I think I will never watch an NCAA Division I game again. Sorry, Horns... So long, Lions... Screw you, Illini. I used to like college football, even though I can't really keep my mind on it, but oh well. Sports fans, university administrators: beware this book. Well, I mean, unless you want to read ...more
For all its faults, this book honestly changed the course of my life. I read it shortly before applying to college. I was, and remain, a serious college sports fan, and prior to reading Sperber's book I looked at teams that did well in football and figured, well, I'll go to one of those universities ...more
I finished this book over six months ago, but I still think about it probably weekly, if not more often.
This is one of the most illuminating and damning books I have every read. Though written in 2000, it still feels absolutely pertinent to today's world of college athletics (with the exception of t ...more
As a student entering my first year of college (to a university which the author might call a "Big Time U"), a family member strongly recommended this book to me. Murray Sperber's critique is extremely well written; an effective mix of anecdotal and empirical evidence as well as personal insight out ...more
I would have liked this more if he had actually focused on the detrimental effect big-time athletics has had on the quality of education in many American universities. Unfortunately, save for a few chapters at the beginning and end of the tome, this is a well-researched rant by Sperber, where he tak ...more
In the spirit of the author's critiques about grade inflation, I'm giving this book 3 stars. I was already sold on what Sperber argues in the book and, while I learned some new outrageous facts about college sports, I cannot see him being very convincing to an oppositional reader.
While I'm in fundamental agreement with Sperber's thesis, he doesn't spend much time on the first half of this equation, so the book ends up reading more like a rant about what's wrong with big state schools these days. ...more
Professor Sperber has written an informative book with "Beer & Circus".
The reasons to recommend the book are many. For readers like myself who know little of collegiate sports or their costs and benefits on universities today, it is an eye opener. Drinking and atheletics have an increasingly dominan ...more
Beer and Circus is an outstandingly written book about how big-time sports are undermining the quality of undergraduate education. I've been a witness to it based on my nine years of schooling experience from community college to graduate school.
Frequently, I've mentioned that at least 70% of the st ...more
Beer and Circus is a well-written and thought-provoking look at modern collegiate culture. Murray Sperber, of Indiana University, feels that major universities across the United States are cheating undergraduates of the first-rate education they deserve, instead providing athletic spectacle and a th ...more