COLLEGIATE SPORTS WERE built by men for men and boys in the early 1900s as an arena for promoting traditional ideas of masculinity. Competitive sports used battle terminology and focused on aggression to keep studious men from going soft; so many athletes died that an organization was created to protect the health and well-being of collegiate athletes. That organization is the NCAA, now a behemoth with over a billion dollars in annual revenue. Protecting student athletes is technically still its purpose, though I was about to learn how much it was failing to do this for women.
