Air Ball: American Education's Failed Experiment with Elite Athletics

Bad Sports

Reviewed by J. Douglas Toma

In Air Ball: American Education’s Failed Experiment with Elite Athletics, John Gerdy, who teaches sports management, frames a century of university sponsorship of elite athletics as a failed experiment. He challenges the premise that cultural and institutional factors are so ingrained that real change in intercollegiate athletics is not possible, and he proposes a major change: shifting elite sports away from higher education to private sports clubs and professional teams—the model in most of the rest of the world. He rightly argues that the history of reform in college sports is one set of well-intentioned but ultimately failed reforms after another. The only solution, Gerdy contends, is to blow up the present system and begin anew. He makes his argument primarily through anecdotes, weaving in references to theory and research. 

The marriage of spectator sports and universities is, of course, a historical accident. A system of higher education designed today would not likely include mass entertainment involving participants who are often more athlete than student. Gerdy offers a logical enough alternative to the present system—it resembles what we would likely establish if starting from scratch. But we are not starting from scratch. Spectator sports are infused into the external relations function of universities and subject to considerable outside power and influence. Even if the significant change he proposes is sensible, the real question is whether universities, as a group, are at a point where they are ready to back away from their present commitment to spectator sports. Gerdy recognizes this question, but is not persuasive in responding to it. 

His book is, in essence, an academic exercise: what could a perfect situation look like? A deeper understanding of higher education would have likely drawn Gerdy to a more realistic assessment of the prospects for dramatic reform. He proposes that intercollegiate athletics assume an idealized form—one that has not existed since its establishment in the late eighteenth century—while the rest of higher education becomes more commercial and professional in orientation. His overarching argument is akin to suggesting that all would be right in public higher education if states would provide annual appropriations that would cover all needs and ignore any requests for accountability. It may be right, but is it possible?  

Gerdy frames higher education as driven by resource acquisition, and he correctly identifies the primary purpose of spectator sports within it as attracting the attention and affection of key external constituents such as prospective students and alumni. His assertion that there is no solid empirical research to support these widely accepted justifications for elite sports within the academy is also accurate. Despite several studies attempting to do so, it is likely impossible to isolate athletics as a variable in effective fund raising or admissions. But Gerdy provides no empirical evidence for his assertions that institutional culture is not too engrained for change and that a cadre of faculty and trustees are ready to drive the reform agenda. He rarely buttresses his arguments with persuasive data and too often stretches what data he does use, such as applying the Mellon Foundation research on intercollegiate athletics at highly selective universities to other institutional types.  

The ultimate articles of faith in Gerdy’s argument are that changes in the various contexts needed for reform—ethical, economic, educational, cultural, legal, governmental—have occurred and that a ready group of reformers has emerged, including faculty, presidents, and trustees. Gerdy also suggests that institutions have an ethical obligation to high schools to which the negative traits of college sports filter down; that Congress may step in to reform college sports if institutions do not collectively do so themselves; and that financial pressures will drive institutions to abandon spectator sports.  

The author is thus satisfied that he has answered the “why now?” question. He has not. He offers no persuasive case for even initial steps in these directions having occurred. The foundation for the significant reform he is proposing is a handful of successful initiatives such as the strengthening of admissions requirements for student-athletes, the assumption by presidents of more governance responsibilities over college sports, and the establishment of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. But these are meager steps toward adjusting the present system and not indicative of any momentum toward abandoning it. That Gerdy makes the leap from a few congressional hearings, a couple of reports of the Knight Commission, and a handful of faculty gathering to issue the Drake Group statement to the nuclear option of an entirely new system that eliminates elite sports on campus is astonishing. 

Gerdy never satisfactorily answers the questions of why or how the next round of reforms—those he proposes —would differ from those attempted at regular intervals since the establishment of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) a century ago, only to result in disappointment. Are presidents really interested in reform? After over a decade of asserting control over the NCAA, the presidents have not chosen to use their newly assumed power to mandate significant change. The recent examples of the NCAA allowing a twelfth football game each season or approving conference championship games in football run counter to the ends of limiting commercialism and professionalism in intercollegiate athletics that Gerdy rightly champions. 

Perhaps most disappointing about Air Ball is that the author fails to appreciate the competition that is such a central component of American higher education. A key contemporary trend is increased institutional commitment to intercollegiate athletics. Established institutions spend ever more on facilities and personnel, and aspiring institutions seek to enter Division I by upgrading their investment. Parallel trends are present in higher education generally, as institutions invest in flashy buildings, aggressively recruit “talent” among faculty and students, and attempt to inflate their missions.  

Gerdy concludes his argument by softening it a bit, suggesting that downsized intercollegiate competition among “regular students”—not elite athletes, but actual amateurs —will still attract public attention and even fill stadiums. Perhaps he is right. But Gerdy fails to make a reasonable, much less compelling, case about how American higher education will get there.

J. Douglas Toma is associate professor in the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia. His email address is jdt@uga.edu.

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