The author recounts his failed efforts, along with other professors, students and alumni, to get Rutgers University out of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I-A during the mid-1990s, maintaining the colleges today sacrifice academics in order to build nationally competitive athletic programs.

Commercial aspects of college football and basketball during the mid- to late 20th century were dominated by a few "get rich quick" schools. Though the NCAA was responsible for controlling such facets of college sports, the organization was unwilling and unable to control the excesses of the few who opposed the majority opinion. The result was a period of corruption, rules violations, unnecessary injuries and overspending. These events led to the formation of larger conferences, richer bowl games and rules intended to preserve the "money-making" value of college football and basketball. This book explores gambling, academic fraud, illegal booster activity and the single-minded pursuit of television contracts in college sports, as well as the NCAA's involvement--or lack thereof--in such cases.

This interdisciplinary book uses insights from Anthropology, Communication, Political Economy and Sociology to illuminate the ubiquitous presence of sports in politics, identity, business and education.

Robert Mulcahy’s chronicle of his decade leading Rutgers University athletics is an intriguing story about fulfilling a vision. The goal was to expand pride in intercollegiate athletics. Redirecting a program with clearer direction and strategic purpose brought encouraging results. Advocating for finer coaching and improved facilities, he and Rutgers achieved national honors in Division I sports. Unprecedented alumni interest and support for athletics swelled across the Rutgers community. His words and actions were prominent during a nationally-reported incident involving student athletes. When the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team players were slandered by racist remarks from a popular radio talk show host, Mulcahy met it head on. With the coach and players, he set an inspiring example for defending character and values. Though Mr. Mulcahy left Rutgers in 2009, his memoir reflects continued devotion to intercollegiate athletics and student athletes. His insights for addressing several leading issues confronting Division I sports today offer guidelines for present and future athletic directors to follow.

In an era when college football coaches frequently command higher salaries than university presidents, many call for reform to restore the balance between amateur athletics and the educational mission of schools. This book traces attempts at college athletics reform from 1855 through the early twenty-first century while analyzing the different roles played by students, faculty, conferences, university presidents, the NCAA, legislatures, and the Supreme Court. Pay for Play: A History of Big-Time College Athletic Reform also tackles critically important questions about eligibility, compensation, recruiting, sponsorship, and rules enforcement. Discussing reasons for reform--to combat corruption, to level the playing field, and to make sports more accessible to minorities and women--Ronald A. Smith candidly explains why attempts at change have often failed. Of interest to historians, athletic reformers, college administrators, NCAA officials, and sports journalists, this thoughtful book considers the difficulty in balancing the principles of amateurism with the need to draw income from sporting events.

The Sociology of Education: A Systematic Analysis is a comprehensive and cross-cultural look at the sociology of education. This textbook gives a sociological analysis of education by incorporating a diverse set of theoretical approaches. The authors include practical applications and current educational issues to discuss the structure and processes that make education systems work as well as the role sociologists play in both understanding and bring about change. In addition to up-to-date examples and research, the eighth edition presents three chapters on inequality in educational access and experiences, where class, race and ethnicity, and gender are presented as separate (though intersecting) vectors of educational inequality. Each chapter combines qualitative and quantitative approaches and relevant theory; classics and emerging research; and micro- and macro-level perspectives.

"Spans the period from World War II to the present during which Rutgers grew from two small, liberal arts colleges, an agricultural school, and an engineering school into a major public research university. We chronicle the remarkable story of Rutgers's rise as a research university, but also the way the school has been experienced by generations or students and residents of the state. The Cold War, the student protests of the 1960s and the 1970s, the rise of identity politics on campus, big-time athletics, and the various ways students have shaped and been affected by popular culture all play a part in this story. Three chapters cover chronologically the major changes that occurred at the university between 1945 and the present, bringing up to date the work done in Richard P. McCormick's, Rutgers, A Bicentennial History (1966). The remaining chapters provide snapshots of some of the key themes in the contemporary history of the school -- campus life and campus activism, the school's growing strength as a research institution, the impact of Title IX on opportunities for women student athletes, the school's public presence as reflected in such long-standing institutions as the University Press, the Glee Club, and undergraduate journalism. Rutgers current residence halls, which house more students than at any other college in the nation, are the subject of a imaginatively illustrated, architectural analysis While much of the focus of our study is on the New Brunswick/Piscataway campus, attention has been paid throughout to Camden and Newark as well"--