Originally published on December 4, 2024 at 11:16 AM (Episode 386)
Introduction
Many college professors like to remind each other that no other nation on earth has the system of collegiate sports that has developed in the United States, one in which the mishaps of a mediocre football team attract much more attention than what goes on in classrooms, labs, and libraries. Professors love to quote Andrew Dickson White’s quip about refusing to send Cornell’s football team to Michigan: “I will not permit thirty men to travel four hundred miles to agitate a bag of wind.” They remember that the University of Chicago had a football team and even a stadium, until President Robert Hutchins killed the program, declaring it an “infernal nuisance.”
But far less often do they admit the truth: that college sports have always been intertwined with the university, growing and changing alongside higher education itself. And they are probably ignorant of the fact that Andrew Dickson White might have turned up his nose at football, but enthusiastically supported Cornell’s rowing team so that by beating Harvard and Yale they could establish the new university’s public reputation.
My guests Eric A. Moyen and John R. Thelin complicate the history of American collegiate sports in their new book College Sports: A History (Hopkins, 2024).
About the Guests
Eric A. Moyen is Professor of Higher Education Leadership and Assistant Vice President for Student Success at Mississippi State University.
John R. Thelin is University Research Professor Emeritus of the History of Higher Education and Public Policy at the University of Kentucky.
For Further Investigation
Eric A. Moyen and John R. Thelin, College Sports: A History (Hopkins, 2024)
Robert Hutchins, The Higher Learning in America: A Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Business Men (Routledge, 1995)
Ronald A. Smith, Sports and Freedom: The Rise of Big-Time College Athletics (Oxford, 1990)
Listen & Discuss
Do college sports ruin higher education—or keep it alive? Drop a comment with your favorite (or least favorite) example of athletics shaping academics, and share this episode with your alma mater rivals.
