Summary Of Game On Tom Farrey

In chapter 7 of the 2008 novel Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of our Children Tom Farrey reveals the true beneficiaries of the athletic scholarship. Through examining the lifestyles of the Aguirre's and the Reilly’s of the Assabet Valley Girls Hockey Team, by reporting the wealthy correlation in the socio economic backgrounds of college athletes, and by recounting the historical origin of the athletic scholarship, Farrey correlates and analyzes all of his evidence in order to debunk a commonly accepted myth. He stresses to the audience that youth sports are declining and the competition over athletic scholarships is a significant factor to that problem. Ultimately, he found that mostly wealthy people benefit from athletic

In a New York Times article titled “Why Student Athletes Continue to Fail”, published in April 2015 by Daniel Openheimer, it says that universities like UNC that are part of the NCAA offer classes for athletes that are “no show” classes, where no work is required but they are given good grades. This is not just at UNC but many division one schools are allowing this to happen, as well as breaking academic ineligibility rules, and committing other types of academic fraud. If this is happening, then after their athletic careers are over, their education is invalidated. Oppenheimer also goes on to describe a survey taken where student athletes inwardly rank academics as more important than sports, but they all believe that their teammates hold sports to be more important. Thus, an ironic cycle of peer pressure is formed. If this were brought to higher attention, then players can be more accountable with their

The NCAA wasn’t formed until 1906, and slowly branched out to more and more sports, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. It wasn’t until 1942 that they were able to enforce their rules, and not until 1973 that they divided into different divisions. When these statistics are compared to the history of higher education in America in general, there is a vast time gap. Some colleges, such as the Ivy League were founded near the birth of this country, and other state universities emerged when the Morrill Act of 1862 was passed. According to the National Academies Press, this allowed for land grant colleges of agriculture. The various reasons in the development of colleges included religion, agriculture, home economics, etc. What cannot be found here is the development of colleges for the sole purpose of athletics. According to the NCAA 1.1% of men’s basketball players, .9% of women’s basketball players, and 1.5% of football players go on to play professional sports. So there are very few athletes that actually obtain the million dollar contracts, or even can make a living playing sports outside of college. In reviewing the history of the athletic scholarship and the minute number of athletes that receive them, it is safe to say that college wasn’t intended for the sole purpose of sports, but rather to become educated and contribute to society. Athletic scholarships do serve a purpose and eliminating them would