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

54 страница из 90

INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS

Educationally embedded sports, throughout their history, show both similarities and differences with regard to other models of sports development and governance. The unique relationship of education and sports, forming the primary sports development model in America, essentially happened by accident. It began with American university students seeking recreational opportunities outside the few intramural activities available within their particular institution by organizing sporting events with other colleges, presumably to test their athletic prowess, manhood, and superiority in various events. By the mid-to-late nineteenth century, student bodies and even administrations at prominent universities were progressively more determined to win in these rudimentary, student-organized intercollegiate sports, sometimes at any cost. While football was the main focus, other sports were also rising to sufficient importance in colleges’ profiles that certain institutions began to turn a blind eye to academic requirements just to get athletes onto the field. Professional baseball pitchers were becoming campus stars, playing college baseball under pseudonyms. Coaches were inserting themselves and nonstudents into football games.