Athletes, remember, have from the beginning generated millions of dollars for NCAA member schools’ athletic programs annually under the guise of amateurism. NCAA men’s basketball and the tournament are very popular and generates billions of dollars each year in revenue.
NCAA
Posted inSports
Grad racial gaps stagnant among Sweet Sixteen men
Women have nearly closed the gaps The Sweet Sixteen round begins this week in men’s and women’s college basketball. But nary a word has been said about the continuing graduation disparity gap between Black and White players. Our March Madness coverage continues this week not on the games, but rather on the fact that while […]
Posted inSports
Needed NCAA reforms appear unlikely soon
It might be March Madness now, but it’s been non-stop madness for the past 12 months, from assistant coaches getting arrested and charged with bribery in a federal probe to a former team doctor sentenced to quadruple life sentences for sexual assaults against female gymnasts. NCAA President Mark Emmett last fall established a 14-member “Commission […]
Posted inGophers/College, Sports
Surprise: Seven Auggies make league history
This column continues the Only One series in which this reporter shares his experiences as the only African American journalist on the scene. Rarely seen in these parts across all three NCAA divisions is a college basketball team, men and particularly women, where the majority of its players are of color. “It’s very unusual,” noted […]
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Introducing a new college bowl game: the Disparity Bowl
It’s that time of year in the waning days of the college football season when talk of coaches being fired and hired, the fairness or unfairness of the current four-team playoff system, and other such subjects are oft-discussed. But buried under such talk is the ever-existing graduation-rate gap between Division I Black and White football […]
Posted inGophers/College, Sports
March Madness, the numbers behind the hoopla
Often drowned out by the March Madness basketball hoopla and the “bracketology” of who got in and who didn’t, is the “exploitative” nature of the NCAA, wrote Dave Zirin in his latest Edge of Sports column for The Nation. He duly noted how the men’s tournament that first expanded to 64 teams in 1985 now stands at […]
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Gopher swimmers focus on upcoming tournaments
There are approximately 100 African American and other student-athletes of color this school year at the University of Minnesota. In an occasional series throughout the 2016-17 school and sports year, the MSR will highlight many of these players This week: swimmers Rachel Munson and Daryl Turner The swim season is shorter than other wintertime sports. […]
Posted inNews
2019 Final Four planners aim high for diversity, inclusion
Half the cost of the newly opened Vikings Stadium, known as the “People’s Stadium” before its corporate branding, has come from the people’s money — taxes and related public subsidies totaling more than half a billion dollars. Now is the time to assess just what the people, especially Black people, have received for their money […]