Champions Way

Football, Florida, and the Lost Soul of College Sports

By: Mike McIntire

Narrated by: Barry Abrams

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 Tantor

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."

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.

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.