Bad Sports: The Rutgers Scarlet Knights Quest 4 Bigger-Time Collegiate Sports

The book will examine Rutgers enormous investment in its collegiate athletics, in particular, its emerging football program and steady women’s basketball program, and the myriad of scandals that have come to characterize the athletic program (and university) over the last eighteen years. The book also broaches the question “why not invest more in men’s basketball?” given the states rich crop of high school basketball players. The devil is in the details and this book provides details into the history of scandals at Rutgers. While recent scandals have thrust the Scarlet Knights into the national spotlight they began back in 1994 with a sexual harassment suit against the RU men’s soccer coach. The book is unique in that media stories, reports, archives, social media and legal documents were used to develop the manuscript. This book will detail scandal, after scandal, after athletic department mistake and how they have contributed to the Scarlet Knights lack of success on the field and potentially their future expulsion from the Big Ten. Several chapters are organized around RU sports scandals including: • The Davon Clark murder case • The Bannon/RU men’s basketball stripping game • The RU women’s basketball/women’s soccer player hostage saga • The RU women’s basketball/Don Imus controversy • The Mike Rice basketball abuse scandal • The Julie Herman scandals and mismanagement • The Kyle Flood adjunct professor investigation • The 2015 football players crime spree • The soccer coach’s sexual harassment case • The Fred Hill meltdown • The basketball game protest over the minority inferiority comment • The Four Horseman and the development of RU sports