Alternative Models of Sports Development in America. B. David Ridpath

the early days of sports development in the United States, the difference between a professional athlete and a nonprofessional athlete was not as obvious at it may seem, but it was determined to be an important distinction for those participating in school-based sports and later helped define the separation of education and professionalism. In the early stages of college sports contests in America, it was not unusual for nonstudents to be allowed to participate in college sports contests. This use of “ringers” to gain a competitive advantage was frowned upon by university hierarchies, and to university administrators a different definition was needed to ensure that games were played only between actual enrolled students (Crowley 2006; Falla 1981; Gaul 2015). The primary role of a school-based athlete, at least in theory, was being a student first and foremost. Those athletes were not allowed to receive any compensation or anything that would resemble a tangible benefit for their efforts lest they become less focused on their studies and no different from the ringers and nonstudents that institutions were attempting to eliminate. Sports in the schools were designed to be an avocation and not a vocation. One could play professionally and earn money for one’s sports skills, but school-based sports and most international competitions clung to the notion of amateurism and playing for the love of the game.

      The term “amateurism” was not initially established as a mechanism to have athletes participate in sports for no compensation, but actually was developed to separate the working class from the upper class and maintain that social separation in all areas of life, including recreation. In short, the rich wanted to play their own games, separate from the working class, and due to this segregation of participation different sports began to develop within the different social and economic classes. Sports such as tennis, golf, and polo were “white-collar games,” while the blue-collar working set participated in sports that did not require much if any money or upper social class status to play, like baseball and football which would later become more commercialized and monetarily beneficial.³ In 1916, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) defined an amateur as “one who participates in competitive physical sports only for the pleasure, and the physical, mental, moral and social benefits derived therefrom” (Sack and Zimbalist 2013, 3). This was the beginning of the definition of amateurism moving away from the original British intent and fully separating school-based sports from professional sports in the United States. Bylaw 12.01.1 in the NCAA manual states that “only an amateur student-athlete is eligible for intercollegiate athletics participation in a particular sport” (NCAA 2014, 57). This requirement has really not changed for over a hundred years, but the sports development model we now see in America has changed exponentially. The same tenet of amateurism still applies to scholastic sports, for the most part—indeed, the concept of amateurism has remained fairly stagnant—but the environment and status of sports in America have changed drastically.

      In simple terms, amateurism in sports means participation as an avocation rather than a profession, and not getting compensation for playing a sport or using one’s “athletics skill (directly or indirectly) for pay in any form in that sport.”⁴ This definition has been expanded over the years to include preventing athletes from capitalizing on their commercial utility, such as endorsement opportunities, to the level of receiving any benefit, no matter how small, such as a free meal, as a violation of their amateur status. Amateurism eventually evolved into an ideal that many supported as a way to separate educationally based sports and Olympic sports from the perceived scourge of money and professionalism.

      In this sense, amateurism’s last stand is taking place in the sports development educational model of the United States, as it really does not exist anywhere else in the world. The Olympic Games long ago dropped the façade of amateurism in its competitions starting in 1988, against immense resistance.⁵ Many thought that bringing in professional athletes to the Olympics would stain their purity and even that they would eventually cease to exist, yet it is virtually nondebatable that the Olympic Games are now as popular as ever, even while using overtly and well-compensated professional athletes. The feared demise of the games did not happen, and television rights and sponsorship fees are at record highs (Zimbalist 1999).

      As a society, we continue to cling to the notion of playing for the love of the game in American educationally based sports, but ultimately it does not seem that the public would mind if college athletes became overtly professional, as they just want to watch the games.⁶ That might be an inaccurate view on my part, but it doesn’t seem to be, as the games themselves are what attract the fans specifically at colleges, universities, and primary and secondary schools. We are cheering for the names on the front of the jersey—the institutions—and for the names on the back of the jerseys chiefly as representatives of the institutions that hold our loyalty. Consequently, if we were watching sports where the participants were real students, competing as an avocation, we would likely be just as happy and cheer the same way as we do under the quasi-professional athletic model that exists today in the upper reaches of the American educational system. Regardless of where we end up with sports development in America, it is clear that this “educational ideal” is dying, because we simply are not doing what we claim and are often not providing athletes the education that is cited as being so valuable to them. Meanwhile, college athletes—and, to a lesser extent, other amateur athletes—are restricted, in many ways unlike any other American citizens, from monetizing their economic utility when it is at its peak earning potential. I predict that, if so many continue to profit from college athletics, but not the athlete labor themselves, the current model in America will ultimately cease to exist in theory or practice.

      EDUCATION

      The United States is often touted as having the best education system in the world, yet the facts tell a surprisingly different story. This is especially clear when it comes to America’s rank as opposed to other countries in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education. STEM jobs are growing at a faster rate than non-STEM jobs in America, but the US education system is not producing a sufficient number of graduates in the field (Rosen 2013). American students are far below many of their foreign counterparts in math and science performance. Losing in this important education race cannot be entirely blamed on the overemphasis of athletics and their place within the US educational model, but the athletic-centric model does have an impact, and its role in undermining education at all levels can no longer be ignored.

      In their groundbreaking book The Game of Life, Shulman and Bowen (2001) found that college athletes participating in all types of sports tend to underperform academically and that this is even more pronounced in higher-profile sports like football, basketball, and ice hockey, most notably in the NCAA’s lower divisions. While the more notorious academic issues are usually at the top Division I level, this study showed that even the more participatory and allegedly less athletically competitive levels in college sports also show numerous academic deficiencies. Meanwhile, this has not changed in the top division, as the most recently reported NCAA trends show lower graduation rates in high-profile sports: consistently, high-profile academic scandals almost always involve high-profile sports.⁷

      The cost of increased spending on athletic programs at all levels of education in America has put severe stress on many institutions in their efforts to deliver effective academics. America’s overall health and well-being are dependent on educational leadership that can help promote an educated and skilled citizenry. Can removing or reducing the stress on our academic infrastructure caused by an emphasis on competitive athletics increase academic primacy and effectiveness? This book offers that it can and will, but in order to remove or reduce that stress we must provide sports development opportunities outside the educational system.

      HOW DIFFERENT SPORTS DEVELOPMENT AND SPORTS DELIVERY SYSTEMS WORK FOR THE ELITE ATHLETE

      Both the US and European systems can produce elite athletes who go on to very prominent athletic careers. How athletes navigate through the two systems is different, yet many of the outcomes are the same. For example, Dennis Schröder and Jabari Parker are young, talented basketball players who each ultimately made it to the National Basketball Association (NBA), for the Atlanta Hawks and Milwaukee Bucks, respectively, but came from entirely different sports development and educational backgrounds.⁸ Schröder started his career in the German sports club system, whereas Parker was a product of the American educationally based model.