From Thanksgiving to New Years Day and the following weekend, the college football schedule is filled with bowl games.  After the New Year begins, college sports fans can turn their attention to the height of the college basketball season that culminates in the annual March Madness NCAA Division I tournament.  College athletics is big business although perhaps only ten to twenty Division I programs make money each year.

While many books have been written about sports including college sports, there are a few that I found interesting for their background about the origins of the modern college sports “game” and its current state of commercialization.   John Thelin’s  A History of American Higher Education is a fairly comprehensive book about the origins and development of America’s colleges and universities.  In a chapter entitled “Alma Mater,” Thelin outlines major developments during the 1890’s to 1920, a time period that he calls the “age of university building” and the “golden age of the college.”  During this period, going to college became “fashionable and prestigious” and the national media covered the daily life of a college student in the same manner that the lives of the rich and famous are covered today.  During that period, university colors and mascots were conceived and adopted and the role of alumni associations and fundraising became very important.

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An act of Congress in 1894 made the first Monday in September a federal holiday, Labor Day, in celebration of the American worker.  The genesis of the holiday was a march on City Hall in New York City on September 5, 1882, by 10,000 workers who wanted to call attention to the issues of work conditions in America.  At the time, the average American worked a 12-hour day, 7 days a week.  The movement that culminated in the march on City Hall accelerated the birth of labor unions and the political power of workers and their unions.

In the years following the Labor Day legislation, cities and towns nationwide sponsored massive parades and events in honor of the American worker; those activities are no longer the focal point of the holiday.  Labor Day is celebrated by many in America as a symbol of the end of summer.  NCAA and NFL football traditionally kick off their seasons around Labor Day weekend and many Americans squeeze one last weekend trip into the dwindling days of summer.  There is little doubt that the American worker has made tremendous contributions to the development of our nation and as globalization of the work force continues, I think it’s important to remember their achievements.