Bowling for Dollars, Reprise 0
In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Charles Clotfelter wonders who is responsible for the corruption in college sports and nominates a culprit. The nugget:
For universities with big-time sports programs, sports have always been a core function, right up there with research and teaching. For reasons uniquely American, college football and basketball not only enjoy widespread popularity, they take on tremendous importance for trustees, alumni and other university stakeholders. These leaders want successful teams, in part because they believe that athletic success will bolster their institutions’ academic mission, but mostly because they value athletic success for its own sake.
If you wonder why NCAA “reforms” and “self-policing” continually fail, try rephrasing the question.
The question is actually why the window dressing keeps falling off.
