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

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Intercollegiate athletics in the first half of the twentieth century faced other issues similar to those that colleges and universities still deal with today. These included amateurism, academic integrity, financial aid to athletes, and recruiting restrictions and violations. The birth of the NCAA brought the once shockingly high death rate of football players prior to 1910 to an almost nonexistent low by having somewhat consistent rules and regulations to make the game safer, while to some extent keeping academic cheating and pay-for-play under control. Even though rule problems both off and on the field were minimized, as the competition grew nationwide, the exploitation of academic requirements became tougher for the NCAA membership to control (Byers 1995).

Back in 1910, the first NCAA constitution, like the Sanity Code put in place in the 1947 NCAA constitution, had many provisions that are applicable today in the areas of initial athletic eligibility and satisfactory academic progress. These led to the reform of intercollegiate athletics and the restructuring of academic eligibility standards for athletes. Article 2 stated, “Its [i.e., the organization’s] object shall be the regulation and supervision of college athletics throughout the United States in order that the athletic activities in the colleges and universities may be maintained on an ethical plane in keeping with the dignity and high purpose of education.” Article 8 went on to address the area of intercollegiate athletic and academic eligibility, stating that the “Colleges and Universities in the Association severally agree to take control of student athletic sports as far as may be necessary to maintain in them a high standard of personal honor, eligibility and fair play and to remedy whatever abuses may exist” (Falla 1981, 134–35). These goals are still supposed to drive the governance of educationally based sports in America today.