Rick Eckstein

More girls are playing sports than ever before—which, on the surface, is great for girls because sports offer positive and empowering fun for young women. In reality, though, few young athletes report “fun” as a reason they play sports. The rates of concussions and repetitive-use injuries are on the rise, and kids are encouraged to specialize in a single sport at earlier and earlier ages, even at the expense of friends, other activities, and health. Through years of extensive research, Rick Eckstein discovered that college athletics have had an alarming impact on this trend in youth sports, particularly for girls. How College Athletics Are Hurting Girls' Sports looks closely at college sports and how they shape the athletic—and personal—landscape for girls and young women. Filled with powerful interview excerpts from women athletes of all ages, as well as coaches, league officials, and others, the book chronicles how college and youth sports have become more commercialized, to the detriment of participants. The book looks at a range of sports, with case studies including soccer, field hockey, ice hockey, figure skating, and Ultimate Frisbee. Featuring a new introduction to bring this evergreen topic up to the present, How College Athletics Are Hurting Girls’ Sports is an important and timely reminder that even as we celebrate sports’ potential to have a positive impact on a girl’s life, changes need to be made in college and youth athletics to improve the experiences of young athletes so that sports become fun once again.

The authors provide an eye-opening account of recent battles over publicly financed stadiums in some of America’s largest cities. Their interviews with the key decision makers present a behind-the-scenes look at how and why powerful individuals and organizations foist these sports palaces on increasingly unreceptive communities. Delaney and Eckstein show that in the face of studies demonstrating that new sports facilities don’t live up to their promise of big money, proponents are using a new tactic to win public subsidies¾intangible “social” rewards, such as prestige and community cohesion. The authors find these to be empty promises as well, demonstrating that new stadiums may exacerbate, rather than erase, social problems in cities.

A critical examination of the Shoreham and Seabrook nuclear power plants and the way expensive corporate initiatives purported as good for social "progress" or "economic growth" actually serve the parochial interests of powerful organizations and classes