The End of College Football: On the Human Cost of an All-American Game

by Nathan Kalman-Lamb, Derek Silva

In this book, Nathan Kalman-Lamb and Derek Silva offer an existential challenge to one of America's favorite college football. Drawing on twenty-five in-depth interviews with former players at some of the country's most prominent college football schools, Kalman-Lamb and Silva explore how football is both predicated on a foundation of coercion and suffused with racialized harm and exploitation. Through the stories of those who lived it, the authors examine the ways in which college football must be understood as a site of harm, revealing how players are systematically denied the economic value they produce for universities and offered only a devalued education in return. By illuminating the plantation dynamics that make this a particularly racialized form of exploitation, the book makes legible the forms of physical sacrifice that are required, the ultimate cost in health and well-being, and the coercion that drives players into the sport and compels them to endure such abusive conditions.

Genres: Sports, Nonfiction

272 pages, Hardcover

Published November 19, 2024

Reviews

[Josh Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book. Certainly gave me a lot to think about even if the ending is not something I’d want (for a hundred reasons). 7/10

[K · Rating 1 out of 5]

The authors claim that these athletes are being oppressed by their coaches and the college athletics system, but fail to acknowledge that athlete participation in this system is entirely voluntary. The athletes can quit playing at any time. Football players are not being oppressed because their coaches can afford nice watches; those coaches have jobs with salaries. In the NIL era, if you are any good, you will also be able to afford those expensive watches.

The realities of a college football or men's basketball player have been well known for years: long practices, lots of travel, substandard education because you have to fit classes around all the sports so you end up in classes where the "professor" passes you without you doing any work or going to any classes, then not being able to get one of the few hundred pro spots upon each year due to the glut of graduating college athletes. If someone still chooses that life, they only have themselves to blame when they end up physically wrecked with a worthless diploma. Most of them make a shot at pro glory, miss, and are looking for someone to blame. Take some damn accountability.

The authors also state that it would not be fair to redistribute the obscene profits made by college athletic departments to the educational side of the college. The athletic programs benefit from the dorm rooms, facilities staff, dining halls, professors, libraries, and Students who don't go to a single sporting event are charged athletic fees as part of their mandatory tuition. So athletic departments are using the educational budget already, yet refuse to give a penny back to the students they steal from.

I wanted so badly to like this book, as I am not a fan of the college athletics system. Unfortunately, the authors make unsubstantiated claims and constantly undermine their own arguments.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Over the last 10 or so years, I have reached the conclusion very similar to the authors. Going from a big fan of college football, I later realized how exploitive it was to the young men who play it, yet I didn't agree with paying them. Now that NIL is in place, it really has stopped being college football and is now another level of professional sports. The authors are admitted Marxists and approach their thesis with the typical Marxist perspective of oppressor and oppressed, with their conclusion being more government give-aways. Instead, they should recommend a change of culture where athletes are worshipped and value is derived by how well they play football. To do this, much needs to be done in the demographics where there are few intact families and that the only perceived way out of their situation is sports, rather than getting an education. Another solution would be to remove scholarships completely and let those who want to play football play on NFL minor league teams, similar to baseball. For those who can handle the rigor of college and want to play football, let them do that, similar to Ivy League schools.

[If God · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was one of the most intellectually challenging yet most rewarding reads of 2025, so much so that i know for a fact im going to purchase my own copy so that i can reread and annotate it my second and third (and so on) times reading it.

i love sociology so much, and i’ve always had an inkling to the exploitation of the football world since i’ve witnessed it as a high schooler and seeing it break down my own classmates and leave them with nothing, but this book was so much better than i could have ever imagined—and very rarely does a book EVER exceed my expectations.

silva and kalman-lamb ALWAYS take you there, always pushing the boundaries and always backing every statement with such raw and real testimonies that were so duly needed.

as a student of sociology, i cannot wait to have a discussion about this book with my professor and pitch it for a class as a reading. i’m inspired to even pursue further research on this as well. it is our duty as a society and collective to take down these systems, we owe to these young men just as much as we owe it to ourselves.

ABOLISH COLLEGE FOOTBALL. ABOLISH THE NFL.

[Lynne]

Authors undermine the book's premise

I wanted this book to succeed. As much as I enjoy college football, I believe that the sport is often exploitative to the health and academic success of the athletes - especially to those of lower socio-economic status. The authors bias their argument with their admittedly Marxist and reverse racist political beliefs that try to link the abuses of college football athletes to a total failure of our society in almost every aspect of American life. The authors' best work is heavily dependent on extensive citations from other published authors. Their worse arguments rely on redundant references to their own work and on a dubious use of Marx and Union literature. In summary, this book undermines what could have been a fair and thoughtful examination of college football and its effect on the athletes. A missed opportunity and a waste of time and money!

[Brendan Crowley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The authors make a powerful and compelling case about the dangers and costs of college football. The interviews with the players are undeniable in their clarity. The authors are academics and at times the language is too academic for a general reader who may find themselves turned off by the dense language.

[SJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is very difficult to read. It was definitely one sided and at many times I had difficulty processing some of it. The idea of collegiate football being extremely unfair to the athletes is definitely a true statement. I also am not the target audience for this book.