College Student Athletes And Their Grade Point Averages In And Out Of Season

An invaluable guide for potential collegiate student athletes, this guide presents strategies to assist student athletes with life skills both inside and outside of the classroom and athletic arenas. Student athletes must overcome a gauntlet of challenges in order to be successful in college. This guide supports student athlete success by identifying various potential issues and providing specific guidance and advice based on the author's direct experience and insider knowledge. It presents potential collegiate athletes with a wide-ranging and inclusive view of the intercollegiate sport experience and a comprehensive explanation of the role of the student athlete. This book is a comprehensive guide for student athletes and their families that will assist in deliberating scholarship offers from multiple institutions and setting a course for success in college. Readers will be equipped to determine which scholarship option—and in some cases, which sport or sports—is the optimal choice, be knowledgeable about their financial aid options and the rules of recruiting, and be prepared with a list of suggested questions that American student athletes should ask coaches and recruiting officials wishing to pursue their talents. This guide provides the essential strategies that will enable student athletes to gain life skills both inside and outside of the classroom and athletic arenas.

This book challenges existing literature on student-athletes and examines the obstacles student-athletes face with respect to academic achievement in college. Blum includes excerpts from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with US student-athletes, coaches, academic advisors, and learning specialists to provide insights on how student-athletes define success academically, athletically, and professionally. He also identifies the challenges student-athletes face inside and outside of the classroom and how they can be helped in achieving academic success.

Operating behind a veil of amateurism, the NCAA and collegiate athletic departments oversee big business sports programs. These entities generate revenues comparable to professional sports, practice and play in facilities that rival those found in professional sports, and pay their top coaches salaries comparable to the salaries paid to coaches of professional sports teams. Athletes are courted with lavish stadiums, training facilities, and locker rooms. Customers are wooed with branded apparel, videos, logos, and advertisements. Business interests are captured with stadium billboards, electronic ads on scoreboards, sponsorship of bowl games, logos on uniforms, and exclusive apparel and equipment contracts. Where do, or should, these lucrative athletic ventures fit in the mission of higher education? To what extent is the central mission of creating an environment for learning and extending the frontiers of knowledge enhanced or limited by college sports? Are declarations by the NCAA to promote amateurism and competitive balance supportive of the university mission? Does the NCAA even follow its purported objectives? The Economics of College Sports contains both empirical and theoretical research to address these and related issues. Perhaps the most unique contributions focus on the interactions between legal and institutional aspects of the NCAA and their impact on the objectives and goals of university education; all of the contributions provide insights that will generate significant discussion about the policies necessary to sustain the vitality and integrity of the university education-sports coalition.