CS 39Q:
Priorities Under Pressure: A Critical Assessment of How the University's Core Mission is Affected by Intercollegiate Athletics 

Professors Brian Barsky, Margaretta Lovell, and Laura Nader
University of California, Berkeley

Guest Speakers

Picture
Ralph Nader answers questions after his guest lecture on October 4th, 2011. (Photo by Aaron Walburg.)
Clicking on any of the the images below will start a video recording of the guest speaker's presentation.  Views expressed by the guest speakers are their own and do not necessarily represent those of the professors who are the instructors nor those of the University of California.
Thursday, September 8th, 2011: 
"A Brief History of Intercollegiate Athletics -- Nationally and at Cal"
John Cummins
Chief of Staff to the Chancellor, UC Berkeley, 1972-2008

John Cummins was a senior administrator under five chancellors at UC Berkeley, from 1972 to 2008. He received his BA from Marquette University and his PhD in Education from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. His responsibilities at various times included public affairs, governmental relations, internal audit, whistleblower investigations, crisis management, and intercollegiate athletics among other duties. He is currently writing a book on a history of the management of intercollegiate athletics at Cal from the 1960's to the present.

Berkeley campus news report from 2008 about John Cummins

Thursday, September 15th, 2011:
"Football:  The American War Game"
David (Dave) Meggyesy
Former NFL player 
Author of Out of Their League 

David Meggyesy is a former seven year NFL linebacker with the St. Louis Cardinals and high school football coach. Meggyesy authored Out of Their League, a best selling football autobiography which was included in Sports Illustrated’s 100 best sports books ever written. Meggyesy co-founded the Esalen Sports Center, taught a course "Sports, Consciousness and Social Change" at Stanford University, served as Western Director of the National Football League Players Association, and is Board President of Athletes United for Peace. Meggyesy has a BA in History from Syracuse University and was enrolled in a Sociology PhD program at Washington University in St. Louis. He has lectured and written extensively on issues regarding sport and society and sport and human potential.

Dave Meggyesy on the Dick Cavett Show, ca. 1970:

• Discussing football

• Plugging "Out of Their League"


Thursday, September 22nd, 2011:
"Merging Athletics and Academics"
Sonny Vaccaro
Former sports marketing executive at Nike, Adidas, and Reebok
Considered one of basketball’s most well-connected insiders, Sonny Vaccaro remains a formidable force in contemporary sports marketing and grassroots basketball. His visionary promotional innovations (beginning with the signing of Michael Jordan to his first major endorsement package) revolutionized the sports marketing genre with shoe contracts, team affiliations and other ground-breaking promotional partnerships which have helped propel the fortunes of countless athletes, collegiate programs and professional teams. In a career spanning 30-plus years in the shoe industry, he brought his marketing and player development alchemy to basketball programs at the world’s three largest athletic shoe and apparel companies.  He also served as a catalyst in the current Ed O'Bannon v. NCAA litigation which centers around the rights of players to retain ownership of their images subsequent to their participation in collegiate athletics. Mr. Vaccaro earned his B. Ed. in 1962 from Youngstown State University.

Presentation by Sonny Vaccaro at the Spring 2011 Sports Law Symposium at Harvard Law School, Friday, March 25, 2011
Interview of Sonny Vaccaro by Lowell Bergman on "Money & March Madness," PBS Frontline, original air date: March 28, 2011

Thursday, September 29th, 2011:
"Bait & Switch: Why Did the Regents Build Cal Memorial Stadium on 'America's Most Dangerous Faultline'
and Why It Can't Be Made Safe"
Gray Brechin
Visiting Scholar, Department of Geography, UC Berkeley
Gray Brechin earned an B.A. in geography in 1971 and an M.A. in Art History in 1976 from UC Berkeley and then worked as an architectural historian, columnist, and television producer in San Francisco before returning to UC Berkeley where he received his doctorate in geography in 1998. His dissertation, Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin, spent 16 weeks on the San Francisco Chronicle's best-seller list and has become a classic of urban studies. He is currently a Research Fellow in the UC Berkeley Department of Geography where he is working with a team to document and map the public works legacy of the New Deal. The project website is livingnewdeal.berkeley.edu. 

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011: 
"What's the Matter with Big Time College Sports?"
Ralph Nader
Progressive political activist and former presidential candidate
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author.  He received an AB magna cum laude from Princeton University in 1955, and an LLB with distinction from Harvard University in 1958.  His career began as a lawyer in Hartford, Connecticut in 1959 and from 1961-63 he lectured on history and government at the University of Hartford.  In 1965-66 he received the Nieman Fellows award and was named one of ten Outstanding Young Men of Year by the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce in 1967. Between 1967-68 he returned to Princeton as a lecturer, and he continues to speak at colleges and universities across the United States. In his career as consumer advocate, he founded many organizations including the Center for Study of Responsive Law, the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), the Center for Auto Safety, Public Citizen, Clean Water Action Project, the Disability Rights Center, the Pension Rights Center, the Project for Corporate Responsibility and The Multinational Monitor (a monthly magazine).

Detailed Biography of Ralph Nader 
Thursday, October 13th, 2011:
"A Philosophy Conflicted: The NCAA and Its Principle of Amateurism"
Kadence Otto
Associate Professor of Sport Management, Western Carolina University
Kadie Otto is Associate Professor of Sport Management Program at Western Carolina University (North Carolina).  She holds a Bachelor's degree from Plymouth State University (New Hampshire) and a Master's and Doctorate from Florida State University.  She teaches courses in sport ethics, law, and sociology.  Her research focuses on the importance of ethics and morality in college athletics.  She has written textbook chapters on the rise of criminal behavior amongst college athletes and the commercialization of intercollegiate athletics.  Currently, Dr. Otto serves as Past-President of The Drake Group (a national organization which seeks to maintain academic integrity in the face of commercialized college sport). Dr. Otto has published in The Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport, Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal, and she occasionally writes for Legal Issues in Collegiate Athletics. She has been on ESPN Outside the Lines and has offered insight to national media outlets such as USA Today, The Christian Science Monitor, The San Diego Union-Tribune, and Indianapolis Star regarding ethical issues in college athletics.  

To view the Powerpoint slide presentation accompanying Professor Otto's lecture, please click the file icon:
a_philosophy_conflicted.final.pptx
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Thursday, October 20th, 2011:
"The Economics of University Athletics Programs"
Roger Noll
Emeritus Professor of Economics at Stanford University 
and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Roger G. Noll is professor of economics emeritus at Stanford and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.  Previously Noll was a Senior Economist at the President's Council of Economic Advisers, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Institute Professor of Social Science at the California Institute of Technology.  Noll has published 13 books and over 300 articles on technology policy, antitrust, regulation and privatization,  the political economy of public policy and public law, and the economics of sports.  Noll has been a member of the California Council on Science and Technology, the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education and the Science, Technology and Economic Policy Board of the National Research Council, and the advisory boards of the U.S. Department of Energy, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and National Science Foundation.

Roger Noll's paper "The Antitrust Economics of NCAA Restrictions On Athletic Scholarships" is available in the "Resource Materials" section of this website.
To view the Intercollegiate financial data table that accompanies Professor Noll's lecture, please click the file icon:
roger_noll_financial_data.pdf
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Thursday, October 27th, 2011:
"Tilting at Windmills: The Challenge of Reforming Big-Time College Sports" (videoconference)
James Duderstadt
President Emeritus of the University of Michigan 
Author of Intercollegiate Athletics and the American University: A University President's Perspective
Dr. James J. Duderstadt is President Emeritus and University Professor of Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan. A graduate of Yale and Caltech, Dr. Duderstadt’s teaching and research areas include nuclear science, applied physics, cyberinfrastructure, and science and education policy. He has served as chair of numerous National Academy and federal commissions, including the National Science Board and the Policy and Global Affairs Division of the National Research Council. At Michigan he currently directs the Science, Technology, and Public Policy program and the Millennium Project, a research center concerned with the impact of advanced technologies on society.

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011:
"College Athletics: Why We Play?"
Sandy Barbour
Athletics Director, UC Berkeley
Anne "Sandy" Barbour has been Director of Athletics at UC Berkeley since September 2004. Ms. Barbour graduated cum laude in 1981 with a B.S. degree in physical education from Wake Forest University, where she was a four-year letter winner and captain of the field hockey team. She also played two varsity seasons of women's basketball. She served as president of Pi Beta Phi sorority during her undergraduate days. Ms. Barbour began her administrative career in 1981 as a field hockey coach and administrative assistant at the University of Massachusetts where she earned her Master’s degree in sports management in 1983. She later moved to Northwestern University, where she rose to Assistant Athletic Director and received an MBA in 1991 before becoming Associate Athletic Director at Tulane, where she was promoted to Director of Athletics in 1996, a post she held for four years.  She worked at Notre Dame from 2000-04, first as Associate Athletic Director and later as Deputy Director of Athletics.
Although the figure for the headcount for Intercollegiate Athletics was stated to be 225 by the Athletics Director at the beginning of this presentation, we note that the campus Public Records Coordinator provided a figure of 268 and the Cal Athletics Staff Directory website showed 281 positions.
We are awaiting receipt of the slides that accompanied Ms. Barbour's presentation.
Thursday, November 17th, 2011:
“Intercollegiate Athletics Finances in the Context of the Bigger Picture”
John Wilton
Vice Chancellor, Administration and Finance, UC Berkeley
John Wilton became the Vice Chancellor of Administration & Finance at Berkeley in February of 2011. Prior to coming to Cal, he worked for 24 years at the World Bank, serving in the operations, research and financial parts of the Bank, becoming the CFO and Vice President for Strategy, Finance and Risk. He has lived and worked in most regions of the world, including countries within Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. He left the bank in 2006 to become a Managing Director at Farallon Capital Management LLC, where he established and built out a dedicated macroeconomic research capability. He earned a B.A. in economics in 1976 and an M.A. in economics and statistics in 1977, both from Sussex University, and also did some doctoral work in economics at Cambridge University from 1980-82

11.17.11_barsky_lecture_ia_finances_relative_to_big_picture.pdf
File Size: 418 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File
Thursday, December 1st, 2011:
“Show Me The Money:  A Protest Slogan for These Times”
Harry Edwards
Emeritus Professor of Sociology, UC Berkeley
Harry Edwards is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley where he was on the faculty from 1970-2000.  In 1960, he was awarded an athletic scholarship to San Jose State University from which he graduated in 1964 with high honors.  He subsequently was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and a University Fellowship to Cornell University where he completed a M.A. and a Ph.D. in sociology.  The combination of his experiences as an athlete and his training in the discipline of sociology led Dr. Edwards to the conclusion that by the late 1960's America had become complacent, even cynical about the issue of race in sports.  He ultimately advocated a Black athlete boycott of the 1968 Olympics among other protest efforts to dramatize the racial inequities and barriers confronting Blacks in sport and society.  He is a pioneer in the development of the sociology of sport as an academic discipline in America. He is the author of four books: The Struggle That Must Be, Sociology of Sports, Black Students, and The Revolt of the Black Athlete.
    Friday, December 2nd, 2011:
“Sports and Resistance in the United States”
Dave Zirin
Sports Writer for The Nation magazine
Dave Zirin writes about the politics of sports for The Nation Magazine, where he is the first sports writer in the 150 years of existence of the magazine. His books include The John Carlos Story, Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games We Love, A People’s History of Sports in the United States, Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics, and Promise of Sports, and What’s My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States.  Mr. Zirin received the 2011 'Excellence in Sports Journalism' Award from Northeastern University School of Journalism.  He is also the host of Sirius XM Radio’s weekly show, Edge of Sports Radio.  Mr. Zirin has been called “the best sportswriter in the United States” by Robert Lipsyte. He is also a columnist for SLAM Magazine and the Progressive.