the BigAmateurism monologues

This episode expands on my initial reaction to the Supreme Court’s Alston decision on June 21st. I reflect on the contributions of former Duke basketball player and athletes’ rights advocate Dick Devenzio (1949 – 2001), who was influential in my thinking on big-time college sports. I also discuss the tepid reaction to the Alston decision of institutional stakeholder-beneficiaries such as the NCAA Board of Governors, Power 5 presidents and chancellors, Power 5 conference commissioners, athletics directors, coaches, and Republican Senators who have been proxies for NCAA/Power 5 interests. The silence in many quarters is deafening. Will it be business as usual, and a double down on the NCAA/Power 5 organized lies in the wake of an epic failure of leadership in college sports? Or we will finally see a sober reckoning that leads in-system stakeholders to demand change—perhaps including the dissolution of the NCAA national office and a new relationship between institutional stakeholders and the athletes whose labors underwrite the entire college sports marketplace?