Journal of Sport and Social Issues

From the Publisher—Everyone at the Center has anxiously awaited the first issue of the Journal of Sport and Social Issues with Dr. Lawrence Wenner from the Sports and Fitness Management Program at the helm. Over the past few months I have received many great reports about the "new look" Journal. An incredible amount of work went into it by our new editor and others at the University of San Francisco. Specifically I would like to thank USF's Office of PublicAffairs for all their efforts on behalf of the Journal's new design and layout. Lawrence has already done a tremendous job of promoting the Journal, starting with his network ofscholars and journalists, and working with his colleagues at the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport conference. The future of the Journal has never been brighter. Lawrence Wenner deserves all the credit for this.

Several trends throughout the 1970s and 1980s have heightened the demand for the sports agent (Dunn, 1988; Rypma, 1990; Shropshire, 1989, 1990; Sobel, 1991). However, promising athletes are often reluctant to secure an agent as a result of the unethical practices of a few agents. Recent attempts to regulate abuses have been unsuccessful (Cosgrove, 1990; Dunn, 1988; Goodman, 1990; Rypma, 1990; Sullivan, 1984; Sobel, 1990). This article addresses the strengths and weaknesses of institutional, state regulatory, and suggested federal remedies which attempt to stop the abuses of unruly athlete agents. The paper proposes the idea of a uniform code as a remedy to athlete agent abuse. Six key areas are integral to the uniform code: 1) a broad definition of both the pro fessional player an d the agent, 2) a "quasi-judicial legislative system" (Carlsen, 1991), 3) defined agent qualifications and certifications, 4) a bond requirement, 5) criminal penalties for code violators, and 6) itemization of prohibited activities for all involved parties.

Editor's Note—This analysis of the antitrust developments in professional football was originally framed in mid-October, approximately one month after the McNeil decision. At that time, Paul Staudohar ventured some educated guesses about what would eventually happen because of the case. In the midst of this issuegoing to press, it became increasingly likely that the NFL owners and players would reach some agreement. That agreement came on January 6, 1993. The next day, Staudohar updated the manuscript with a "Post-Agreement Comment." The original manuscript was edited to reflect an awareness that the agreement had been reached, but the original manuscript was left largely intact to give readers a flavor of Staudohar's initial thinking as well as a deeper appreciation of the events leading to the agreement. The editor takes full responsibility for any clumsiness that has resulted from updating the manuscript in this way.

Editor's Note—Since the publication of his book Out of Their League, Dave Meggyesy has brought a thoughtful and public voice to the player's perspective in professional football. This comment was received in our editorial office January 11, 1993, five days after an agreement between the NFL owners and players had been announced.

Editor's Note—Attorney and Player Agent Leigh Steinberg has long been recognized as a leader in defining the ethos of the sports representation field. He represents a number of NFL players, as well as other professional athletes. This commentary on the Uniform Code proposal for agents and Staudohar's analysis of the McNeil decision was received in the editorial office January 11, 1993, five days after an agreement between the NFL owners and players had been announced.

Editor's Note--This comment was written in mid-November 1992. Not much has changed that would affect the author's view of the athlete agent issue. However, as the author points out in a January 7, 1993 addendum, the agreement between NFL players and owners that occurred as the Journal went to press has tested the validity of the conjecture offered last fall.

This study analyzes the treatment of athletes in Women's Sports and Fitness between 1975 and 1989. Author, article length, gender, sport, race, and sporting role were assessed for each article; the number of accompanying pictures to each article and the characteristics of those featured in the articles were also tallied. Gender, race, sport, and active or posed status of the individual appearing on the cover were coded. Whites were featured in 92% of the articles, mostly in tennis, running, track, basketball, and golf. Of the 151 covers, 98. 7% showed females with 92% whites and 8% blacks. This magazine, on its covers and in its feature articles, changed its emphasis from reporting on traditional sports and competitions to focusing on fitness activities for all women.

This paper shows how structural social network analysis can be a potentially powerful way of conceptualizing and explaining athletes' acceptance of the risks of pain and injury in sport. In particular, this paper shows how concepts and assumptions from structural social network analysis can clarify the conditions that make athletes vulnerable to cultural and interpersonal messages exhorting or encouraging them to play with pain and injuries. It is argued that the willingness of athletes to risk pain and injuries is affected by structural features of their sports networks (called "sportsnets"), by relations with individual sportsnet members, and by "the culture of risk" that is deeply embedded in serious athletic subcultures.