Blanche Trilling and the Evils of Competition (continued)

Katherine Saunders describes the delicate balancing act that athletic women had to perform to stay under society's radar:

"They helped keep their deviations from the norm secret by devices such as insisting on proper appearance, constructing rules which minimized the risk to face and figure, avoiding the glare of publicity, and by taking inordinate care to preserve fertility and the reproductive system by prohibiting play during the menstrual cycle."²⁴

The debate surrounding menstruation, in fact, centered less on whether women should be permitted to play sports and games during their cycle, than on how long they must abstain from such activity. The threat to women was not only physical, however. According to Blanche Trilling, Wisconsin's resident expert, exposure to the "evils of commercialization and exploitation of outstanding girl athletes often leads to the dander of nervous breakdowns."²⁵

The other set of objections to competition were a reaction to the problems that plagued men's intercollegiate sports. Initially, control over athletics was largely left to the undergraduate students, and later the alumni, without the oversight of university administration. As the popularity of sports ballooned, however, issues multiplied. Football, in particular, was widely regarded as problematic, if not downright corrupt. Teams often (and sometimes, rightfully) accused rivals of hiring professionals to pose as student players. Gambling, cheating, and unsavory recruiting practices were common. Fans had become, literally, fanatical.

Reactions to these problems varied. President Roosevelt threatened to ban football altogether if on-field brutality was not curtailed. Frederick Jackson Turner articulated a more intellectual critique of the situation, leveling the accusation that athletics corrupted academic ideas. Perhaps the most common reading of the situation, however, was that all the problems with athletics had one root cause: a focus on profits, in the form of gate receipts.

To fill a stadium, you need a winning team, which necessitates having the best players. The exploitation of young players, the use of professionals, and the commercialism and brutalization of the sport all stemmed from this point. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was formed in 1906 to address all of these problems, and out of its work sprung systems of faculty and institutional control. The organization's control extended only to men's athletics, however; it did not become involved in women's athletics until 1980.