Intercollegiate sport is too often viewed in a vacuum, but certainly conditions in American culture and in the institution of higher education helped to create big-time sport in the nation's universities. Chu's book is the first to analyze the composition of these conditions in both sociological and historical perspectives. Through this consideration of sport the very character of American higher education is revealed. The author discusses the condition of athletic programs (their uses and abuses) as one highly visible manifestation of problems confronting higher education. Problems of control, the push for funding, and the use of undergraduate programs such as athletics for the purposes of institutional gain are analyzed through a survey of the empirical and theoretical literature. Chu considers the peculiar place of sport on the American campus and raises questions as to whether its inclusion and presence can ultimately be justified in the academic setting.