Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports Has Crippled Undergraduate Education [Hardcover]

Murray Sperber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 20, 2000

A no-holds-barred examination of the troubled relationship between college sports and higher education from a leading authority on the subject

Murray Sperber turns common perceptions about big-time college athletics inside out. He shows, for instance, that contrary to popular belief the money coming in to universities from sports programs never makes it to academic departments and rarely even covers the expense of maintaining athletic programs. The bigger and more prominent the sports program, the more money it siphons away from academics.
Sperber chronicles the growth of the university system, the development of undergraduate subcultures, and the rising importance of sports. He reveals television's ever more blatant corporate sponsorship conflicts and describes a peculiar phenomenon he calls the "Flutie Factor"--the surge in enrollments that always follows a school's appearance on national television, a response that has little to do with academic concerns. Sperber's profound re-evaluation of college sports comes straight out of today's headlines and opens our eyes to a generation of students caught in a web of greed and corruption, deprived of the education they deserve.
Sperber presents a devastating critique, not only of higher education but of national culture and values. Bear & Circus is a must-read for all students and parents, educators and policy makers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A stunning outline of the contemporary educational landscape, Sperber's book provides a stark analysis of academia's abandonment of its undergraduate students. Alluding to the ancient Roman practice of placating people with cheap bread and ostentatious spectacles, Sperber argues that an ever-growing number of state universities lure undergraduates to their schools with halcyon images of booze-filled parties and prominent sports programs while abandoning their commitment to the students' education. Administrators use the students' sorely needed tuition dollars to fund sports, build research facilities and hire world-class faculty members, who give the school prestige but scarcely give their legions of undergraduate charges the time of day. With an eye fastened on the dangerous phenomenon of binge drinking, Sperber (College Sports Inc.) backs his assertions with responses to a questionnaire he circulated to students across the country, interviews with professors and administrators and frequent citations from sociological studies. Sperber methodically attempts to persuade readers that at the largest universities, where the majority of young Americans attain their undergraduate degrees, "the party scene connected to big-time sports events replaces meaningful undergraduate education." Though he admits his work deals mainly with anecdotal rather than scientific proof, the wealth of evidence Sperber amasses to support his convictions makes for a striking, sobering read. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Sperber, an academic who has written extensively on college sports and their role in American culture (Onward to Victory: The Crises That Shaped College Sports), examines the impact of intercollegiate athletics on undergraduate education, particularly at large public research universities with high-profile football and men's basketball teams playing at the top National College Athletics Association level. Using questionnaires and interviews with students, faculty, and administrators in all parts of the country, he makes a strong case that many schools, because of their emphasis on research and graduate programs, no longer give a majority of their undergraduates a meaningful education. Instead, they substitute "beer and circus"Dthe party scene surrounding college sportsDto keep their students content and distracted while bringing in tuition. Sperber uses concrete examples to make his case and concludes by offering a plan to remedy the situation, considering both what should happen and what will more likely happen. Essential reading for current and future university students as well as parents, educators, and policy makers, this is recommended for both academic and public libraries.DLeroy Hommerding, Fort Myers Beach P.L. Dist., FL
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; First Edition edition (September 20, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805038647
• ISBN-13: 978-0805038644
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #308,676 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How universities cheat undergrads, September 20, 2000

By 

William Sheldon (Coral Gables, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports Has Crippled Undergraduate Education (Hardcover)

This latest effort by Prof. Murray Sperber, who made himself almost famous recently by taking the semester off from Indiana University to avoid the Bobby Knight cauldron, should be read by every concerned layman, university president, trustee, faculty member and investigative journalist. Sperber's larger theme -- that universities have abandoned undergraduate education for research while pushing the college kids toward beer-and-circus seven-day weekends -- is well illustrated. He also notes how university administrations have sharpened their accounting methods to make it harder and harder for anyone to keep track of how much XXXX money --- I almost said beer -- they actually pour into their intercollegiate programs. Reviews in major publications have run from warm to enthusiastic. Sperber's one-semester sabbatical from IU seemed to me like overkill a few months ago, but now that the IU president himself has sought off-campus shelter I don't think Sperber was off the mark at all. His book is a bull's-eye. His earlier seminal work -- College Sports, Inc. -- could have been titled The Emperor's New Clothes. It's worth reading today. I understand he has another book in the works. If enough people read what he says and then talk to each other then perhaps the system could be shamed into the radical change it needs. That includes a return to needs-based scholarships and the end of the one-year athletic scholarship that is plainly a salary for work.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Swings wildly, but lands a few near-knockout blows, September 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports Has Crippled Undergraduate Education (Hardcover)

Sperber does a good job of documenting the general decline in the quality of undergraduate education in the United States. The book overstates and is a bit untempered, but the overall description of contemporary college life - students ignored by faculty and drinking away their four years - isn't that far off the mark. Don't let the subtitle fool you. Beer and Circus is about far more than the degradation of universities due to their emphasis on scholarship athletics. The abandonment of undergraduates is due to many other causes that Sperber discusses as well. Sperber is very sympathetic to the plight of the student trying to get a good education. His heart is in the right place. Beer and Circus won't delight college presidents, but could well serve as a call to arms by those consumers, the parents and students, who are paying large sums of money for education and are getting short changed.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Some people can't handle the truth, October 14, 2000

By 

E. Martin "scalawagg" (US) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports Has Crippled Undergraduate Education (Hardcover)

Sperber has been one of the most incisive observers of college sports since the publication of College Sports, Inc. Since then he has written perhaps the definitive history of Notre Dame during the Knute Rockne years.

In this book he brings the story of college sports and all its attendant ills into the decade of ESPN and the unholy alliance of "24/7" sports broadcasting, alcohol manufacturers and distributors (e.g. "Spuds MacKenzie" and the proliferation of "sports bars"), and university administrations which have turned relatively petty corruption into big business. Sperber, a former fraternity president, knows all too well that there are many different college students, but even the unreconstructed "party animals" are not his targets, rather it's the broadcasting/advertising/admissions complex mentioned above. The consequences range far beyond the "professionalization" of college sports to being a factor--albeit one factor--in the decline of undergraduate education itself.

Sperber played the role of Cassandra at Indiana through the Bobby Knight years and for his trouble been emailed death threats. More proof that the truth hurts and some people can't handle it. Also recommended is Hoberman's DARWIN'S ATHLETES (hell, anything Hoberman writes is recommended).