Читать книгу Alternative Models of Sports Development in America. Solutions to a Crisis in Education and Public Health онлайн

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These scenarios are damaging the academic primacy of our educational system. For example, it is easy to deduce that if a school’s major football star is needed to compete in a very important game, but he is not academically eligible under standards set by the governing organization (e.g., a state high school activities association or an intercollegiate athletics governing body such as the NCAA), things may be done to “game the system” to ensure that the star player is able to play, at the expense of educational integrity. Sadly, I can say that I did this myself during my time as an athletic administrator and coach at several NCAA Division I universities. I tried to rationalize any effort I made to keep an athlete eligible by saying that this young man or woman would go back to a very dark place, and that we were doing them a great favor by keeping them on the field or court. In reality, I was doing the school and fans a favor. I was not helping the athlete develop as a person nor was I doing anything to assist in his or her actual social mobility. I was only concerned about the here and now: we needed that player to give us a better chance to win. Now I realize the error of my ways, and it is a major motivation for writing this book.