White Sock Crime: Organizational Deviance in Intercollegiate Athletics

Abstract

Results of initial investigations of incidents precipitating the recent intercollegiate athletic scandals attributed responsibility for those incidents to specific workers, athletes, administrators, and faculty members. However, a consideration of these in cidents as acts of organizations, rather than as acts of individuals, may facilitate a more systematic analysis and a more comprehensive understanding of patterned social de viance within intercollegiate athletics. It was suggested that formal sport organizations commit deviant and illegal acts and that other formal sport organizations have respon sibility for controlling that deviance. It was concluded that an organizational deviance perspective can provide sport sociologists with a framework for examining the nature of deviance within intercollegiate athletics and can be used with other theoretical frameworks for examining patterned social deviance in sport.