Reclaiming the Game: College Sports and Educational Values

The William G. Bowen Series

by William G. Bowen, Sarah A. Levin, James L. Shulman (Contributor)

In Reclaiming the Game , William Bowen and Sarah Levin disentangle the admissions and academic experiences of recruited athletes, walk-on athletes, and other students. In a field overwhelmed by reliance on anecdotes, the factual findings are striking--and sobering. Anyone seriously concerned about higher education will find it hard to wish away the evidence that athletic recruitment is problematic even at those schools that do not offer athletic scholarships.


Thanks to an expansion of the College and Beyond database that resulted in the highly influential studies The Shape of the River and The Game of Life , the authors are able to analyze in great detail the backgrounds, academic qualifications, and college outcomes of athletes and their classmates at thirty-three academically selective colleges and universities that do not offer athletic scholarships. They show that recruited athletes at these schools are as much as four times more likely to gain admission than are other applicants with similar academic credentials. The data also demonstrate that the typical recruit is substantially more likely to end up in the bottom third of the college class than is either the typical walk-on or the student who does not play college sports. Even more troubling is the dramatic evidence that recruited athletes "" they do even less well academically than predicted by their test scores and high school grades.


Over the last four decades, the athletic-academic divide on elite campuses has widened substantially. This book examines the forces that have been driving this process and presents concrete proposals for reform. At its core, Reclaiming the Game is an argument for re-establishing athletics as a means of fulfilling--instead of undermining--the educational missions of our colleges and universities.

Genres: Sports

440 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

President emeritus of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Princeton University. He is the author or coauthor of many books, including the acclaimed bestseller The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions, Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America's Public Universities, and Lessons Learned: Reflections of a University President (all Princeton).

Reviews

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are parts I found enthralling and parts that I found rather questionable, but all of this sums up what I want to study for years and discuss with students and other faculty members. My main qualm with the research is that it focuses so intently on the Ivy League, NESCAC, and the UAA. None of these are representative of schools at large in the country and certainly not of the athletic departments of schools across the country. Saying that recruited athletes are four times more likely to gain admission to an Ivy is not necessarily earth-shattering in its conclusion, but Bowen and Levin do a great job of digging further in to the research and data than just pointing fingers.

The horrendous anti-athlete bias notwithstanding, this book is excellently researched and thorough in every possible way. I look forward to ripping it apart in PhD work in the years to come.

[Mark Lufkin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even as an athletics fan there could be some merit to this account. Found it very convincing and full of interesting data. Maybe only worth reading to people who follow ivy league sports.