Big-time college sports are big money, and lately, that’s meant a lot of big time college scandals. The sports pages are full of stories of cheating, and secret slush funds, and lately even the murder of one basketball player at Baylor. At colleges across the country coaches and university executives are in trouble. The head of Vanderbilt University, has his own plan to make sure that his school avoids these kinds of headlines. Gordon Gee has announced that he’s eliminating his athletic department. The chancellor says he’s keeping all the teams, and the athletes, but he’s putting them back where he says they belong, as part of a university, a school, a place to learn. Is it a clever end run around the big money boys…or a hail Mary bit of desperation.
Guests:
Dr. Gordon Gee, Chancellor of Vanderbilt University
Stefan Fatsis, staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal
Dr. Murray Sperber, professor of English and American Studies at Indiana University