In recent years, when a university may earn well over $10 million per year from fees for sports-broadcast rights, half of the teams still lose. Collegiate athletic competition is a zero sum game: The number of winners equals the number of losers. So why do universities spend growing sums of scarce resources on an activity when the odds of winning…

The Olympic Idea--an acquired educational cooperative-competitive attitude toward sport--is an important concept for athletes. This ideal can and must transcend nationalistic zeal, ideological struggles, and the omnipresent profit motive. (Author/RJG)

This author argues that youth sports can move beyond the dichotomy of cooperation versus competition by redefining competition. This can be accomplished by considering the development of cooperative skills and achievement motivation. The article addresses how cooperative skills can be taught within a competitive sport. First, it is important to…

Many college athletes graduate, only to find themselves lacking the skills needed to function in even the most simplistic working environment. The athlete must be recognized as a whole student with academics as the principal focus in his or her school life. Recommendations are made. (MT)

The media overwhelms the United States with advertising of athletic competition. Every March, one cannot help but hear the results of the annual postseason college basketball tournament entitled "March Madness." The NCAA helps establish bylaws for each sport and eligibility requirements for college athletes; and furthermore, the colleges that are…

Competitive athletes' scores on the Profile of Mood States (POMS) test create an iceberg-like pattern known as the "Iceberg Profile." Their scores for tension, depression, anger, fatigue, and confusion are low while their scores on vigor juts upward creating the "Iceberg Profile." Persons in a cooperative relationship are often…

Colleges and universities have not up held their end of the bargain with athletes, exploiting a disproportionate number of talented Black athletes by not providing the kind of education the students sought or needed and by applying rigid academic standards for eligibility. (MSE)

The intercollegiate sports system fosters an environment in which eligibility for sports participation takes priority over educational objectives. One outcome of the athletic-academic conflict is the low graduation rate of intercollegiate football players. Analysis of graduation rates of various universities reveals a regional pattern of academic…

Three major trends in the development of high school sports are identified: high school sports as entertainment, feeder system for colleges, and the movement toward specialization. The purpose and role of intercollegiate athletics, scandals and reform in big-time college sports, participation trends, and college coaches are also discussed. (IAH)

The National Collegiate Athletic Association's Proposal 48 requiring that student athletes maintain a minimum academic standard of achievement is not sufficient to stop exploitation and commercialism. An institution's admissions standards should be applied to athletes as they are to all incoming freshmen. (MSE)

The events that produced the U.S. intercollegiate sports system are summarized, the role of recruiting within the system is examined, and some alternatives are suggested. Alternatives include either professionalizing those programs whose major purpose is public entertainment or returning to an amateur mode. (MLW)

Although the women's sports movement has opened up unprecedented opportunities for some women, it has left completely untouched other pervasive inequalities in male programs and may actually have widened these inequalities. (Author)

Little League baseball is a valuable experience for youngsters. It fosters team spirit and cooperation. Pressure by parents and coaches can take the fun out of the sport and make it an anxiety producing experience for the young player. (RJG)

The NCAA has enjoyed almost total freedom from judicial scrutiny of its rules, procedures, and official acts in large part because of its private nature as an unincorporated association. The function of the NCAA, California State University, Hayward v NCAA, and due process of the student-athlete are discussed. (MLW)

Although the mainstream of college athletics has departed from classic Ivy League ideals about the proper role of sports in higher education, Harvard University remains a staunch supporter of amateur values. Choices made in Ivy League colleges about the future of intercollegiate sports will affect the lives of elementary and secondary school…