William C. Dowling

In September 2007, a controversy arose when Rutgers Athletic Director Robert Mulcahy accused Dowling of racism for having dismissed, in a New York Times interview, the claim that athletic scholarships provide educational opportunities for minority students: "If you were giving the scholarship to an intellectually brilliant kid who happens to play a sport, that's fine.

But they give it to a functional illiterate who can't read a cereal box, and then make him spend 50 hours a week on physical skills.

"[4] The Wall Street Journal labeled Mulcahy's attack a "campaign of character assassination" against a professor who had spoken out against athletics corruption at his university.

Confessions of a Spoilsport: My Life and Hard Times Fighting Sports Corruption at an Old Eastern University, Dowling's memoir of the Rutgers 1000 campaign, was the occasion of a long personal interview in Inside Higher Education,WCD: the Inside Higher Ed Interview and received substantial coverage in The New York Times, The Weekly Standard, The Manchester Guardian, and other publications.

According to his Rutgers University web page, Dowling has recently published Professor's Song: A Life in Teaching, a memoir of his career in literary studies.