Champions Way
Football, Florida, and the Lost Soul of College Sports
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Narrated by:
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Barry Abrams
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By:
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Mike McIntire
About this listen
Champions Way is a searing exposé of how the multibillion-dollar college sports empire fails universities, students, and athletes.
College sports have never been bigger. Once a roughneck intercollegiate pastime, football now commands millions of fans and generates massive revenues. New York Times investigative reporter Mike McIntire chronicles the rise in the popularity and power of college athletics, revealing deeply troubling relationships between college sports programs, the universities that host them, booster organizations, local police departments, and the courts. Using the Florida State Seminoles, one of the most successful teams in NCAA history, as an example, McIntire details a system that exploits athletes for profit, enables players to violate academic standards, and, in some cases, shields them from criminal prosecution.
At the heart of Champions Way is the wrenching story of a whistle-blower, Christie Suggs. This shocking exposé reveals the extent of a corrupt culture at the center of American higher education and the toll it takes on the players and those who dare to challenge the system.
©2017 Mike McIntire (P)2017 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
In the spring of 2013, a study showed that despite huge economic problems, 27 states were awarding their highest salaries to college football coaches. College football has doubled in size in the last decade thanks to generous tax breaks, lavish TV deals, and corporate sponsors eager to slap their logos on everything from scoreboards to footballs and uniforms. In one recent year, the 10 biggest programs took in $800 million from football, with profit margins far surpassing those of Fortune 500 companies.
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Much Better Books Out There On This Subject
- By Andrew N Dobson on 01-19-16
By: Gilbert M. Gaul
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Endzone
- The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football
- By: John U. Bacon
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 16 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Endzone tells the story of how college football's most successful and respected program nearly lost it all in less than a decade and entirely of its own doing. It is a story of hubris, greed, and betrayal, a tale more suited to Wall Street than the world's top public university.
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Outstanding!
- By Justin on 12-21-15
By: John U. Bacon
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Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right
- Opinionated Columns on American Life
- By: Michael Smerconish
- Narrated by: Michael Smerconish
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Opinionated talk show host and columnist Michael Smerconish has been chronicling local, state, and national events for the Philadelphia Daily News and the Philadelphia Inquirer for more than 15 years. He has sounded off on topics as diverse as the hunt for Osama bin Laden and what the color of your Christmas lights says about you. In this collection of 100 of his most memorable columns, Smerconish reflects on American political life with his characteristic feistiness.
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All about Smerc and who cares about the victims
- By Mark J. Rosen on 12-10-20
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Rising Tide
- Bear Bryant, Joe Namath, and Dixie's Last Quarter
- By: Randy Roberts, Ed Krzemienski
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The extraordinary story of how Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and Joe Namath, his star quarterback at the University of Alabama, led the Crimson Tide to victory and transformed football into a truly national pastime. During the bloodiest years of the civil rights movement, Bear Bryant and Joe Namath - two of the most iconic and controversial figures in American sports - changed the game of college football forever.
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Love Alabama football? Read this!!
- By Miss Faulk on 07-16-15
By: Randy Roberts, and others
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None of the Above
- The Untold Story of the Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal, Corporate Greed, and the Criminalization of Educators
- By: Shani Robinson, Anna Simonton
- Narrated by: Lisa Renee Pitts
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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An insider’s account of the infamous Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal that scapegoated black employees for problems caused by an education reform movement that is increasingly a proxy for corporate greed.
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A well constructed story
- By Sumo Steve on 03-21-19
By: Shani Robinson, and others
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Boys Among Men
- How the Prep-to-Pro Generation Redefined the NBA and Sparked a Basketball Revolution
- By: Jonathan Abrams
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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When Kevin Garnett shocked the world by announcing that he would not be attending college - as young basketball prodigies were expected to do - but instead would enter the 1995 NBA draft directly from high school, he blazed a trail for a generation of teenage basketball players to head straight for the pros. That trend would continue until the NBA instituted an age limit in 2005, requiring all players to attend college or another developmental program for at least one year.
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Bad pronunciation
- By K. Spearman on 07-03-16
By: Jonathan Abrams
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League of Denial
- The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth
- By: Mark Fainaru-Wada, Steve Fainaru
- Narrated by: David H. Lawrence XVII
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Everyone knows that football is violent and dangerous. But what the players who built the NFL into a $10 billion industry didn’t know—and what the league sought to shield from them—is that no amount of padding could protect the human brain from the force generated by modern football.
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How to Kill Friends and Influence People
- By Cynthia on 10-18-13
By: Mark Fainaru-Wada, and others
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Saban
- The Making of a Coach
- By: Monte Burke
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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As the head coach of the University of Alabama's football team, Nick Saban is perhaps the most influential - and controversial - man in the sport. Unpredictable in his professional loyalties, uncompromising in his vision, and unyielding in his pursuit of perfection, the highest-paid coach in college football has changed the face of the game. His program-building vision has delivered packed stadiums, rabid fans, legions of detractors, countless NFL draft picks, and a total of four championships.
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Narrator is awful.
- By kenneth on 08-12-15
By: Monte Burke
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Paterno
- By: Joe Posnanski
- Narrated by: Joe Mantegna
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Joe Posnanski's biography of the late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno follows in the tradition of works by Richard Ben Cramer on Joe DiMaggio and David Maraniss on Vince Lombardi. Having gained unprecedented access to Paterno, as well as the coach's personal notes and files, Posnanski spent the last two years of Paterno's life covering the coach, on (and off) the field and through the scandal that ended Paterno's legendary career.
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WoWoWoWoW
- By JA Hartman on 08-27-12
By: Joe Posnanski
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True Gentlemen
- The Broken Pledge of America's Fraternities
- By: John Hechinger
- Narrated by: Rick Zieff
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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In True Gentlemen, Hechinger embarks on a deep investigation of SAE and fraternity culture generally, exposing the vast gulf between its founding ideals and the realities of its impact on colleges and the world at large. He shows how national fraternities are reacting to a slowly dawning new reality and asks what the rest of us should do about it. Should we ban them outright, or will they only be driven underground? Can an institution this broken be saved?
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Every parent should read
- By Matt Lathrop on 06-27-18
By: John Hechinger
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Wheelmen
- Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France, and the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever
- By: Reed Albergotti, Vanessa O'Connell
- Narrated by: Santino Fontana
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The first in-depth look at Lance Armstrong's doping scandal, the phenomenal business success built on the back of fraud, and the greatest conspiracy in the history of sports. Lance Armstrong won a record-smashing seven Tours de France after staring down cancer, and in the process became an international symbol of resilience and courage. In a sport constantly dogged by blood-doping scandals, he seemed above the fray. Then, in January 2013, the legend imploded. He admitted doping during the Tours and, in an interview with Oprah, described his "mythic, perfect story" as "one big lie."
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Detailed and balanced account
- By Gabriel on 11-19-13
By: Reed Albergotti, and others
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Tulia
- Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town
- By: Nate Blakeslee
- Narrated by: James Boles
- Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Early one morning in the summer of 1999, authorities in the tiny West Texas town of Tulia began a roundup of suspected drug dealers. By the time the sweep was done, over 40 people had been arrested and one of every five black adults in town was behind bars, all accused of dealing cocaine to the same undercover officer, Tom Coleman.
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A Must Read
- By JOHN on 03-23-08
By: Nate Blakeslee
What listeners say about Champions Way
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- SLS
- 10-27-19
Great book, horrible narration
I really enjoyed the content of the book, but I could not stand the narration. I was overly generous in giving it two stars. When the narrator used his own voice, it was fine. It was actually very good. But when he tried to impersonate a speaker, it was awful. Everyone sounded Southern (even though not everyone was,, and even if the person was, it doesn't mean that person had a Southern accent). It would have been so much better if he had just read the quotes rather than trying to use different voices for each speaker. It was silly and very distracting.
The content was excellent and well-researched. I learned things I did not know, and I have read many, many books on college football. It's definitely worth a listen, just be prepared to be annoyed by the narrator and his "different voices."
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- Bob
- 10-05-17
An absolutely necessary and long overdue analysis
Fantastic. Both impressively well researched and - given McIntire's previous high quality work - clearly impartial, 'Champions Way' is an absolutely necessary and long overdue analysis of collegiate sports' idiosyncrasies including the nonsensical retention of its tax exempt status, lack of governance, continued failure to fulfill its moral responsibilities to the boys it recruits, an irreconcilable stance to not fairly compensate its athletes, and the continued oxymoronic use of "student-athletes" to describe its entertainers. Supporting collegiate sports in its existing form is an ever more difficult exercise in cognitive dissonance.
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- Andy
- 10-15-17
Illuminating
Mike McIntyre does a great job illuminating the breadth and depth of corruption in the football program at FSU. Sadly, the athletes are the real losers in this equation.
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