Offers a comprehensive examination of how the NCAA has lost its way in the governance of intercollegiate athletics - and why it is incapable of achieving reform and must be replaced. The NCAA has placed commercial success above its responsibilities to protect the academic primacy, health and well-being of college athletes and fallen into an educational, ethical, and economic crisis.

PrefacePart I: Lessons of History1. How College Sports Lost Its Way I2. How College Sports Lost Its Way IIPart II: What Needs to be Fixed3. Academic Integrity4. Governance5. Athlete Health and Welfare6. A Continuing Disgrace: Discrimination Based on Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Disability7. The NCAA's Unsustainable EconomicsPart III: A Return to Sanity8. Two Paths to Meaningful Reform9. Anchors for Reform: Guidelines and ConclusionAppendixNotesIndex

A critical look at the tension between the role of the university and the commercialization of college sports. Unwinding Madness is a comprehensive examination of how the National Collegiate Athletic Association has lost its way in the governance of intercollegiate athletics—and why it is incapable of achieving reform and must be replaced. The NCAA has placed commercial success above its responsibilities to protect the academic development, health, and well-being of college athletes and has fallen into an educational, ethical, and economic crisis. As long as intercollegiate athletics reside in the higher education environment, these programs must be academically compatible with their larger institutions, subordinate to their educational mission, and defensible from a not-for-profit organizational perspective. The issue has never been a matter of whether intercollegiate athletics belongs in higher education as an extracurricular offering. Rather, the perennial challenge has been how these programs have been governed and conducted. The authors propose detailed solutions, starting with the creation of a new national governance organization to replace the NCAA. At the college level, these proposals will not diminish the revenue production capacity of sports programs but will restore academic integrity to the enterprise, provide fairer treatment of college athletes with better health protections, and restore the rights and freedoms of athletes, which have been taken away by a professionalized athletics mentality that controls the cost of its athlete labor force and overpays coaches and athletic directors. Unwinding Madness recognizes that there is no easy fix to the problems now facing college athletics. But the book does offer common sense, workable solutions that respect the rights of athletes and that can protect their health and well-being while delivering on the promise of a bona fide educational degree program.

Unwinding Madness is a timely contribution to the growing body of research on commercialism and its role in shaping the path college athletics has paved in recent years away from the broader academic mission of higher education in America. The book fits neatly beside other recent critical assessments of the NCAA like Joe Nocera's Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA (2016) . . . The book will appeal to university leaders, college athletics practitioners, and opponents of commercialized intercollegiate athletics. This book could be integrated seamlessly into a course dealing with contemporary issues in higher education, issues in college athletics, sports law, or the history of college sports.—Robert D. McDermand, Journal of Higher Education Athletics & Innovation This book provides a comprehensive look at the issues facing big-time college sports. Anyone interested in teaching or researching intercollegiate athletics will find this book to be a useful resource. —James Morton, Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics In general, big time college sports have become so far removed from any reasonable connection to higher education as to be a sham. Who better than AndyZimbalist to lay out the issues and provide a sensible plan for reform?—Bob Costas, Broadcaster, NBC Sports and Major League Baseball Network Unwinding Madness: What Went Wrong with College Sports and How to Fix It by Dr. Gerald Gurney, Donna Lopiano and Dr. Andy Zimbalist is a new book I highly recommend for anyone interested in the business of intercollegiate athletics and college sports governance. . . . it is one of the better books I have read on how to repair the rapidly deteriorating business of college sports.—B. David Ridpath, Forbes College and sports are an instant pairing for most of us. But sports have come to play an outsized role at many colleges, and they now overshadow the core college mission: to educate. The authors of Unwinding Madness carefully and dispassionately dissect the problem and offer a realistic path forward that makes education central once again.—Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, 2009–16 The NCAA is a dirty cartel hiding under the skirts of a sham called "amateurism." Everybody, however, pretty much accepts this as just one more prize example of good old American exceptionalism. While Unwinding Madness might not expose this obvious, long-standing hypocrisy, it provides, in comprehensive, scorching detail, every unfair and cruel aspect of the NCAA humbug. The book is a powerful indictment of our most shameful sports sin, and it should be read, foremost, by school presidents and university board chairs. And, too, by those athletic directors and coaches still bearing a conscience.—Frank Deford, Author and Commentator