ABSTRACT
This chapter presents concepts of organizations and management in the context of intercollegiate athletics. Management thinker Herbert Simon extended systems thought—the view that every living organism is part of a system and is affected by what happens both within and outside that system—to organizations. The chapter describes the evolution of management thinking, and more specifically the ways in which these concepts apply to the formative decades of intercollegiate athletic management. Intercollegiate athletic departments exist to perform tasks that can be executed only through cooperative effort. Intercollegiate athletic departments exist because their operations are far too complex, with far too many products, services, and related tasks, to be performed by a single individual working alone. By 1870, intercollegiate athletics had won a recognized place in college life. Student-run organizations operated athletic programs well into the early 20th century, but the era of solely student-run programs ended in 1864 with Yale’s hiring of the first professional coach.
