Win at Any Cost: The Sell Out of College Athletics

Opening with a discussion of the tragic recent death of Hank Gathers, who played basketball for Philadelphia's Loyola Marymount although under treatment for a serious heart ailment, and Len Bias, the Maryland University star who overdosed on cocaine, this melancholy study strengthens the claim often made recently that college athletics has veered out of control. Dealy, former publisher of World Tennis , charges that the NCAA, nominally a regulatory agency, in fact does all too little regulating of competitive sports at the university level and cracks down principally on small schools; that arrogant athletic directors don't always answer to the colleges which employ them; that some coaches are, without reason, earning millions of dollars a year; that student athletes, especially blacks, are exploited; and that sponsors of TV sports programs, notably Anheuser-Busch, wield inordinate power. Dealy offers extensive proposals for reform, but raises the suspicion that these consist of too little and come too late. Photos not seen by PW. (Nov.)