This is backstory. I'm Brian Ballot.

The month of March. We know that it comes in like a lion.

But if you're a basketball fan like me, you probably have no idea how it actually goes

out. Because you spent the last week holding up in front of the TV, glued to the unfolding

drama of the annual March Madness Basketball Tournament. But lurking right under the surface

of all of this fun are some difficult and persistent questions. Questions about the role

of sports within the university's setting. How do they come to gloom so large in college

life? And should all this money really be involved in amateur athletics?

And so today on the show, we're looking at how institutions of higher learning have for

more than a century justified big-time sports as part of the academic experience.

A history of college sports today on backstory.

Major funding for backstory is provided by the ShiaCon Foundation, the National Endowment

for the Humanities, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and the Arthur

Revining Davis Foundations. This episode was originally broadcast in 2013.

From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, this is backstory with the American History

Guide.

Welcome to the show. I'm Brian Balla, 20th Century Guy. I'm at Air's 19th Century Guy.

And I'm Peter Onof, 18th Century Guy. Okay, guys. It's finally here March Madness,

weeks of wall-to-wall college basketball coverage. I can't get enough of it.

Oh, yeah. March Madness is America's second largest sporting event in terms of income,

second only to the Super Bowl. And anytime you get that much money and that much hype

around college sports, people seem to start looking for the next big controversy.

...