"College Athletes' Rights and Well-Being covers major policy issues in collegiate sports and seeks to address the issue of college athletics from the perspective of the athlete's well-being. It is written for those who seek to enhance their understanding of the intercollegiate athletics landscape. This textbook is intended for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students, though scholars, teachers, practitioners, athletic administrators, and advocates of intercollegiate athletics will also find it essential. The book is arranged into 16 individual chapters that cover a range of topics on college athletes' rights and well-being. It is not exhaustive, but the editor believes that current concerns, challenges, and themes of relevance to higher education researchers and practitioners will certainly be well addressed" -- Provided by publisher.

Addressing major policy issues and athletes’ well-being in collegiate sports. College athletes are at the very center of emerging campus debates over their legal, financial, and academic role. Amid ongoing litigation and pressure from internal and external stakeholders, many policy makers and university leaders are scrambling to determine the nature of this role. This timely and comprehensive volume identifies and discusses bylaws and legal decisions that have impacted the college athlete’s ability to pursue higher education. It also explains and critiques the formal policies of the National Collegiate Athletic Association and member institutions while examining critical issues relevant to the growing fields of sport management, athletic administration, and sports law. Aimed at anyone seeking to enhance their understanding of the intercollegiate athletics landscape, College Athletes’ Rights and Well-Being is divided into four sections. The first lays out the historical foundations that have shaped the intercollegiate athletic experience. Subsequent sections describe the principles, structures, and conditions that influence how athletes experience campus life, as well as the increasingly commercialized business enterprise of college sports. Told from the perspective of athletes and written by leading scholars and researchers, the book’s sixteen chapters are enhanced with useful lists of key terms and conversation-provoking discussion questions. Touching on everything from concussion protocols and collective bargaining to amateurism, Title IX’s gender-separate allowance, and conference realignment, this important book is designed for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students, scholars, educators, practitioners, policy makers, athletic administrators, and advocates of college athletes.

Many books have been written on the evils of commercialism in college sport, and the hypocrisy of payments to athletes from alumni and other sources outside the university. Almost no attention, however, has been given to the way that the National Collegiate Athletic Association has embraced professionalism through its athletic scholarship policy. Because of this gap in the historical record, the NCAA is often cast as an embattled defender of amateurism, rather than as the architect of a nationwide money-laundering scheme. Sack and Staurowsky show that the NCAA formally abandoned amateurism in the 1950s and passed rules in subsequent years that literally transformed scholarship athletes into university employees. In addition, by purposefully fashioning an amateur mythology to mask the reality of this employer-employee relationship, the NCAA has done a disservice to student-athletes and to higher education. A major subtheme is that women, such as those who created the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), opposed this hypocrisy, but lacked the power to sustain an alternative model. After tracing the evolution of college athletes into professional entertainers, and the harmful effects it has caused, the authors propose an alternative approach that places college sport on a firm educational foundation and defend the rights of both male and female college athletes. This is a provocative analysis for anyone interested in college sports in America and its subversion of traditional educational and amateur principles.

In The Miseducation of the Student Athlete: How to Fix College Sports, Kenneth L. Shropshire and Collin D. Williams, Jr., introduce The Student-Athlete Manifesto, a roadmap to increase the likelihood that student-athletes can succeed both on and off the field. They also offer a Meaningful Degree Model, which ensures education pays for everyone.

Making the Connection: Data-Informed Practices in Academic Support Centers for College Athletes is practical and ideal for those who seek to use research to inform their individual and organizational practices. This volume is primarily intended for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students, though scholars, researchers, teachers, practitioners, coaches, athletics administrators, and advocates of intercollegiate athletics will also find it useful. It comprises a series of chapters that cover a wide range of evidence-based approaches designed to enhance the practices of those who work closely with college athletes. Given the breadth of the field overall, this single volume is not exhaustive, but the current concerns, challenges, and themes of relevance to higher education researchers, practitioners, and others are well addressed. The intent of the text is to spark conversation about how college and university constituents can reframe their thinking about the importance of innovative research to careful, informed practice. Likewise, the contributors hope that it will inspire greater awareness and action among practitioners, as well as advance scholarship in the area of athletics. Each chapter includes current research, and in some cases theoretical perspectives, which should assist practitioners enhance the well-being of college athletes. Each chapter also offers guided discussion questions that are ideal for use as the basis of further conversation in the classroom setting. Adopters of this text will benefit from leading voices in the field who delve into complex issues, shedding new light and presenting unique opportunities for understanding a diversity of perspectives on evidence-based practices in support centers for athletes. In all, this volume provides a rich portrait of data-driven practices designed to assist practitioners and others who work closely with college athletes, and lays the groundwork for an ambitious and long overdue agenda to further develop innovative research that informs the practices of athletics stakeholders and improves the quality of experiences for college athletes.

A critical look at the tension between the larger role of the university and the commercialization of college sports Unwinding Madness is the most comprehensive examination to date of how the NCAA has lost its way in the governance of intercollegiate athletics—and why it is incapable of achieving reform and must be replaced. The NCAA has placed commercial success above its responsibilities to protect the academic primacy, health and well-being of college athletes and fallen into an educational, ethical, and economic crisis. As long as intercollegiate athletics reside in the higher education environment, these programs must be academically compatible with their larger institutions, subordinate to their educational mission, and defensible from a not-for-profit organizational standpoint. The issue has never been a matter of whether intercollegiate athletics belongs in higher education as an extracurricular offering. Rather, the perennial challenge has been how these programs have been governed and conducted. The authors propose detailed solutions, starting with the creation of a new national governance organization to replace the NCAA. At the college level, these proposals will not diminish the revenue production capacity of sports programs but will restore academic integrity to the enterprise, provide fairer treatment of college athletes with better health protections, and restore the rights and freedoms of athletes, which have been taken away by a professionalized athletics mentality that controls the cost of its athlete labor force and overpays coaches and athletic directors. Unwinding Madness recognizes that there is no easy fix to the problems now facing college athletics. But the book does offer common sense, doable solutions that respect the rights of athletes, protects their health and well-being while delivering on the promise of a bona fide educational degree program.