The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

As Cheerleading Tries To Transition Into A College Sport One University Drops It

There’s no doubt these women are athletes. They form towering human pyramids with flipping dismounts. They perform jaw-dropping tumbling passes, with multiple acrobats reeling off synchronized back handsprings and back flips with uncanny precision. But it’s evident the sport still struggles with its identity. There are now two sports derived from cheerleading — acrobatics and tumbling (the branch Maryland started) and stunt (backed by USA Cheer) — seeking the NCAA’s endorsement. It’s unclear whether either will succeed. But should cheerleading by any name blossom into a major college sport, Maryland, a onetime pioneer, will watch from the sidelines. Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/title-ix-anniversary-maryland-cuts-cheerleading-but-was-it-ever-a-sport/2012/04/13/gIQA5EkRFT_story_2.html

Testing Whether March Madness Success Translates To A Better University

Sports boosters are fond of saying that success in intercollegiate sports programs benefits aspiring colleges and universities by raising the profile of the schools, which, in turn, increases the number of students who apply and the funding available to support high-quality academic programs. As a result, the boosters say, schools can select higher quality students and can hire better faculty. As we approach the peak of “March Madness,” we thought it would be interesting to see if the tournament results to date provide evidence to support the conjectures about expenditures, athletic success and institutional quality. Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/does-march-madness-success-boost-collegiate-rankings/2012/03/31/gIQA0LOEnS_blog.html?wprss=rss_college-inc%3f

New Services Help Colleges Monitor Their Athletes' Tweets

The business plan of Varsity Monitor is simple. Major universities like North Carolina, Nebraska and Oklahoma pay $7,000 to $10,000 a year and Varsity Monitor keeps an online eye on their athletes. Among the services the company and others like it provide is a computer application that searches social media sites that athletes frequent, looking for obscenities, offensive commentary or words like “free,” which could indicate that a player has accepted a gift in violation of N.C.A.A. rules. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/31/sports/universities-track-athletes-online-raising-legal-concerns.html?ref=technology

More Colleges Are Naming Their Basketball Courts

The naming of courts, if to some a curiosity, has been going on for a while. U.C.L.A. has played on Nell & John Wooden Court in Pauley Pavilion since 2003. Duke namedCoach K Court at Cameron Indoor Stadium in honor of Mike Krzyzewski in 2000. But the last few years have seen an increase in court dedications at the major college level, many of which have been controversial. Naming the floor after one coach sometimes undercuts the legacy of another, and as is often the case in college athletics, honor usually comes with a price tag. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/sports/ncaabasketball/when-colleges-dedicate-courts-squabbles-often-follow.html?src=recg

College Coach Gets Paid Little And Loses Most Of The Time

In the middle of his 40th year as the men’s basketball coach atYeshiva University, Jonathan Halpert, normally quick with a wisecrack, could not joke his way past the truth: his team was playing poorly. The challenges of coaching at a university like Yeshiva are nothing new to the 67-year-old Halpert, currently the longest-serving basketball coach in New York City.  He tells his players that learning is what matters most, whether it comes from classes or his motion offense. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/sports/ncaabasketball/for-yeshiva-basketball-coach-its-all-about-the-journey.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Now Your Chess Team Is Our Chess Team

Imagine if a university without a basketball program recruitedMike Krzyzewski, the legendary coach at Duke University, and not only managed to hire him but also persuaded most of his team to switch with him. In essence, that is what Webster University in St. Louis has done by hiring Susan Polgar, the head of the Texas Tech chess program. Now Ms. Polgar and her husband, Paul Truong, the manager of the chess team, are leaving Texas Tech, and are heading to Webster, a university mostly geared toward postgraduate students around the world. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/crosswords/chess/chess-coach-to-leave-texas-tech-with-teams-best-in-tow.html

U Mass Hopes The Super Bowl Will Elevate Its Profile

If timing is everything, then UMass’s is perfect. The people who sell Doritos and Bud Light are paying upward of $4 million for a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl. So, as UMass prepares to move up to the highest level of collegiate football, what is it worth to have not just one but two of its products suiting up for Super Bowl XLVI? But there’s a chance the addition of big-time football can help UMass, from raising its national profile to diversifying its applicant pool, to maybe even, in the long-run, making it more affordable for in-state students. Read more at:
http://articles.boston.com/2012-01-31/metro/31006249_1_umass-officials-umass-amherst-super-bowl-xlvi

Faculty Meet To Discuss Reforms In College Sports

They threw around ideas people dream about -- a 64-team football playoff -- and others that might be more realistic: finding a way to let players receive a small stipend in addition to their scholarships. A group of reform-minded professors who represent their faculties on the Coalition On Intercollegiate Athletics met this weekend to talk about the many changes they'd like to see in college sports and the precious few they might help push through. This year's annual meeting came in the midst of some troubling times for in college athletics. Read more at:
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/16967778/coalition-of-reformers-seek-answers-for-college-sports

Latest NYT Education Life Supplement Now Available

The New York Times has just published its latest edition of the Education Life supplement.Topics covered include college sports, student activism, addiction recovery on campus,and  a special section on student learning in the digital age. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/education/edlife/index.html

Top College Football Coaches Get Lucrative Bonuses And Perks

A review of the contracts for more than 40 major college coaches — including Saban, Miles and many of the other men whose teams are appearing in the B.C.S. games that begin Monday — shows that agreements that once seemed simple and straightforward have morphed into an ever more intricate combination of guaranteed salary increases, lucrative bonuses and desirable perks that cover everything from country-club memberships to free travel on private airplanes. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/sports/ncaafootball/contracts-for-top-college-football-coaches-grow-complicated.html?_r=1&ref=sports