"[I]n recent years there has been a groundswell of excellent scholarly works dealing with intercollegiate athletics. The topic has both endurance and significance now that such disciplines as history, economics, law, literary analysis, and political science have been brought to bear on the serious study of college sports. Don't hold your breath for any strong connection between research and reform. As the scholarship on college sports gets better, the educational and ethical problems of college sports get worse."

"The NCAA decided to sponsor the academic conference, he [Brand] said, because it wanted to involve faculty members not in role they sometimes play on their campuses — helping to oversee and govern the sports programs — but in their primary role as scholars. 'The idea was that there’s another role for faculty in intercollegiate athletics that we haven’t taken up at the NCAA, and that’s to treat intercollegiate athletics as the subject matter for research,' said Brand, a philosopher who was president of Indiana University before taking the reins at the NCAA. 'We thought it would be helpful if the NCAA would be supportive of that effort.' "

"...when he looked at the papers — 'and having been in the academy for 40 years, I think I can tell the difference between a good paper and something that’s not high quality,' Brand said — he saw too many of the latter and too few of the former, he said."

"That’s when the association decided to start from scratch, and to convene 'the leading scholars in their fields, from sociology, history, literature, economics, business,' to plan the meeting and, ultimately, referee the papers. Brand says he is confident that the 2008 conference will produce important work that measures up to material published in scholarly journals."

"The NCAA’s announcement of the new event said its theme would be “College Sports: A Legitimate Focus for Scholarly Inquiry,” and noted that it would feature “invited scholars of international repute” — suggesting that submissions would not be welcomed."

"We're hoping to get more people in nonkinesiology departments, people who don't do research on sport because it's not front and center in their disciplines, to come out of the academic closet, so to speak, and study sport," he said. "College sports have a tremendous impact on our educational institutions, our towns, our budgets. We think the time is right for a more serious look at the subject."