[Review of the book Athletics and scholarship

Abstract

Reviews the research bulletin Athletics And Scholarship by Donald G. Paterson and I. Emerick Peterson (see record 1929-03391-001 ). The authors have made a study of "the admittedly unsatisfactory adjustment of large numbers of incoming freshman athletes." A comparison with a "control group shows that the football squad is definitely inferior in scholarship to the control group both in the fall quarter and the winter quarter." They then attempt to investigate several possible causes. The only discovery of interest is the finding that the members of the football squad who practiced fewer than 25 times had a poorer scholarship average than those who practiced more than 25 times. They conclude from this that "here is unmistakable evidence that time devoted to practice does not interfere with successful scholarship, indeed it is accompanied by greatly improved scholarship." However they seem to have taken no account of injured men who have been unable to practice 25 times and probably unable to attend classes for the same reason. The final summary of the whole matter is that "there is every reason to believe, therefore, that no influences are at work to produce anything but a legitimate student enterprise entirely in keeping with the intellectual and academic purposes for which the University is maintained." However, the reviewer is still anxious to know why the football squad has a lower scholastic average than the control group, and until he knows the answer to this question he cannot say "amen" to the enthusiastic endorsement of football which the authors make. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)