Abstract and Bibliography

Abstract
My paper talks about college athletics and how they are such a big part of American and college culture. I did research looking to find evidence to support sports originally, but wound up finding much more evidence on why sports are bad for universities. This led me to change my opinion on college sports and led me to believe that they are bad for universities. I tried to balance the benefits of sports though with the negative side of them to create an equal argument.

College sports are a part of the American culture and are a part of the college culture as well. As long as there are cheering fans in the stands at sporting events, college athletics will continue to be a prevalent part of the American university. “Colleges and universities are, at the end of the day, academic institutions. They are charted to serve educational purposes” (Bowen and Levin, 11). The question as President McCormick of Rutgers University phrased it, is not of whether can athletics and academics coexist, but how we manage their coexistence that is crucial to the success and survival of a university.

Bibliography

Bowen, Jenna. "College Athletics Benefit All." Western Oregon Journal. (2007): Print.
Bowen, William, and Sarah Levin. Reclaiming the Game: College Sports and Educational Values. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. Print.
Cady, Edwin. The Big Game. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1978. Print.
DeVenzio, Dick. Rip-Off U.: The Annual Theft and Exploitation of Major College Revenue Producing Student-Athletes. Charlotte, North Carolina: The Fool Court Press, 1986. Print.
Dowling, William C. Confessions of a Spoilsport. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007. Print.
"High Cost of College Sports." Star Ledger October 31, 2009, Print.
Losco, Joseph and Fife, Brian. Higher Education in Transition. Westport, Connecticut: Bergin & Garvey, 2000. Print.
McCormick, Richard. Personal Interview. 31 March 2010.
Wolverton, Brad. "For Athletics, a Billion-Dollar Goal Line." Chronicle of Higher Education. 55.20 (2009): Print.

Your Story

My project has evolved into a less of a debate between sports and universities and more of a discussion and analysis of the impact that sports have on universities. At first I was going to write a paper on how sports are good for universities, but after doing research and reading Dowling's book, I changed my mind. I debated bakck adn forth between the two sides, but I realized in the end that both sides are right and that sports are going to be around at universities no matter what. In the end, college athletics and academics must coexist at schools. My interview with President McCormick was pretty influential, but most influential was William Dowling's book which talks about all the problems with college sports. Now at first, I believed Dowling completely, but after sitting back and thinking about some of the arguments he makes, I realized that he over criticizes sports and just points out all the things wrong with them. I have learned that there isn't much evidence to support college athletics because it is so ingrained in our society's culture and that it will always be around so people may not feel the need to publish work on supporting college sports. College sports when managed properly, can bring a lot to a university and compliment academics nicely.

Visual Aid

I think it would be a good idea if I showed the top 25 rankings for colleges in both football and academics and show how there are very few, if any overlapss from year to year.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/ncaa/polls/ap/

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/national-universities-rankings

Outline

My project analyzes universities and the impact that college sports and academics have on them. It discusses the negatives of college sports and I am still working on adding the positives of college sports to the paper. I was able to find many negatives about the effects of college sports and I am developing my counterpoint by finding reasons to support college athletics. I am still waiting to interview President McCormick, as he was unable to be interviewed today, but will be available on Wednesday. This is a brief outline of my paper:

I. Introductory story about Georgia scandal
II. Presence of athletics at universities can threaten the academic mission at the college
III. Ohio State example of how sports can cause turmoil
IV. Sports can shift the focus of a university away from academics
V. Lack of money being put towards classrooms and learning
VI. When universities lose track of academic focus, they tend to attract the wrong kinds of students
VII. Academics and sports can coexist, but academics should remain primary focus
VIII. Two extremes to the debate
IX. Students are realizing that certain schools are losing focus of academics and are going out of state
X. Colleges are falling victim to the professionalization of college sports
XI. The people behind the scenes are often to blame and they always seem to pass the blame onto someone else
XII. It is surprising at how many schools still continue to support college sports at the high level that they do
XIII. Conclusion with description about how ESPNU was on and how college sports are becoming the image at this university

The Case

My case is that college sports have a negative effect on universities. Since my last post, when my debate wasn't very focused or accurately portrayed, I feel I have gotten a hold of a much better argument and point of view. After reading Confessions of a Spoilsport , I have realized just how much of a negative effect sports really have on universities. To name a few negative impacts, sports bring in the wrong kind of students to a school, the school loses identity in a bad way (I previously had thought the school gained identity for the good), and academics and the students at the school suffer. I am still primarily using this one book, although I do have other sources that have some good points. I also have a few other books that I will continue to explore and get further evidence for my argument. These are a few of the online articles I found:

http://gh9wn9pv9q.search.serialssolutions.com/?sid=Refworks%3ARutgers%20University&charset=utf-8&__char_set=utf8&genre=article&aulast=Mortland&auinit=S.&title=Crain%27s%20Cleveland%20Business&date=2009&volume=30&pages=10&issue=21&issn=0197-2375&atitle=Colleges%20tackle%20costs%20of%20sports%20programs&spage=10&au=Mortland%2CShannon%20&

http://blog.nj.com/njv_editorial_page/2009/10/high_cost_of_college_sports.html

The Debate

The debate that I've identified is the one between athletics and academics and the battle for power, money, and respect. Academics want to be the premier point of interest at the university, while athletics are trying to play a major part of the school's identity: in some cases, the entire identity. The two sides battle over the power held at the school which they believe leads to certain benefits in most cases. Receiving money from donors and budgeting the money the school has in an effective way is something that both sides are in dispute about. Getting more money than the other side is obviously one of the main goals in this battle, but money is not the only thing that the sides are feuding between. Having an influence in the school is important because this brings about the money and can sway the focus of the school's higher ups. This can lead to increased power and influence. So in turn its a cycle and many of these things feed off of each other. Academics feel that they are the most important part of a university and that that is the reason that people go to college. Sports are something that should not be competing with academics in a university and should take a back seat to academics or even be gotten rid of all together. The two sides focus on different aspects of the argument but they basically disagree about the same issues and could argue with each other over the same issues because they compete for the most part over the same things.

Blog #9

I think the initial stages of my research paper are coming together. I have found some good sources and will continue to look for a few more. I am still reading into the books that I have and am looking for evidence to support my arguments, but have definitely got some good information about college sports and have really begun to think about them in new ways. I can't say if I'm having trouble yet in writing the paper itself because we haven't gotten to that stage, but I feel like I am in a good position to at least begin to write a successful paper. By reading the books I have and further finding more articles, I believe I will continue to head in the right direction with my paper.

Research Question in Conversation with Sources

After spending some time doing searches for good articles, I think that I have narrowed down my topic. I have noticed that there are many articles on the cost of college sports and most of the articles talk about how sports don't help the university. I am being persuaded to want to say that sports are bad for the university and that maybe I have to face the reality of that. My new question would specify on the negative effects of sports in college and how they are really taking away from schools. Many of my sources talk about the financial strains that sports put on colleges and how they are taking away from academics. Hopefully this is a good lead into a more specific research question for my paper.

Annotated Bibliography

Dowling, W.C. (2007). Confessions of a Spoilsport: My life and hard times fighting sports corruption at an old eastern university. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. William Dowling talks about the corruption that sports bring to universities and analyzes the situation at Rutgers University. A teacher with good credentials, Dowling provides first-hand experiences and solid evidence. He talks about how colleges have shifted their focus away from academics and have become lost in the world of sports. This book provides the counter-argument to my paper and will provide a good opposing view for me to better create an argument.
Fizel, John and Fort, Rodney. (2004). Economic of College Sports. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers. This book talks about the decisions concerning athletic programs at universities. The authors point out the financial issues with college sports and how the overall financial effects of sports on universities may be deceiving to the public. This will help my paper because it provides an overview of the whole impact economically of college sports.

Questions for Research Paper

Here are a few questions I came up with to start thinking about for my research paper. I might be able to get away with doing the overall effect of college sports at Rutgers, but even that might be too broad a topic to write a focused paper on.

What is the overall effect of college sports at a university?

What is the effect of college sports at Rutgers?

Do college sports benefit or hurt a university?

Do college sports take away from academics at a university?

Scholarly Sources

Works Cited

"Big-Time College Sports Getting Bigger." USA Today Magazine 138.2775 (2009): 6-. Print.

College Sports Taking a Financial Hit. 12 Vol. American Council on Education, 2009. Print.

Dowling, William C. Confessions of a Spoilsport : My Life and Hard Times Fighting Sports Corruption at an Old Eastern University. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007. Print.

"High cost of college sports | NJ.com."Web. 2/24/2010 .

Kemp, Ed. "Miss. Budget Cutters Targeting Spending on College Athletics." Community College Week 22 (2009): 5-. Print.

Mortland, Shannon. "Colleges Tackle Costs of Sports Programs." Crain's Cleveland Business 30.21 (2009): 10. Print.

Sander, Libby. "Athletics Programs Scramble to Streamline Budgets in Difficult Times." Chronicle of Higher Education 55.21 (2009): A13-. Print.

---. "A March from Madness." Chronicle of Higher Education 55.26 (2009): A4-. Print.

Wolverton, Brad. "For Athletics, a Billion-Dollar Goal Line." Chronicle of Higher Education 55.20 (2009): A1-A13. Print.

Rutgers RIOT

I thought the tutorial was very helpful. I learned how to narrow a topic down and how to use several key resources that the library has to offer. I also learned how the different research sources work and how to do a proper search on them by altering some of the terms and specifications with the terms. Using the tools the library has definitely makes it easier to find scholarly articles and helps with the whole research process. I think the interactive teaching method was definitely useful and it kept me involved. It was better than just listening to someone talk the whole time because I actually had to answer some questions and pay attention to know what was going on. One thing that could be done to improve it would be to make more of the interactive parts of the tutorial require a correct answer to make sure that the learner is really understanding what is going on. Overall, I think it was well put together and I would recommend it to someone who is trying to write a research paper.

Questions for the Librarian

1. How do you check out books from the library? Do you use your Rutgers ID card or do we have to get a separate library card? (I have never needed to check out a book so far so I honestly do not know how the system works.)

2. Is there a specific section in the library about Rutger's history (specifically sports)? I want to find some information about the history of sports at Rutgers and was wondering if information would be available on that.

3. What is the return policy on books? Can we keep them out for the whole semester to work on this paper or do we have to keep renewing the books if we want to keep them for the entire semester?

Scouting the Territory

My topic idea is still the same as it was when I wrote my first blog. I think sports would be an interesting topic to do and I have purchased the book Confessions of a Spoil Sport. I'm still not exactly sure what in sports I want to focus on, but I think I want to talk about the overall effects on the University. I know that is a pretty broad topic, but I'm sure once I start researching it and looking further into it, I will find a few topics to focus on and narrow down my focus in the paper. After I did a google search on effects of sports of Rutgers, I found an article on some criticism of the big time sports investment that Rutgers made when deciding to expand the football stadium and try and become a premier division one program. When I just searched sports at Rutgers, the football team page came up, as I expected it would. I came across a few other results when searching google scholars and I think this may be a useful tool in my research. I can't say I got any specific ideas about my topic from this, but I did find a few decent articles about my topic. The two sides of the debate about my topic would be whether or not a school, like Rutgers, should devote the time and money to sports as they have and take away from academics in the process.
This is one link I found: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=JpS3OnBpcDMC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=sports+in+college&ots=TqELaOszCT&sig=ZzwRQLOicWCp6uHA9z37lWzd1ZU#v=onepage&q=&f=false

I think I still need to find out which side I am going to take on this debate.

Initial Paper Topic

My initial thoughts about a paper topic would be to do a research paper on college sports. I feel that this is a pretty broad topic and can be related to many different aspects of college and the college life. This topic also interests me because I am a big sports fan myself and would be very interested in doing research on the effects of sports on a school and on the campus life. I actually just went to visit a friend at UConn this weekend to see their basketball team play the #1 rated Texas Longhorns. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience. I can get into details in a later blog, but I just found the impact of sports of the school to be amazing. I signed up for this course so that I could become a better writer and also because taking a class on college sounded interesting. I look forward to doing research on this topic (if it is the one I choose) and learning more about sports and their impact on college.