ABSTRACT
In 1999 D.Stanley Eitzen suggested that sport presents a variety of paradoxes comprised of elements characterised as either fair or foul.2 In the case of US college sport, the fair side can inspire people to extol the accomplishments of college kids who play for the ‘love of the game’, relate to shared passions for the excitement of championships and be moved by the sheer youth, beauty and excellence of the performers. All this is done, purportedly, for the education of athletes and the generation of a positive community identity around which campus constituencies rally.3 Former United States Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley, who played basketball at Princeton University before becoming a Rhodes Scholar, professional athlete and politician, captures the essence of this connection between sport and the things we hold most dear when he wrote, ‘In a world full of unrealized dreams and baffling entanglements, basketball seems pure’ and provides a clear example of ‘virtue rewarded’.4 However fair the perception of college sport, whatever its perceived potential to promote the virtuous, there is also ample evidence to demonstrate just how foul college sport can be. The contemporary practice of targeting 12-year-old male basketball players by college recruiters and representatives of athletic shoe companies like Nike and Adidas and viewing them as ‘the best billboards money can buy’ is a sobering reality that reveals the pervasive corporate quest for profit associated with US college sport.5
