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

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In the early days of American higher education, faculties and administrators had never planned for anything as frivolous as organized athletics. The concentration was to be solely on academics. But students increasingly clamored for recreational activities that would offer a respite from the daily rigors of academic life (Chu, Segrave, and Becker 1985). Many faculty members recognized that this was actually beneficial to the academic progress and success of the students (Falla 1981). Whether it was a rowing regatta between Harvard and Yale in 1852, or the first “football game” between Rutgers and Princeton in 1869, these relatively little-noticed, social, yet oftentimes very competitive events were the precursors to today’s nationally popular, multibillion-dollar industry of intercollegiate athletics (Staurowsky and Abney 2011).

While the concept of a sports development model being primarily embedded within higher education might seem somewhat strange to observers who are not native to the United States, intercollegiate athletics have been a part of higher education and university life even outside the United States since the early eighteenth century, when athletics were made part of the curriculum at the Rugby School in Warwickshire, England. Intercollegiate competition in the United States is traced back to before the first recognized intercollegiate athletic rowing event in Boston in 1852, to as early as the 1820s, with no-holds-barred football and rugby games between Ivy League schools like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. These “informal” events predate most organized athletics in America, scholastic or professional, including baseball (Ridpath 2002; Falla 1981; Howard-Hamilton and Watt 2001; Zimbalist 1999).