Abstract:
Over the past decade the field of athletics has experienced rapid growth and change, underscoring the need for updating knowledge about effective administration of these programs.The purpose of the present study was to investigate the operative goals of intercollegiate athletics programs by the athletic administrators in the Mid-American Conference located in the states of Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio in the United States of America.The subjects utilized in the study were the male athletic administrators, female directors, and their associate/ assistant directors from the Mid-American Conference.The study focuses on the administrators' perceptions of the operative goals of intercollegiate athletics programs which include: (1) Entertainment; (2) National Sport Development; (3) Financial; (4) Transmission of Culture; (5) Career Opportunities; (6) Public Relations; (7) Athlete's Personal Growth; (8) Prestige, and (9) Achieve Excellence (Chella durai, 1983).The Scale of Athletic Priorities Questionnaire (S.A.P.), developed by Chelladurai, Danylchuk, and Inglis (1984), was administered to the athletic directors, female directors, and their associate/assistant directors by mail with instructions explaining the study, the procedure to fill out the questionnaire, and where to send the questionnaire back to the researchers by the specified date. A copy of the questionnaire is included in Appendix A.