Paul Banks weighs in with a well-calibrated attack on the phrase student-athlete. I cannot hyperlink at the moment, but if you go to http://www.chicagonow.com, and look for sports media watch, you will find it.
At UNC last night, there was a screening of the excellent documentary Schooled: The Price of College Sports, of which the recently widely circulated clip of Arian Foster was a part. Banks draws on that documentary to recount the history of the term, an invention of NCAA founder Walter Byers, in service of a legal strategy to thwart worker compensation claims by college athletes. That story is told in compelling depth in the film, which itself was inspired by the 2011 masterpiece by Taylor Branch, the Atlantic Monthly article The Shame of College Sports.
I will write more about this soon, once I am at a computer that isn’t going haywire, as is happening right now.
theespnwatch 