports in different contexts

2. The identities that young people develop as they play sports

3. The ways that young people integrate

sports and an athlete identity into their

lives

Research indicates that the effects of

playing school sports depend on

The contexts in which sports

are played

The organization of sport

programs

The social characteristics of

athletes

Student culture in high schools

 Being a student-athlete often is a source of status and popularity

 M ore for young men than young women

 Sports are sites for major social occasions in the school

 Sports often reproduce dominant ideologies related to gender,

social class, and race & ethnicity

Before 1980, high school girls who played sports were often

viewed negatively. Today young women feel comfortable expressing themselves on varsity sport teams

Some women’s sports receive

attention equal to the attention received by men’s sports in high schools and colleges.

Interscholastic sports are most likely to

be positive learning experiences if they

 Enable students to be noticed, rewarded, and taken seriously as human beings

 Connect young people with adult advocates and mentors

 Are explicitly linked with non -sport situations and how to succeed in them

However, there is a lack of systematic

evidence on what is learned in sports

W hat is being learned here? Does it depend on coaching methods,

relationships with teammates, parental support, past experiences, social class, race/ethnicity, gender? How do we know?

Experiences of college athletes

Intercollegiate sports are NOT all the

sam e—they vary by

 Division in the NCAA

 Type of program and team

 The cultures that are created on teams

 The importance of sports in the context of the campus and larger community

Characteristics of

big-time (Division I) programs

Usually emphasize football or men’s basketball

and their revenue-generating potential

Revenues can be high, but very few teams or athletic departments make more money than

they spend

Athletic scholarships may be awarded within

limits set by the NCAA

Teams often travel extensively

Quality of skills and competition is high

The universities with team s that play

regularly on television constitute only

a portions of Division I schools which

m ake up only 16.5% of all colleges and

universities.

Only 29% of all college athletes play at

Division I schools, and m ost of them

are on team s that do not receive

television coverage.

About 70% of college athletes play in

relatively sm all program s in which

scholarships are not awarded and on

team s that generate little or no

revenue, attract few spectators, and

receive little or no m edia coverage.

Athletes in big-time programs

Participants in revenue (football and basketball) sports often have scholarships

Time and energy commitments to sport are high, and participants often must choose between

W orking out and practicing sports

Doing coursework

Engaging in social activities

Academic detachment is a commonly used coping strategy among male athletes

W hen the Salisbury University lacrosse team defeated SUNY

Cortland for the Division III NCAA title, the match was played before a sparse crowd with little media coverage.

W hen 18- to 22-year olds playing before 80,000 people in a

stadium with millions watching on TV and millions of dollars related to the game, is it surprising that they find it difficult to

focus on academic assignments?

Photo by Jay Coakley

Grades and graduation rates

among college athletes (I)

Graduation data are confusing because there are many different ways to compute statistics.

Information on grades must be qualified because Athletes often are overrepresented in certain

courses and majors (“clustering”)

Athletes in entertainment-oriented sports often enter college with lower grades and standardized test scores than other entering students

(continued)

Grades and graduation rates

among college athletes (II)

Graduation rates among all varsity athletes

are slightly higher than rates for all students.

Graduation rates in some big-time revenue sports are shamefully low.

Female athletes have higher graduation rates than male athletes.

Black athletes have graduation rates higher than black students as a whole, but lower

than rates for white athletes.

College sports may distort ideas about education.

Athletes who most successfully balance

athletic and academic commitments

Those who have:

Past experiences that consistently reaffirm the importance of education

Social networks that support academic identities

Perceived access to career opportunities following graduation

Social relationships and experiences that expand confidence and skills apart from

sports

Academic integrity in college sports

 Restoring/maintaining academic integrity is difficult

when athletic success is tied to big money and the emotions and identities of boosters and alumni.

 Raising academic standards is important, but it must be done so it does not unfairly exclude certain students.

 Current sanctions include

Reduction of scholarships

Ban schools from post-season gam es

Suspend entire athletic departm ent — if graduation rates fall below a certain level for m ultiple years

Academic support programs

 Research is needed on these programs

because they vary from campus to

campus.

 Recent media coverage suggests that

some programs focus more on eligibility

than learning.

 Too many programs are administered

by athletic departments rather than

tenured faculty.

Recent reforms in big-time programs

The purpose of new rules and standards passed

from 1983–2008 was to:

 Send messages to students (in HS and college) that academic achievement does matter in college sports

 Set new guidelines for universities that had ignored academic issues

 Provide to college athletes the support they need to succeed academically

 Establish sanctions for teams and universities

that do not meet standards

New NCAA rules for Division I schools

 Academic Progress Rate (APR)

 Calculated each semester

 1 point awarded for each player eligible and

each player returning to school

 Point scores are adjusted for team size

 Graduation Success Rate (GSR)

 Proportion of athletes entering a school during a 4-year window and graduating in 6 years

 Adjusted for transfers and players turning pro

Questions About the Benefits

of Varsity Sports: School Spirit

 High school spirit may enhanced, but does this improve

the overall academic climate or distract from it? W e don’t know at this time

 Spirit on college campuses is enhanced by sport, but

not for all students.  Big-tim e sport events are m ade into social occasions during

which students are m ore likely to party, binge drink, avoid the

library, and study less

 Community spirit is often enhanced, mostly when

teams win regularly, but the impact of this spirit on high schools and colleges has not been systematically studied

School and community spirit

may be connected with high school sport teams.

Photo by Tom Segady

W hen boosters are heavily invested in the success of a team, it is

difficult to prevent them from influencing coaches and players.

Photo by Jay Coakley

Does this school spirit improve the overall academic climate at

LSU or any university? (The CEO of Allstate might say yes!)

Questions About the Benefits

of Varsity Sports: Budgets

 High school sport budgets vary greatly. When general

budgets are cut, money spent on sports can create controversy.

 Nearly all college sport programs lose money

Are the losses worth it in academic and developmental terms?

Losses are covered primarily by student fees, general funds at the university, and donations to the athletic department.

 Are the public and community relations functions of varsity sports worth their costs? Do community fans of

sports interfere or make contributions?

Sports and high school budgets

 There are great variations in the budgets of high

school sport programs. Total costs are difficult to determine, and they vary widely depending on the wealth of students’ families.

 In the face of budget problems, schools use these

strategies:

 Assess sport participation fees

 Depend on support from booster clubs

 Seek corporate sponsorships

 As injuries become an issue, the cost for protective

equipment and liability insurance increase; this may force some schools to drop certain sports

Research shows that spending money

on big-time college sports

 Increased four times faster than academic budgets in recent years

 Has no effect on general academic quality or the academic qualifications of incoming students

 Does not increase alumni donations

 Does not improve win-loss records

 Created a massive wealth gap between athletic departments

 W ill never change the fact that half of all games are lost when good teams play each other

In each of the subdivisions, the universities have a m edian net deficit

of $9.8 m illion to $12.3 m illion per year.

W ho decides if these deficits are “worth it ”? W hat criteria do they use to

make their decision? In recent years, well over $1 billion in public (tax)

money and $500 million in student fees have been used to cover athletic

department deficits at public institutions each year.

AAUP Report, 2014

 “When we tally up the score on the economics of

college sports, we find it hard to avoid the

conclusion that current practices are harming our

academic programs.”

 The median institutional subsidy in 2012

accounted for 27.5 percent of the athletics

program budget in D1-A, 73.0 percent in D1-AA,

and 81.7 percent in D1 -AAA.

 During academic year 2013 – 14 all four-year

colleges and universities will spend about $16

billion on athletic programs.

The belief that football pays for all sports, especially women’s

sports, is true only in a few universities where teams are in conferences that receive large media rights fees.

Photo by Jay Coakley

In most NCAA schools,

women’s sport programs have smaller financial deficits than men’s sports. Therefore, men’s

sports have a higher net cost than women’s sports.

The annual budget for this Division I championship

women’s bowling team at the University of M aryland Eastern

Shore is small compared to the cost of most men’s sports.

High school & college

sports face uncertainties today

Primary issues causing uncertainties:

 Cost containment and budget inequality

 Changing orientations and rising

expectations

 Injuries, especially to the brain

 Educational (ir)relevance

 Gender inequity

 Opportunities for students with a disability

Cost containment & budget inequality

 The cost of HS & college programs has increased far

beyond the rate of inflation and academic expenditures

 Given current expenditures, most sport programs are

unsustainable financially.

 Budget and program inequality has become so great that

it creates difficulties in scheduling games.

 Some private high schools have budgets many times greater

than the public schools they play.

 The University of Texas has an annual athletic budget of over

$160 million; other universities with football teams have annual

budgets of less than $25 million.

 This form of inequality is self-perpetuating; championships and

even winning seasons are beyond hope for poor programs.

Changing orientations

and rising expectations

 HS and college players today increasingly cone

from “It’s all about me!” club and youth programs,

and they expect special treatment in varsity

programs.

 Parents of athletes today are more directly involved

in the “sport careers” of their children and they have

expectations for HS and college programs.

 Athletes are becoming more assertive about how

they should be treated when it comes to their health

and time commitments to sports.

Injuries, especially to the brain

 As injury rates increase in many sports, and as

more reports are published on brain damage

caused by concussions and repetitive sub -

concussive head trauma, the liability issues

become great.

 Universities have clearly been negligent in informing

athletes of risks, and they are being sued for this.

 High schools deal with young people under the age of

legal informed consent, so their liability issues are

massive.

 Football, ice hockey, & soccer are most likely to be

impacted

 Educators at schools that sponsor sports that do regular

damage to students’ brains are in trouble

Educational (ir)relevance

 The assumption

 Tensions between core mission of

universities & commercial values of high

profile sports

 These tensions have grown significantly since 1990

as universities pursue television contracts, FB bowl

game invitations, NCAA basketball championships.

 The result: Athletic departments have turned into

profit-seeking programs with diminished educational

relevance.



 In FBS Conference schools the annual median spending for

athletes exceeds academic spending for students by 3-to-12 times

 The SEC has the greatest spending gap: median academic spending

per student was $13,471 in 2009 while athletic spending per athlete

was $156,833. This gap has continued to increase after 2009.

 During M arch M adness, library use declines at universities

with teams in the tournament; students viewed 6 percent fewer articles a day as long as their team was in contention.

 W hen a team won an upset or close game, article access fell 19

percent the day after the victory. Neither dip was m ade up later with

increased downloads (Charles Clotfelter, 2011)

STUDENTS vs ATHLETES:

Who matters?

 At the University of Texas, non -FB athletes

receive about 7,000 hours of tutoring a year

 Members of the FB team receive 12,000 to

15,000 hours of tutoring annually — over 100

hours per football player.

 Only 1 in 10 UT undergrads receives

tutoring, at an average of a little more than 13

hours each.

49

Tensions between education goals

and the sport-media-entertainment industry

In the last 10 years, the number of college football and basketball games on ESPN channels rose to 1,320 from 491. This doesn’t include games shown by . . . the Big 10 Network, Fox, CBS/Turner, Versus and NBC. All that programming means big games scheduled during the week and television crews, gridlock & tailgating on campus during the school day.

 Laura Pappano (2012)

It’s become so important on the college campus that it’s one of the only ways the student body knows how to come together. In China and other parts of the world, there are no gigantic stadiums in the middle of campus. There is a laser focus on education as being the major thing. In the United States, we play football. . . . How can you have a W ednesday night football game without shutting down the university for a day or two?

 Allen Sack, U of New Haven; president, Drake Group (2012)

Gender inequity

 At the high school level there are many districts that have

never had gender equity across their schools

 Only a handful of colleges and universities have consistently had gender equity in their athletic programs

 None of the offending schools has ever been fined by the U.S.

Department of Justice.

 W omen are far underrepresented in all leadership positions and professional staff; there have been no major positive

changes for over a decade

 Since 1999, men have been hired in nearly 75% of the job openings for

women’s college teams.

 W omen coach only 2— 3.5% of men’s teams (usually gender mixed

team s)

This is one of those self-

perpetuating myths about

college sports. These two

male athletes, like other

people, have their facts

confused.

Student fees from wom en

on campus subsidize

men’s sports more than

football subsidizes

wom en’s sports.

Sport 1977* 1987 1997 2008* 2012 Percentage

point change,

1977-2012

Basketball 79.4 59.9 65.2 59.1 59.5 -19.9

Volleyball 86.6 70.2 67.8 55.0 53.3 -33.3

Cross-Country 35.2 18.7 20.7 19.2 21.2 -14.0

Soccer 29.4 24.1 33.1 33.1 32.2 +2.8

Softball 83.5 67.5 65.2 64.7 62.1 -21.4

Tennis 72.9 54.9 40.9 29.8 29.9 -43.0

Track & Field 52.3 20.8 16.4 18.0 19.2 -33.1

Golf 54.6 37.5 45.2 38.8 41.6 -13.0

Swimming/diving 53.6 31.2 33.7 24.3 26.2 -27.4

Lacrosse 90.7 95.1 85.2 84.6 85.1 -5.6

Percentage of female head coaches in the 10 most

popular women’s sports in NCAA schools, 1977 -2012

This patterns has not changed since 2008 -09

Since 2000 there has been no progress in closing the

gap between boys and girls in high school sports

Opportunities for

students with a disability

 Where are the “Paravarsity” sports in US

schools?

 U.S. Department of Education guidelines

require that schools take seriously the sport

participation of students with disabilities

 These guidelines are creating panic due to

financial power of federal government support

for higher education.

 High school principals, athletic directors, and

coaches want to know: What does inclusion mean?

 At the college level, this issue if completely off the

radar

Adapted sports in high schools?

Basketball, bowling, floor hockey, soccer, softball, and track are approved high school sports.

Only .7%, or fewer than 130 schools out of 18,000 U.S. high schools have any “paravarsity” teams.

There are 7.71 million varsity athletes, but fewer than 9,000 students play on adapted teams, and half of those play 3 sports: bowling, softball, and soccer.

Issues in High School Sport Programs

 As schools & coaches strive for state rankings, team

membership increasingly requires massive time commitments, year round specialization in one sport, off-season training and club participation.

 This focus cannot be defended in educational terms; so

m uch tim e, attention, and funding go into sports that it

skews the culture of schools away from academic focus

 As budgets fail to meet expectations of parents and

community boosters, they raise funds for programs, but then want to participate in managing them.

 Their focus is on -the-field excellence with little or no

attention paid academic issues.

Issues in College Sport Programs

 Scandals and Rule Violations  Academ ic cheating, athlete crim inal actions and sexual

assault, rule violations by coaches and boosters

 Likeness Lawsuit  If the NCAA has violated antitrust laws, court rulings could

force it to pay billions to former players and current players

 Pay for Players  This issue if forcing the NCAA to make significant changes,

even before any court rulings

 Distorted Racial and Ethnic Priorities  African Americans are valued as revenue producing athletes

but not as general students

Basketball

African Americans are recruited to play football and men’s & women’s

basketball, but for little else. W hy does this occur?

Sources of isolation

for black athletes (I)

1. Racial and ethnic stereotypes used by some people on campus

2. The amount of time that athletes must devote to their sports

3. Campus activities often fail to represent the interests and experiences of black

students, making them feel unwelcome

(continued)

Sources of isolation

for black athletes (II)

4. Black athletes, feeling unwelcome, may withdraw from activities that could connect them with other students

5. White students who lack experience in racially diverse groups may not interact freely with black athletes

6. Tensions are created when white students conclude that black athletes have things easy and are unfairly privileged