This monograph seeks, through a synthesis of existing literature, to understand better how external forces operating through an enterprise on the academic margins can lead institutions and their leaders to make decisions that appear to many observers to make little sense relative to the institution's mission. Through the athletics enterprise, the authors consider the ways in which interacting forces produce ambiguities and puzzles confounding traditional rational views of decision making. This review focuses on intercollegiate athletics. The resulting analysis, however, has implications for the leadership and governance challenge to assure the integration of any unit with deep interactions with the external environment. An array of external forces influencing decision-making and leadership related to intercollegiate athletics frames the subsequent structure of this monograph. The next chapter describes the formal national and regional structures of intercollegiate sport that provide a framework within which individual campuses collaborate in engaging in the sports enterprise. The subsequent chapters address the legal and regulatory, social and cultural, and economic contexts of college athletics, respectively. The final chapter explores the intended and unintended effects of the interaction of those forces on campus leadership and decision making. The strategic implications of the analysis of intercollegiate athletics and university decision making, leadership, and culture frame the conclusion. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)