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Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports Is Crippling Undergraduate Education
In this fascinating book, Sperber uses original research culled from students, faculty, and administrators around the country, to argue that what universities offer instead of a meaningful undergraduate education is a meager and dangerous substitute: the party scene surrounding college sports that Sperber calls "beer and circus" and which serves to keep the students happy while tuition dollars keep rolling in. He explodes cherished myths about college sports, showing, for instance, that contrary to popular belief the money coming in to universities from sports programs never makes it to academic departments.
Sperber's profound re-evaluation of college sports and higher education comes straight out of today's headlines and opens our eyes to a generation of students deprived of the education they deserve.
Murray Sperber has been acknowledged for years as the country's leading authority on college sports and their role in American culture. In the wake of Indiana University's decision to fire head basketball coach Bobby Knight last year, Sperber was in constant demand across the country--on television, radio, and print media--to comment on the profound and tragic impact of big-time intercollegiate athletics on higher education.
Sperber's profound re-evaluation of college sports and higher education comes straight out of today's headlines and opens our eyes to a generation of students deprived of the education they deserve.
Murray Sperber has been acknowledged for years as the country's leading authority on college sports and their role in American culture. In the wake of Indiana University's decision to fire head basketball coach Bobby Knight last year, Sperber was in constant demand across the country--on television, radio, and print media--to comment on the profound and tragic impact of big-time intercollegiate athletics on higher education.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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March 20, 2010
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 a good book.
Here is how the NCAA and its supporters are destroying undergrad education: by encouraging sports scandals, binge drinking, and irresponsible behavior that disgust the public and discourage public and private support for higher education; exploiting the free labor of college-athlete entertainers while calling them students; running chronic huge deficits in athletic departments which are covered by the university, thus diverting funds from academic programs; using big-time sports and their attendant party scene (“beer-and-circus”) to distract students from the lousy education they are receiving at large public universities.
Sperber is a recognized authority on what he calls “big-time college sports,” meaning, for the most part, Division I-A football and basketball. This book is based in part on a survey of thousands of students at Division I (e.g. the University of Texas at Austin) and Division III (e.g. Ohio Wesleyan) schools about their experiences with academics, sports, and social life. He also interviews administrators, athletic directors, sportswriters and coaches, reviews educational policy and theory, and examines the economics of college athletics in some depth.
How is big-time sports destroying big-time universities? It’s all about the money. The $75 billion-dollar industry that is big-time college athletics (ten years ago. Bet it’s more now. But betting’s part of the problem, innit). Contrary to myth, Division I-A sports do not pay for themselves. Big-time athletic departments routinely mismanage their own money, stay in debt, divert funds from their universities, dodge taxes, and sometimes are involved in expensive scandals. NCAA regulations require huge, state-of-the art sports stadiums and practice facilities, and athletic directors coax and bribe more goodies out of supportive administrators, from obscene salaries to multimillion-dollar junkets to bowl games for 800 people, including faculty spouses. NCAA contracts with the media lure schools into big-time sports with the promise of more admissions and more alumni donations—false promises, as it turns out. And the more money the big public universities devote to sports, the less they have to devote to educating undergrads. Sperber does an excellent job of breaking down the costs of big-time college sports and showing where the money goes.
Quality undergraduate education is expensive. College sports are expensive. Division I schools, with very few exceptions (like Rice), pay for sports and cheap out on education. The cheapest way to teach is to cluster a lot of students into an auditorium and lecture at them, then give them a multiple-choice test. It’s also the least effective way. And it’s the way students at large state schools are usually taught in their first couple of years, when they most need active, cooperative learning experiences. Meanwhile, these schools pour resources into their honors programs, steering a handful of top undergrads into small seminars, priority scheduling, "quiet" dorms and mentoring relationships with faculty--in other words, giving the most able students the best teaching on campus. Is it any wonder that average students graduate with little to no education and a lot of hostility towards their schools?
The student surveys consistently showed that students at Division III schools took fewer large lecture courses, had more contact with professors, spent more time studying and less time partying, and were more satisfied with their education than those at Division I schools. Division I students expressed alienation, frustration and anger at their schools, and they also reported spending a lot more time drinking, and a lot more binge drinking. In fact, binge drinking is far more common on big-time sports campuses than at other schools. These students also spend millions of dollars a year betting on games, usually illegally, usually with their parents’ money. And contrary to popular opinion, alumni giving is in the toilet at Division I schools—except for a couple like Notre Dame that devote effort and resources to educating all their students.
The athletes themselves get an even worse education. In 1991, the NCAA passed a rule that college athletes could not be required to practice more than 4 hours a day or 20 hours a week at their sport. However, they can still volunteer to practice as much as they like, and in big-time programs those volunteer hours are more or less mandatory for any athlete who wants his scholarship renewed in July. This means that athletes routinely practice 40, 50, 60 hours a week, and then try to carry a full course load. They may not be paying money for their education, but they aren’t majoring in chemistry or architecture, either. And the temptation to cheat is enormous (and all too often the opportunity is provided by the athletic department tutors).
Sperber devotes some time to showing how large universities build excellent research programs and graduate programs while neglecting undergraduate education. He explodes the pernicious myth of "great researcher=great teacher," demonstrating that very few top research professors are also good classroom teachers, while those who devote a lot of time and effort to teaching undergrads have neither the time or energy to do top-level research. I attended a university full of famous, invisible scholars and was taught by a lot of adjuncts, TA's, and assistant professors. Sperber's right. He could do a better job, though, at explaining the connection between emphasis on graduate education and research on the one hand, and big-time college sports on the other.
As he says, it is possible to get a good education at a big-time sports university. But the student who achieves this, does it in spite of, not because of the Horns, Hokies or Illini. Sperber ends the book with some creative and even realistic ideas for change, but adds that he does not expect much improvement. The book was published 10 years ago. Hope he is not disappointed that things have not improved.
Here is how the NCAA and its supporters are destroying undergrad education: by encouraging sports scandals, binge drinking, and irresponsible behavior that disgust the public and discourage public and private support for higher education; exploiting the free labor of college-athlete entertainers while calling them students; running chronic huge deficits in athletic departments which are covered by the university, thus diverting funds from academic programs; using big-time sports and their attendant party scene (“beer-and-circus”) to distract students from the lousy education they are receiving at large public universities.
Sperber is a recognized authority on what he calls “big-time college sports,” meaning, for the most part, Division I-A football and basketball. This book is based in part on a survey of thousands of students at Division I (e.g. the University of Texas at Austin) and Division III (e.g. Ohio Wesleyan) schools about their experiences with academics, sports, and social life. He also interviews administrators, athletic directors, sportswriters and coaches, reviews educational policy and theory, and examines the economics of college athletics in some depth.
How is big-time sports destroying big-time universities? It’s all about the money. The $75 billion-dollar industry that is big-time college athletics (ten years ago. Bet it’s more now. But betting’s part of the problem, innit). Contrary to myth, Division I-A sports do not pay for themselves. Big-time athletic departments routinely mismanage their own money, stay in debt, divert funds from their universities, dodge taxes, and sometimes are involved in expensive scandals. NCAA regulations require huge, state-of-the art sports stadiums and practice facilities, and athletic directors coax and bribe more goodies out of supportive administrators, from obscene salaries to multimillion-dollar junkets to bowl games for 800 people, including faculty spouses. NCAA contracts with the media lure schools into big-time sports with the promise of more admissions and more alumni donations—false promises, as it turns out. And the more money the big public universities devote to sports, the less they have to devote to educating undergrads. Sperber does an excellent job of breaking down the costs of big-time college sports and showing where the money goes.
Quality undergraduate education is expensive. College sports are expensive. Division I schools, with very few exceptions (like Rice), pay for sports and cheap out on education. The cheapest way to teach is to cluster a lot of students into an auditorium and lecture at them, then give them a multiple-choice test. It’s also the least effective way. And it’s the way students at large state schools are usually taught in their first couple of years, when they most need active, cooperative learning experiences. Meanwhile, these schools pour resources into their honors programs, steering a handful of top undergrads into small seminars, priority scheduling, "quiet" dorms and mentoring relationships with faculty--in other words, giving the most able students the best teaching on campus. Is it any wonder that average students graduate with little to no education and a lot of hostility towards their schools?
The student surveys consistently showed that students at Division III schools took fewer large lecture courses, had more contact with professors, spent more time studying and less time partying, and were more satisfied with their education than those at Division I schools. Division I students expressed alienation, frustration and anger at their schools, and they also reported spending a lot more time drinking, and a lot more binge drinking. In fact, binge drinking is far more common on big-time sports campuses than at other schools. These students also spend millions of dollars a year betting on games, usually illegally, usually with their parents’ money. And contrary to popular opinion, alumni giving is in the toilet at Division I schools—except for a couple like Notre Dame that devote effort and resources to educating all their students.
The athletes themselves get an even worse education. In 1991, the NCAA passed a rule that college athletes could not be required to practice more than 4 hours a day or 20 hours a week at their sport. However, they can still volunteer to practice as much as they like, and in big-time programs those volunteer hours are more or less mandatory for any athlete who wants his scholarship renewed in July. This means that athletes routinely practice 40, 50, 60 hours a week, and then try to carry a full course load. They may not be paying money for their education, but they aren’t majoring in chemistry or architecture, either. And the temptation to cheat is enormous (and all too often the opportunity is provided by the athletic department tutors).
Sperber devotes some time to showing how large universities build excellent research programs and graduate programs while neglecting undergraduate education. He explodes the pernicious myth of "great researcher=great teacher," demonstrating that very few top research professors are also good classroom teachers, while those who devote a lot of time and effort to teaching undergrads have neither the time or energy to do top-level research. I attended a university full of famous, invisible scholars and was taught by a lot of adjuncts, TA's, and assistant professors. Sperber's right. He could do a better job, though, at explaining the connection between emphasis on graduate education and research on the one hand, and big-time college sports on the other.
As he says, it is possible to get a good education at a big-time sports university. But the student who achieves this, does it in spite of, not because of the Horns, Hokies or Illini. Sperber ends the book with some creative and even realistic ideas for change, but adds that he does not expect much improvement. The book was published 10 years ago. Hope he is not disappointed that things have not improved.
April 12, 2022
This is a damning critique on my own alma mater and other similarly situated public research universities. It is also from the year 2000 which means many of the predictions listed in this book have come true. (I would LOVE to see an updated version of this research.) However, his proposals on how to fix the problem of beer and circus remain necessary and possible. I do not believe they will actually take hold in a majority of Division I institutions though.
When deciding on where to go to university I was told, “it isn’t the name on the gate, but the experience you demand.” I now see that as mostly false as I fulfilled my role as pawn in the larger capitalistic devolution of public higher education in this country. Yes, I will remain that cynical for a few weeks.
When deciding on where to go to university I was told, “it isn’t the name on the gate, but the experience you demand.” I now see that as mostly false as I fulfilled my role as pawn in the larger capitalistic devolution of public higher education in this country. Yes, I will remain that cynical for a few weeks.
September 9, 2008
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 outline the crashing and burning of the 21st century undergraduate education. Sperber's coined term "beer and circus" (party and sports), a reference to Roman bread and circus, describes Big Time U's attempt to distract undergraduates by offering a party scene in place of quality education. The quotes and responses of undergrad students reveal a harrowing reality: many colleges offer degrees that are no more valuable than the paper it is printed on. Graduates are allowed to sift through four years of education, only to come out unable to perform simple arithmetic tasks, or read or write effectively. Sperber is blunt when it comes to criticizing the debacles of current college education, even condemning his alma mater. He highlights the fact that attempts to reform education for the better are nullified by corporate America and dollar signs. The growing importance of published national rankings have forced colleges to focus on graduate studies and research. Undergraduates have been left behind ever since.
This is truly a book that will change the way you think about big name colleges. Sports have overtaken all other priorites and have defeated the intentions that the founders of colleges once had. One cannot read "Beer and Circus" without a sinking feeling that the college degree is losing its value and that the future of American intellectualism is perishing with each graduating class.
This is truly a book that will change the way you think about big name colleges. Sports have overtaken all other priorites and have defeated the intentions that the founders of colleges once had. One cannot read "Beer and Circus" without a sinking feeling that the college degree is losing its value and that the future of American intellectualism is perishing with each graduating class.
June 29, 2013
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 the kind words he has for Joe Paterno - oops.). It makes the whole thing look so... tawdry, particularly the behavior of the NCAA and its member school's athletic programs. The almighty dollar is king, and students are the ones who get the short end of the stick.
Perhaps one of the reasons this book resonated with me was that I felt that I could relate to so many parts of it. I've tutored student athletes for the past six years and gotten a peek inside the world of college athletics and the students' constant tug-of-war between sports and school. I was a member of an undergraduate honors program, which Sperber calls a "lifeboat" within undergraduate education. I attended graduate school at "Beer and Circus" school, where the football program is currently bleeding the larger university dry, finances-wise.
I would LOVE some sort of follow-up, particularly in light of the many scandals that seemed to have plagued college sports in recent years.
My only real complaint was that Sperber's survey techniques aren't particularly rigorous. He gets his data from distributing surveys in his classes and from the voluntary responses he has elicited from posting his survey online. It would be interesting to get truly representative survey results. Fortunately, if I remember correctly, these survey data are only used in a few of the chapters, so ultimately only a small nit to pick.
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 the kind words he has for Joe Paterno - oops.). It makes the whole thing look so... tawdry, particularly the behavior of the NCAA and its member school's athletic programs. The almighty dollar is king, and students are the ones who get the short end of the stick.
Perhaps one of the reasons this book resonated with me was that I felt that I could relate to so many parts of it. I've tutored student athletes for the past six years and gotten a peek inside the world of college athletics and the students' constant tug-of-war between sports and school. I was a member of an undergraduate honors program, which Sperber calls a "lifeboat" within undergraduate education. I attended graduate school at "Beer and Circus" school, where the football program is currently bleeding the larger university dry, finances-wise.
I would LOVE some sort of follow-up, particularly in light of the many scandals that seemed to have plagued college sports in recent years.
My only real complaint was that Sperber's survey techniques aren't particularly rigorous. He gets his data from distributing surveys in his classes and from the voluntary responses he has elicited from posting his survey online. It would be interesting to get truly representative survey results. Fortunately, if I remember correctly, these survey data are only used in a few of the chapters, so ultimately only a small nit to pick.
August 30, 2010
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 takes on not only the disenchanted and egotistical faculty at research universities, but also the spoiled, drunken, cynical students who have come to populate their classes.
Overall, it's a depressing and off-task book, with potential to do so much more.
Overall, it's a depressing and off-task book, with potential to do so much more.
March 2, 2018
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.
June 11, 2018
Interesting premise, and I get that sports have ruined undergraduate education. But never showed the reader what to do about it - what should you look for in a good undergrad education or are you just supposed to suck it up and deal?
June 7, 2024
An interesting read as someone who attended, what this book would probably consider, a “beer and circus” university. Would love to see an update of this book in the NIL-era…this guy would have a lot to say!
May 3, 2023
author: college kids should have no fun? sounds good to me
October 10, 2024
Timeless
October 6, 2011
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 dominant role in our society today. Beer on college campuses is not the same thing it was twenty years ago or even ten. The relationship of sports and student have become more complicated, more expensive and more costly over time. Over all drinking and athletics in college exists in a symbiotic relationship that has a negative impact on the student body of many colleges today.
As the book hammers home, the rise of both beer and college sports has more to do with making companies rich than anything else. Deans and students are seen as powerless pawns to the ever more savvy corporations.
I buy the premise. Companies prey on students and faculty and are getting better at it. College sports programs exploits students so coaches can make money. The classrooms of today suffer from commodization and having to subsidize other school pursuits. None of this is that surprising. The book does a good job of highlighting specific instances. It is a great examination of the state of universities today.
It's almost a great book. But there are two qualities of it that detract from his point.
The first is that the book is permeated with an air of condescension. The frustration of the author is apparent but instead of letting the reader come to any conclusions the author provides them both before and after his arguments. Sperber explains why he is uniquely suited to write this book. He was once into sports before becoming an academic, hence he understands both sides of the equation. There is an air of frustration with the buffoons who don't know how to address or recognize the challenges he enumerates. It is hard to take his viewpoints as objective if he is portrayed as the only one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind. I found myself checking on his facts much more than other books I have read.
The second is the web census that he uses throughout the book. Sperber confesses to not be a sociologist. He admits he doesn't know how to scientifically create a poll. Yet the one he does create, he appears to use as primary source for justifying his points. I agree with his points and find the amateurish poll to detract from them. The hard data from the poll I tended to disregard. The quotes added color but little substance for me.
Overall I view this book as a worthwhile read. It has affected the way I read news, opened up new worlds to me I never would have understood or considered on my own. Finally it made me reconsider what makes a good university in America today. This is a powerful book for the neophyte.
Oddly I also find it one that is hard to recommend.
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 dominant role in our society today. Beer on college campuses is not the same thing it was twenty years ago or even ten. The relationship of sports and student have become more complicated, more expensive and more costly over time. Over all drinking and athletics in college exists in a symbiotic relationship that has a negative impact on the student body of many colleges today.
As the book hammers home, the rise of both beer and college sports has more to do with making companies rich than anything else. Deans and students are seen as powerless pawns to the ever more savvy corporations.
I buy the premise. Companies prey on students and faculty and are getting better at it. College sports programs exploits students so coaches can make money. The classrooms of today suffer from commodization and having to subsidize other school pursuits. None of this is that surprising. The book does a good job of highlighting specific instances. It is a great examination of the state of universities today.
It's almost a great book. But there are two qualities of it that detract from his point.
The first is that the book is permeated with an air of condescension. The frustration of the author is apparent but instead of letting the reader come to any conclusions the author provides them both before and after his arguments. Sperber explains why he is uniquely suited to write this book. He was once into sports before becoming an academic, hence he understands both sides of the equation. There is an air of frustration with the buffoons who don't know how to address or recognize the challenges he enumerates. It is hard to take his viewpoints as objective if he is portrayed as the only one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind. I found myself checking on his facts much more than other books I have read.
The second is the web census that he uses throughout the book. Sperber confesses to not be a sociologist. He admits he doesn't know how to scientifically create a poll. Yet the one he does create, he appears to use as primary source for justifying his points. I agree with his points and find the amateurish poll to detract from them. The hard data from the poll I tended to disregard. The quotes added color but little substance for me.
Overall I view this book as a worthwhile read. It has affected the way I read news, opened up new worlds to me I never would have understood or considered on my own. Finally it made me reconsider what makes a good university in America today. This is a powerful book for the neophyte.
Oddly I also find it one that is hard to recommend.
January 16, 2012
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 thriving party scene, the way a Roman emperor might once have offered his people "bread and circuses" to direct their attention away from the freedoms they had lost. Sperber provides some hair-raising examples of excesses relating to big-time college sports and the drinking culture that exists in college towns across America. Sperber successfully establishes that the college sports scene plays a disproportionately large role in the life of many American universities, and shows that collegiate drinking culture is likewise a significant problem nationwide. Yet I wonder whether Sperber proves that big-time college sports is a cause of the drinking culture. After all, there are smaller universities that do not have big-time college sports but do have an entrenched drinking culture. One could just as well argue that both the college drinking culture and the focus on college sports are symptoms of something larger -- perhaps, for example, the lingering anti-intellectualism of American life, a mindset whereby college is valued only as an opportunity to have responsibility-free fun for four years while securing the necessary credentials for a well-paying future job. Still, Beer and Circus encourages one to think hard about complex higher-education issues that defy easy solutions.
April 14, 2012
Here, let me sum up this book:
> Undergraduate education is declining rapidly
> Logical error!
> Undergraduates everywhere drink beer all the time. Even the gluten intolerant ones, probably.
> Overgeneralization!
> Faculty are wonderful angels (Sperber is faculty) who sometimes can't be bothered to connect with their apathetic students.
> Students are either collegians (drink all the time, don't care), academic (future faculty) or vocational (have a job, don't care about grades). Sperber admits no overlap-- clearly, students cannot work, have above a C average, and drink! It's just not possible!
In general Sperber makes factually insupportable claims about undergraduate life. He ignores the nuances of collegiate life, change over time, different students, different schools, etc. He come off as extremely bitter and condescending to students almost across the board. He also fails to anticipate possible counterarguments, and does not cite sources well if at all.
If this were a college paper, I would give Sperber a D-.
> Undergraduate education is declining rapidly
> Logical error!
> Undergraduates everywhere drink beer all the time. Even the gluten intolerant ones, probably.
> Overgeneralization!
> Faculty are wonderful angels (Sperber is faculty) who sometimes can't be bothered to connect with their apathetic students.
> Students are either collegians (drink all the time, don't care), academic (future faculty) or vocational (have a job, don't care about grades). Sperber admits no overlap-- clearly, students cannot work, have above a C average, and drink! It's just not possible!
In general Sperber makes factually insupportable claims about undergraduate life. He ignores the nuances of collegiate life, change over time, different students, different schools, etc. He come off as extremely bitter and condescending to students almost across the board. He also fails to anticipate possible counterarguments, and does not cite sources well if at all.
If this were a college paper, I would give Sperber a D-.
September 12, 2008
In this book, Murray Sperber lives up to his sub-title and more in explaining that college sports in big time universities, along with university officials and careless professors, "are crippling undergraduate education." The title may suggest that it is only college sports "crippling" the undergraduate system, but also to blame is the faulty teaching system, wild partying and lack of commitment by those undergrads. Along with countless months and possible years of research, Sperber sent out a questionnaire to many big time universities and students to provide countless statistics, which shows the reader how detailed and factual this book really is. High school seniors must read this book to help them decide how they want to spend their college years, and if they want to get a true, valuable education.
April 22, 2016
A spot-on critique of the massive drinking problem on university campuses and its connection to college sports, which are often prioritized over undergraduate education, as well as universities' over-emphasis on faculty's research role as opposed to their undergraduate education role.
My biggest complaint about this book is Sperber's call to abolish lecture classes at universities. I think this idea is impractical to say the least, and I think Sperber's hatred of lecture courses is a little misplaced. Lecture courses are the most efficient way to teach large classes, and while they can frequently be unengaging, students can actually learn from them if they pay attention and study.
My biggest complaint about this book is Sperber's call to abolish lecture classes at universities. I think this idea is impractical to say the least, and I think Sperber's hatred of lecture courses is a little misplaced. Lecture courses are the most efficient way to teach large classes, and while they can frequently be unengaging, students can actually learn from them if they pay attention and study.
May 6, 2013
The author does not mince words throughout this book attacking the failures of the NCAA and major college leaders in providing for and educating the undergraduate population. As a big college sports fan myself, he accurately describes what he calls "double think" by people like me find disgust with the current system (which has only gotten worse since his book was written in the early 2000s), but also love and support our college teams. Plenty of material in this book makes one question the role of sports and how it has so negatively impacted undergraduate education at universities.
August 20, 2015
A well researched and argued book that accurately depicts the state of higher education at Big-Time U as of 2000. I do believe many of the problems highlighted in this book are societal more than merely college institutions chasing after greater glory.
For instance, even if sports were eliminated from the picture, the drinking would remain pervasive.
Perhaps the biggest take-away I got from this was a tangential conclusion: when evaluating what school to attend, consider the annual giving percentage of alumni; it's a telling statistic.
For instance, even if sports were eliminated from the picture, the drinking would remain pervasive.
Perhaps the biggest take-away I got from this was a tangential conclusion: when evaluating what school to attend, consider the annual giving percentage of alumni; it's a telling statistic.
September 12, 2008
Sperber's book is a hard-hitting book with amazing facts and statistics on how collegiate athletics are "crippling undergraduate education", However I also found it hard to read. Being so drawn out, when I got to the end, I was almost angry with Sperber by simply concluding his book in one paragraph on how to fix the problem. I give it thumbs up for research and a two thumb down for readability.
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This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 29, 2010
A well-constructed critique of big-time sports (basically men's basketball and football) and their supposed but illusory benefits. For those worried about one-sidedness, Sperber is also quite hard on universities themselves for sacrificing undegraduate education (replacing it with beer-and-circus) on the altar of their research programs. I say all this as an attendee (a "scholastic" subtype) of a "Big Time U," one even mentioned (with opprobrium) in the book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 4, 2011
Although this book contains a lot of academic jargon, it is well researched and well written. Anyone who attends a Big Time U would agree with the author's thesis: beer and circus and an emphasis on research at large public universities has negatively affected undergraduate education. Many people are concerned with the public schools, and rightfully so, but don’t forget that major universities are failing to educate students, as well.
November 29, 2007
All college football and basketball fans should read this. It sheds a lot of light on big time college sports. I work for a Division I college athletic department. I can attest to most of the information in this book. I don't agree with all the author's viewpoints but his research is compelling.
November 5, 2011
This could really be called: "Beer and Circus: A title we came up with to try and sell a book that's mostly about how universities' focus on professor research and post-grad work has destroyed undergraduate education and how schools use sports to distract undergrads from that fact."
Boring as hell.
Boring as hell.
Read
June 6, 2016Sperber's voice on this issue is an important one, even if he might over-state his case a little. The goings on in the world of college football, basketball, and ESPN since this book was published only serve as more evidence that Sperber has put his finger on a cultural problem that is not getting better.
May 18, 2011
I actually found this critical analysis of Division 1A, Big Time universities extremely interesting. However, the book left me feeling a bit depressed because many of the things Sperber talked about are occurring at UW and all over the Pac-10/12.
Good read for a class.
Good read for a class.
May 12, 2013
The author has some interesting ideas about the role of college athletics and drinking on large college campuses. I agree with his concerns about the falling quality of college instruction. However, his discussion of college drinking needs more than anecdotal evidence.
May 26, 2007
This book brings up some amazing points about how careful you need to be about picking where you want to go to college.
August 26, 2007
If you care about higher ed and sports, you should read this book, although I kind of hate the title.
April 22, 2008
Great (though cynical) ideas gave insight into my job at IU and my undergrad experiences at Iowa... Really poorly written, though, especially for an English professor!
January 27, 2009
This book was very informative, and well written. I really appreciated the topic of this book, I think it needs to be addressed more often in the college community.
March 2, 2009
I'd really like to reread this now that I attend one of the biggest football universities in the country.
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