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Communication and Contradiction in the NCAA: An Unlevel Playing Field is a critical examination of the contradictory nature of the NCAA, and how the inherent contradictions impact the communication activities of its constituents, supporters, and challengers. At the heart of the NCAA is the student-athlete, born out of an idealistic collection of communal values that is often at odds with institutional practices. The rhetorical negotiation of the student-athlete's identity informs and confuses communication practices on a number of levels, from interpersonal interactions to organizational apologia. Because the student-athlete is critical to maintaining the collegiate athletics orientation, the NCAA works overtime in promoting, maintaining, and defending it in the face of public scrutiny. The NCAA and its member institutions, like any organization, are compelled to answer public accusations, often working to defend inconsistent policies to an increasingly hostile audience. In an effort to solidify its power, the NCAA uses public discourse to maintain its position by establishing and enforcing proper codes of conduct for participants, and rationalizing unfair labor practices, athletics budgets, and rising tuition costs designed to boost athletics. In response they often rely on familiar rhetorical and organizational practices, such as branding, mascots, and heroic stories of student-athletes, all of which come with issues of their own. All of these communication phenomena, from interpersonal support-seeking to organizational scapegoating, are informed by the central student-athlete mythos. This puts the NCAA at a contradictory crossroads as they work to reconcile inconsistent practices and messages.

Communication and Contradiction in the NCAA: An Unlevel Playing Field

Acknowledgments - Mike Milford: Introduction: The NCAA from Conception to Contradiction - The NCAA's Field of Play - Mike Milford/Lauren Reichart Smith: Communication and Contradiction in the NCAA - Lauren Reichart Smith: Competition, Conflict, and the NCAA - The Mythos of the Student-Athlete - Karen L.Hartman: Contesting the Meaning of Collegiate Football: Competing Narratives at the Birth of the NCAA - Gregory A.Cranmer/Karlee A.Posteher: Athlete Socialization into the NCAA Division I Environment: Communicating Contradictions - Travis R.Bell: The NCAA's Mythos of the Student-Athlete and Academic Clustering: Media Guides and/as Contradiction - Organizational Authority and Control in College Athletics - Jimmy Sanderson: Do as I Say, Not as I Do: The NCAA and Social Media Contradictions within Intercollegiate Athletics - Angela M.Jerome: The Function of Counter-Arguments Built on Charges of Absurdity and Ridicule: Compelling Change in the NCAA - Mike Milford: Penn State, the NCAA, and the Rhetoric of Accusation: Power through Victimage - Conflicting Values in College Athletics - Joseph R.Blaney: The Contradictory Relationship between Tuition Increases, Image Repair, and the NCAA: Take It to the Bank - David M.Castleman, Daniel L.Wann/Jana Hackathorn: The Contrasting Influence of Team Identification and Fan Dysfunction on the Hostile and Verbal Aggression of NCAA Fans: Lashing Out in Pride - Shawn N.Smith/Michael L.Butterworth: Exploiting Contradictions of Capital in the NCAA: Rhetoric and Economic Materialism in the University of Missouri Football Protest - Daniel A.Grano/Kenneth S.Zagacki: The "Plantation Mentality": Problems of White Antiracist Criticism of the NCAA - Andrew Dix: Critical Race Theory, the NCAA, and College Baseball: Contradiction on the Diamond - Katherine Lavelle: Striking a Middle Ground: A Neocolonialist Analysis of the NCAA's Mascot Ban - Phillip Chidester/Joshua Fitzgerald: "I Need a Hero": Representation, Support and the NCAA's Disruptive Role in the Fan Identification Formula - Mike Milford/Lauren Reichart Smith: The Future of the NCAA and Collegiate Athletics - Contributors - Index.