College sports is becoming quite a popular subject among academics. For the second time this year, a group of faculty members has announced plans to start an annual symposium and academic journal on the topic.
Richard M. Southall, an assistant professor of sport and leisure commerce at the University of Memphis, said today that he and eight colleagues at some of the largest research institutions in the country would form the College Sport Research Institute, to be housed on the Memphis campus.
Beginning next April, the group will start holding an annual conference at which leading researchers and college administrators will discuss such topics as the lack of educational messages in college-sports broadcasts and the effects of the NCAA’s progress-toward-degree requirements, Mr. Southall said in an interview today.
“We want to support long-range qualitative studies where researchers study, for example, whether athletes are actually getting an education,” Mr. Southall said.
Earlier this year a group of 13 scholars announced plans for a colloquium and new journal on college sports.
Over a year ago, Myles Brand, the NCAA’s president, proposed having a colloquium on college-sports issues. But after a call for papers apparently failed to attract enough submissions of sufficient quality, Mr. Brand postponed the event.
Mr. Southall doesn’t think his group will stumble out of the gate. Already, he says, nearly three dozen faculty members have expressed interest in joining. —Brad Wolverton
