Counterfeit Amateurs: An Athlete's Journey Through the Sixties to the Age of Academic Capitalism [Hardcover]

Allen L. Sack (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2008

The debate over big-time college sports, never far from the front pages, has once again moved from simmering to hot. Congress has been investigating the tax-exempt status of the NCAA in part because of questions about how commercialized college sports contribute to educational values. Athletes are challenging the NCAA on antitrust grounds to get a bigger share of the revenue. Against this backdrop, more faculty are beginning to be concerned about what is happening at their own universities and to the educational system as a whole as rampant commercialism further invades campus life through big-time sports.

A leader among faculty fighting back has been Allen Sack, a co-founder of the Drake Group whose writings and public appearances, including work as an expert witness, have gained him wide recognition as an outspoken advocate for athletic reform. This book brings together in a compelling way both his personal story of life as a highly recruited athlete out of high school and a football player at Notre Dame under legendary coach Ara Parseghian and his fight, since then, as a scholar-activist against what he calls the “academic capitalism” of the system under current NCAA rules.

Sack distinguishes his own position, as an advocate of athletes’ rights, from the reformist stance of NCAA President Myles Brand, who believes that commercialized sport and education can peacefully coexist, and the “intellectual elitist” position of people like William Dowling, who would like to see big-time college sports kicked off campus altogether. It is a battle with high stakes for all concerned, not least the athletes whose exploitation by the system has been the motivating force for Sack’s own campaign, now stretching over several decades.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Counterfeit Amateurs: An Athlete's Journey through the Sixties to the Age of Academic Capitalism is an important book for anyone participating, working or studying big-time intercollegiate athletics. It is rare to find a book that seamlessly combines personal experiences, interviews with prominent college sport practitioners, and academic research into a forum that is both comprehensive and understandable. Though Sack's answers to the problems currently facing intercollegiate athletics may often not be 'popular,' there is no doubt that he thoroughly conveys his understanding of recent NCAA history and the importance of each issue to the book's readers. --Mark S. Nagel, Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics

Allen Sack has lived the dream and yet seen the nightmares of college sport. Understanding the demands upon athletes who also want educations, he seeks intercollegiate reform through athletes' rights. --Ronald A. Smith, Penn State University and author of Big-Time Football at Harvard, 1905

In Counterfeit Amateurs, Allen Sack craftily integrates his own experience as a high school and college (Notre Dame) football player with the larger story about the professionalization and perversion of intercollegiate athletics. The result is a compelling and enlightening tale about what has gone wrong and what can be done about it. Frankly, I couldn't put the book down. --Andrew Zimbalist, Robert A. Woods Professor of Economics, Smith College, and author of Unpaid Professionals: Commercialism and Conflict in Big-Time College Sports

Allen Sack has lived the dream and yet seen the nightmares of college sport. Understanding the demands upon athletes who also want educations, he seeks intercollegiate reform through athletes' rights. --Ronald A. Smith, Penn State University and author of Big-Time Football at Harvard, 1905

In Counterfeit Amateurs, Allen Sack craftily integrates his own experience as a high school and college (Notre Dame) football player with the larger story about the professionalization and perversion of intercollegiate athletics. The result is a compelling and enlightening tale about what has gone wrong and what can be done about it. Frankly, I couldn't put the book down. --Andrew Zimbalist, Robert A. Woods Professor of Economics, Smith College, and author of Unpaid Professionals: Commercialism and Conflict in Big-Time College Sports

Allen Sack has lived the dream and yet seen the nightmares of college sport. Understanding the demands upon athletes who also want educations, he seeks intercollegiate reform through athletes' rights. --Ronald A. Smith, Penn State University and author of Big-Time Football at Harvard, 1905

In Counterfeit Amateurs, Allen Sack craftily integrates his own experience as a high school and college (Notre Dame) football player with the larger story about the professionalization and perversion of intercollegiate athletics. The result is a compelling and enlightening tale about what has gone wrong and what can be done about it. Frankly, I couldn't put the book down. --Andrew Zimbalist, Robert A. Woods Professor of Economics, Smith College, and author of Unpaid Professionals: Commercialism and Conflict in Big-Time College Sports

About the Author

Allen Sack was a highly recruited athlete out of high school, a star quarterback and basketball player in a small town near Philadelphia, and he went on to become a member of Notre Dame's 1966 national championship football team. While drafted for the pros, he chose instead to go to graduate school, in Sociology at Penn State, where he became interested in the sociology of sports, teaching in the Department of Sociology at the University of New Haven for many years until he became Professor of Management in 1991. He has been Director of the Sports Management Program there since 2001. He is co-author of College Athletes for Hire: The Evolution and Legacy of the NCAA's Amateur Myth (1998).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press (March 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0271033681
• ISBN-13: 978-0271033686
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #828,921 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN ON MONEY, POWER AND POLITICS OF COLLEGE SPORTS, April 16, 2008

By 

Dr. Larry Forness - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Counterfeit Amateurs: An Athlete's Journey Through the Sixties to the Age of Academic Capitalism (Hardcover)

This book is poignant, shocking, and true.

I've read over a dozen books on the problems of college athletes and college athletics and all the hypocrisy and failed attempts to solve these problems.

What makes this book so fascinating is that it's not a dry study or philosophical discussion. This book is first-hand information. The author actually was a superlative football player at Notre Dame, who turned down an offer from the pros, and immediately entered graduate school and obtained his Ph.D.

Dr. Sack has devoted his professional life to the pursuit of the purity of amateur athleticism in college sports. You won't believe the obstacles he has encountered -- and overcome -- in becoming a true expert on the subject.

If you could own only one book about the power and politics of college athletics and how they have literally taken control over the NCAA, college presidents, athletic directors, coaches, boosters, players, and even the court system, GET THIS BOOK. You will see an old-boys' network that got started over a half century ago, and has created and nurtured a monster that is out of control -- and out of view of almost every fan in the country.

What's in this book, you will never see on ESPN or the mainstream media (sports or otherwise), who genuflect at the cash cow of college sports and refuse to upset the gravy train. If you think that entire major college sport dynasties can't come crashing down overnight -- and the wrecking crew may already be in Washington, D.C. -- GET THIS BOOK.

Bluntly, there is an incredible amount of hype and glitter to college sports. From outward appearances, it seems so strong, so vibrant, so pervasive. Closer inspection shows it's rotting from within and its influence is ruining the lives of college athletes. Dr. Sack doesn't just give you the problems, he gives you the solution, and that clarion call may be the only salvation for college athletics.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Div I college football programs are semi-pro, not student-centered, January 13, 2009

By 

Ronald M. Jeziorski - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Counterfeit Amateurs: An Athlete's Journey Through the Sixties to the Age of Academic Capitalism (Hardcover)

For those interested in big time college football and basketball played by students with actual academic standards versus semi-professional sports programs conducted on the fields of college campuses, this book is an easy yet interesting and important read.

Contrary to the NCAA's claim that all its collegiate members engage in amateur sports, Dr. Sack details how Division I college football and basketball programs are not academic-related, amateur sports. As a former big time college football player drafted by the Los Angeles Rams and, subsequently, as a university professor for over 35 years, he presents information from his extensive experience as a scholar and while working for the NCAA and on behalf of college players who submitted complaints against it. His work supports the important role of amateur and student-athletics in its true sense: athletic competition by students as part of the larger educational experience, not sports participation by young men aged 18 and over for the production of revenue rather than the emphasis being on their academic achievement foremost of which is earning a college degree.

Academic institutions, particularly institutions of higher learning, have a responsibility to uphold the public trust by striving for honesty and integrity in their pursuit of truth and scholarship. However, the current conduct of Division I football and basketball programs operate as a sham in portraying players in these sports as mere amateurs when levels academic efforts and graduation rates are so poor. In this evocative book, all that Allen Sack is asking for in his evocative book is honesty. Universities are purportedly one of our society's greatest bastions protecting against such hypocrisy.

Erosion of public trust has resulted from recent revelations of corporate greed and the too numerous illegal allegations of high level government officials over the past few years. Dr. Sack's work illuminates the similar type of actions that goes on in big time football and basketball programs today. Hopefully, this book will be one catalyst to help bring integrity to the way the NCAA operates and drives Division I football and basketball programs to be conducted in an honest way that encourages scholastic achievement as much as winning games and generating revenue.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Counterfeit Amateurs, January 9, 2009

By 

Craig Mortali - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Counterfeit Amateurs: An Athlete's Journey Through the Sixties to the Age of Academic Capitalism (Hardcover)

Allen Sack's evolution from conventional scholar-athlete to college sports reformer, spanning a period of unprecedented social change on and off the playing fields of America makes for fascinating reading. His experiences as a varsity football player in the mid-1960's at the most prestigious program in college football - Notre Dame, his awakening as a radical thinker and many years of scholarship in sociology and the sports industry make him uniquely qualified to comment on the state of college athletics.

A consistent advocate of athletes rights, dating back most notably to his days leading the Center for Athletes Rights and Education, Dr. Sack takes on the NCAA and the money making machine that college athletics has become, addressing the insatiable appetite for more, despite the many abuses of the system.

While even the most traditional consumer of sports may not agree with the notion of organizing college athletes so they might gain a measure of the earnings generated by their performance and the marketing of their images, but after reading Counterfeit Amateurs, that fan will be given pause to reconsider long-held notions about the purity of our games.

Craig Mortali (North Haven, CT)