From Message to Messenger?: Assessing the Impact of Athletics on a College Campus

Abstract

Historical justification for big-time intercollegiate athletics has often pointed towards its community-building ability (Toma, 2003). The current research sought to establish a theoretically-driven instrument assessing the impact of athletics on a college campus and to explore this perception through the Common Ingroup Identity Model (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000). According to the CIIM, it was hypothesized that one's identification with the university (superordinate identity) would supersede one's identity with the athletics program as a fan or athlete (subordinate identity).