Part of the Educational Process

This Raleigh News and Observer article describes the newly-implemented changes that impacted and altered the athletic system at NC State.

Colleges introduced physical training requirements in the 1890s, and as sports came to play a central role in campus life, many considered athletics an integral part of the educational process.  Contemporaries claimed sports—especially football—provided “unrivaled opportunities for moral training in honesty, fair play, truthfulness, respect for others, cooperation,” and “true sportsmanship.”  Many contemporary and nineteenth-century educators likewise felt that sports “built Christian character” in men and thus strengthened American society.  Thus to many an athletic education appeared to be complementary to an intellectual education at these institutions.  Americans viewed college athletics as ideally educational through the development and strengthening of students’ character and morality.

Dr. Frank Graham, president of North Carolina’s consolidated university system, attested to this idea when he argued that “fundamentally, athletics should be a part of the educational process rather than a side or spectacle for the public.”  Graham’s plan for athletics was an attempt to enforce an amateur, scholar-athlete ideal that would place the university’s focus squarely on its educational function.  In accordance with these beliefs, Graham, many NC State faculty members, and student representatives favored placing NC State College’s intercollegiate athletic teams under the jurisdiction of the Physical Education Department.  At the culmination of the 1937-1937 Anderson-Sermon hearings, this did indeed take place at NC State.