Conversations from Penn State

Allen Sack

Counterfeit Amateurs

Are amateur sports disappearing?

ABOUT THE EPISODE

In the world of collegiate athletics, students are increasingly treated as commodities rather than pupils. Allen Sack discusses drawbacks of this shift in values as well as what the future of college sports might look like.

Download the transcript.

For a captioned version of this interview, go to YouTube.

ABOUT THE GUEST

Allen Sack was a highly recruited high school athlete: a star quarterback and basketball player from a small town near Philadelphia. He went on to become a member of Notre Dame’s 1966 national championship football team.

While drafted for the pros, Sack chose instead to go to graduate school. He studied sociology at Penn State, where he became interested in the sociology of sports. He taught in the department of sociology at the University of New Haven for many years and became professor of management in 1991. He has been director of the sports management program there since 2001.

Sack is co-author of College Athletes for Hire: The Evolution and Legacy of the NCAA’s Amateur Myth (1998).

Watch Sack on Expert Opinion

• The Selling of College Sports
• The College Student as an Athlete
• The Economics of College Athletics

More About Sack

• Excerpt from Counterfeit Amateurs
• NCAA Academic Reform
• The Drake Group

PENN STATE CONNECTION

• Penn State Football

WHERE TO WATCH

WPSU

Thursday, September 16 at 9pm

Big Ten Network

Monday, September 13 at 12pm and 3am

ABOUT THE HOST

Veteran interviewer Patty Satalia hosts in-depth conversations with a broad range of remarkable people.

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