Intercollegiate Athletics: The Community College Experience

Abstract

The arms race, the definition of amateurism, Title IX, commercialism and academic integrity are regularly titles of chapters or catch phrases of texts written about intercollegiate athletics. Community college research focuses on the student population, transfer issues and the role of 2-year colleges within higher education. This study focuses on the intersection. Junior college athletic programs have been operating for nearly a century and currently serve more than 70,000 college students throughout the country without the guidance of appropriate research.Five research questions are divided into two subgroups; the first focusing on the history of participation through affiliation with the NJCAA and the next four on current trends in the presence, size and specific sport opportunities in community colleges. Data on the history of participation was collected directly from NJCAA national offices and imported into spreadsheets, providing a substantial amount of raw data previously unavailable. The second subset of questions utilized merged data sets from IPEDS and EADA. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the historic data. Logisitic and OLS regression techniques provided results for the presence, size and specific sport analyses.The decline of men's opportunities in NJCAA institutions provides evidence that women's growth made possible through Title IX, occurred at the expense of men. The economic status of colleges provided a better indicator of growth or decline for either gender in junior college athletic programs after the initial thrust of women's teams ended. Enrollment, the percentage of full time students and the rural variable all proved to be positively associated with the presence of and size of athletic programs, while the female share of the student population was negatively associated with presence and size.The results provide information for local administrators of athletic departments, college administration, state governance groups and national associations. Financial constraints and concerns of supporting athletics at the community college level can be expanded. Gender equity issues should be explored in more detail. A foundation has been established, needs to be reinforced and should provide a launching point for future research in junior college athletics.