The debate about intercollegiate athletics, and, by extension, American sports development grounded primarily within the existing educational system at all levels, has been growing for over a century. It is exacerbated by an inability to fully quantify its costs and benefits within an educational model. Thelin refers to college and university athletics as “American higher education’s ‘peculiar institution.’ Their presence is pervasive, yet their proper balance with academics remains puzzling” (Thelin 1994, 1). According to Sperber (1990), intercollegiate athletics participation and competition have been scarred by abuse of academic requirements for athletic eligibility almost since their very beginnings in the early nineteenth century. Abuse of academic requirements in intercollegiate athletics has had a long and sordid history (Ryan 1989; Sperber 1990).
THE PROBLEM OF SHAM AMATEURISM
In America, the United States Olympic Committee and/or other sports national governing bodies (NGBs) could actually act as the broker for the athlete, and bargain for an educational opportunity outside of directly competing for the school. The US government could also adopt ideas used in Europe and provide educational credits or grants to assist athletes of national and international caliber to maximize their opportunities in both athletics and education. Let’s not forget capitalism, either. If individuals and/or corporations want to sponsor athletes either solely or in conjunction with the government to further their athletic development and educational opportunities, then that should be encouraged and formalized. Considering that the USOC is the only privately funded Olympic committee in the world, it is not a huge leap to believe that the private sector could be involved on behalf of elite American athletes in a more flexible model such as this. It’s conceivable that private individuals and companies could directly assist athletes and help finance their educational goals. Currently, arrangements like this would run afoul of archaic NCAA rules prohibiting direct assistance as not aligned with the tenets of amateur athletics. Even though individuals can donate to university foundations for athletic scholarships, at this point in time any direct payment to an athlete would be a violation and cause the institution to be sanctioned.7 But this raises the whole issue of amateurism in American sports, an issue that we need to revisit in this society.
A repulsive example of how current eligibility and amateurism rules can detrimentally affect an elite athlete is the story of former dual-sport athlete Jeremy Bloom. Bloom was a noted professional skier, world champion in moguls skiing, and a member of the US Ski Team from the age of fifteen. He represented the United States in the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City and became the youngest person and only the third American ever to win the World Grand Prix title. Bloom was also blessed with the ability and in some ways the misfortune to be a highly successful athlete in two sports, one of which happened to be part of the American intercollegiate athletics system. He enrolled at the University of Colorado in the fall of 2002 and excelled as a Division I football player, gaining a number of receiving, punt return, and kick return records and earning freshman All-American and Big XII honors in 2003. Later that year, he won a world championship gold medal in mogul skiing. In 2004, despite Bloom being an outstanding student, the NCAA declared him ineligible due to the compensation he was receiving as a professional skier, and he lost the last two years of his football eligibility.
Note that the problem here is with definitions of amateurism in intercollegiate sports specifically. The US Olympic model at least allows athletes, even college athletes, to earn outside income through endorsements, sponsorships, and employment, often actually brokered by the USOC and/or a particular sport’s NGB. While not receiving a straight salary, Olympic athletes can provide themselves a good living, depending on their marketability, along with receiving funds or in-kind support for training. Under USOC rules, Bloom was allowed to earn outside monies as a professional skier.
As a football player, Bloom did everything he was supposed to as an amateur athlete. He did not receive any impermissible income based on his marketing utility as a college football player. In fact, even under then-existing NCAA rules he would be allowed to receive income as a professional skier—that is, as a professional in a sport other than football—without sacrificing his amateur status. Many athletes have done exactly this over the years, including such luminaries as John Elway, who was paid six figures by the New York Yankees organization as a Minor League Baseball player while he was quarterback at Stanford during the early 1980s. Other prominent college stars who were also simultaneously amateur and professional athletes include Kirk Gibson at Michigan State University (football in college and Minor League Baseball), Trajan Langdon at Duke University (basketball in college and Minor League Baseball), Danny Ainge at Brigham Young University (basketball in college and Major League Baseball with the Toronto Blue Jays), and Tim Dwight at the University of Iowa (indoor track in college and NFL football), to name just a few.
Bloom, however, in a shocking departure from NCAA precedent, was ruled to be receiving impermissible benefits via endorsement income as Jeremy Bloom the college football player—even though those endorsements were contracted with Jeremy Bloom the professional skier. Bloom fought the NCAA in the courts, but to no avail, due to the potential for further sanctions against the University of Colorado. In the end, he was forced to abandon his final year of college football so he could continue to earn compensation as a skier.8
It’s particularly troubling to me that, even as Bloom was pursuing his legal case against the NCAA, it was revealed during a congressional hearing that Tim Dwight had received endorsement income as a member of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, but was able to continue at Iowa as an amateur athlete in indoor track and field without penalty. In a 2004 hearing before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution (in which Bloom and I both testified), an NCAA representative, Jennifer Strawley, pressed by Indiana congressman John Hostettler to explain the “substantive differences” between the situations and NCAA treatment of Bloom and Dwight, stated that Dwight had asked for forgiveness after the fact, whereas Bloom had asked for permission prior to competing as a skier.9 There are many cases of inconsistency and unfairness in critical NCAA decisions, and people like Bloom have suffered for it.
The point here is that it can be quite normal for a professional athlete to attend college (or high school, for that matter) and make money playing a sport, or receive outside income as a result of being involved in a sport, without impacting their education. No one can say that John Elway was not a viable student at Stanford while he was earning a significant amount of money as a minor league baseball player, and the same holds for the other examples presented. Meanwhile, no one seems to mind when the Olsen twins are making millions as child stars, or Natalie Portman or Jodie Foster continue to work as actresses while enrolled in college. Did it make them bad students? Did it take away from their education? The answer is an unequivocal “no.” The same can be true for many athletes—if adjustments are made.
Earning money for being an athlete doesn’t in itself make someone a worse student. Forcing student-athletes to make unreasonable commitments of time, while those around them manipulate the system of academic eligibility against their best interests, certainly can. It is time for us to end what is essentially a sham regarding amateur athletics in America. This model will enable that, while still keeping some aspects of school-based sports that we seem to value as a country.
The main argument for student-athlete amateurism in the United States is that these athletes should play sports as an avocation and not a vocation, with an educational opportunity as the payoff. Earning market value for playing an educationally based sport has long been thought