True. Plus it is a good thing for a football player to have training for another career after the young/healthy years are done.
Or they went to college but left early for the draft. The jump from high school to the NFL is huge⊠it is much different than for instance baseball.
Are these IB going to pay for the Ivy League education for the apprentices including housing, food, free medical care etc.?
Sure a hell of a lot cheaper than paying them salary plus bonus and providing benefits.
Average FTE analyst cost is about $150-175k.
I agree with this completely, but my perspective is that having college act as the unpaid minor league for football benefits the NFL, the NCAA, and the individual colleges at the expense of the athletes. These entities claim they do it for the benefit of the athletes in order to educate them and prepare them for a career after football, but there are ways to achieve these goals that donât exploit the athlete.
As an example of a better model, my kid attends a college that happens to be located across the street from a Ballet company (also an activity where few make it, and where retirement in your 30s is the norm.) This company contracts with the college to provide classes that work around the dancersâ practice, performance and travel schedules. The dancers typically take only 1-2 classes per term (because pretending that more is possible would be a farce) but they chip away at it, and have good careers waiting for them when they eventually retire. One dancer just retired and stepped directly into a job in finance!
2 Likes
Letâs look at the numbers to help people understand the odds of a HS student (say like Michael Oher) making it to the NFL. These NCAA data are a bit old, but letâs use them because we avoid the impact of covid on football rosters.
1) 7.3% of HS football players play NCAA football (Divs 1-3). More HS football players do play college ball in NAIA and JUCO. But nearly all NFL drafted players come from the NCAA.
2) About 1.6% of NCAA players get drafted into the NFL.
Estimates vary of the number of drafted players who go on to play in the NFLâŠfrom 30%-50%. Obviously this is different by draft round, where those drafted in the first two rounds for example are nearly certain to play in the NFL, barring injury or misbehavior. Those drafted in the last two rounds, likely will never see a second of professional play (unless they go to a different professional league like the CFL).
Knowing these numbers, it makes absolute sense that college serves as the minor leagues for the NFLâŠmost of these young men need to get an education, because they arenât going to the NFL.
I also agree with the 3 year post-HS waiting time to declare for the draftâŠsome 18 year olds would literally die if they went to the NFL before they have physically matured, and played against better opponents. People do not understand how fast and strong NFL players are. It is a safety issue full stop. Conversely, I do not agree with the one year waiting time for basketball players. Different sport, different rate of maturity, altogether a different set of circumstances.
1 Like
The football student athletes are not being exploited. Many are receiving a substantially free education, as well as free room and board. Free tutoring. Free athletic skills training. Free weight training and conditioning. Free medical care.
Many of those who are likely to end up in the NFL are making significant NIL $ as well. College Football NIL Rankings
The vast majority (99%) of NCAA football players are going into the workforce when they are 22/23 years old, why slow down their education by taking a longer time to graduate?
1 Like
Yes, letâs end the charade early! 99% will not make it into the NFL, and for the vast majority of these, the scouts know that from day 1 of freshman year. Letâs have these nice kids be able to give all their focus to their education (maybe with some club football or low-stakes school sponsored football that doesnât ever disrupt classes or labs) while the maybe 5% of football players who potentially have what it takes can go into a minor league where they get paid a salary (in addition to a good package of benefits, one of which can be tuition reimbursement if desired.)
1 Like
What is your plan to replace the Billions of dollars that colleges are earning from their football programs? Any changes that may impact that stream of money has to be addressed, for obvious reasons.
It seems you are hyper focused on the relatively small percentage of student athletes who are just biding their time until they get to the NFL (barring injury, etc)âŠbut thatâs not many or most. For example, there are plenty of players on Alabamaâs team who take their studies seriously. Full stop.
The rest of the football players who know they arenât going to the NFL are working hard trying to get an education while they continue to play the game they love. I canât speak to why they love the game but they do. So, why all the continued dismissive judgment? I know plenty of young men who would have never been able to go to college if not for football. Michael Oher is likely one of them (although I donât know him).
just thinking about this - they âinvestedâ in him - their time, energy and love. And they made money off him through various outlets.
He received help in school, made it to the NFL. Wonder if he ever paid off their âinvestmentâ to the Touys? Almost seems like they should have had a take in what he made in the NFL; doubt heâs sharing anything with them . . . should go both ways, or no ways, but not just one way.
My daughter was a college athlete and she would not have traded her college experience to go into the workforce early?! There are so many intangible benefits to being a college athlete even knowing that less than 1% will make it professionally.
I bet if you asked most of the college football players ( even the ones on the bench ) if they would like to give up their sport to work most would say no.
2 Likes
I donât really care how colleges would replace the Billions of dollars they make from exploiting these players.
Yep. I am very focused on the slice of players who are forced to help these schools rake in Billions, while getting relatively little in return (while simultaneously risking a potentially career-ending injury.)
Yes, and they can continue to take their studies seriously, with or without the NCAA functioning as the NFLâs (unpaid) minor league.
Yes, I know. And frankly I consider that a sad symptom of a sick system.
I canât imagine jumping from HS to P5 college football. As it is, many many players redshirt, just to have a year of weight training, etc., to prepare. This is why TV announcers make a big deal about a player who is a âtrue freshmanâ, as opposed to a red-shirt freshman.
1 Like
Steering back to original topic⊠Iâm bothered by the possibility that the Tuohyâs started the Make it Happen foundation for personal profit, leveraging on The Blind Side popularity.
5 Likes
Sorry but doesnât this describe college or more particularly law school or medical school?
Imagine if all the law firms aligned and created an âAmerican Bar Associationâ that codified and enforced a âlaw schoolâ that forced âpre lawyersâ to work for free for three years learning all the information needed to do their jobs. The product of their work would directly accrue to the law firms and ABA in the higher rates they could charge their clients.
After completing this âinternshipâ phase, that the vast majority would have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to undertake, and then participating in a competitive âpro dayâ (AKA âbar examâ) to weed out underperformers, 5% of participants would get drafted by white shoe law firms and be paid triple what other âlawyersâ get paid while the other 95% would have to go do regular jobs.
White shoe law firms would have made a killing, only the best would be given jobs and to hell with the rest.
Please get back on topic. Those wanting to discuss law firm internships or the like are welcome to start a new thread.
2 Likes
One of the themes of this thread is that Michael Oher was such a gifted football player that by the end of his HS career, it was becoming clear that he was a shoo-in to make it to the NFL. He had a significantly better chance at making it to the NFL than most college football players, but statistically he was not a shoo-in.
Depending on the recruiting site, he was either a 4-star HS recruit or a 5-star HS recruit.
To put that in perspective, there are approximately 30 5-star recruits and 380 4-star recruits in the entire country in each class.
In 2014, Bleacher Report looked at data of all 5-star HS recruits from 2002-2008 and where they ended up. Oher was a Class of 2005 athlete. They used the Rivals ranking service for their evaluation and Rivals classified Oher as a 4-star athlete.
They found that 5-star recruits during that period had a 52% chance of getting drafted by the NFL and only a chance of 39% of âstickingâ in the league (defined as making the active roster in 3 out of 4 seasons or 6 out of 8 season).
From another website, 4-star HS recruits only had ~ 20% chance of getting drafted by the NFL.
Even after HS, Oher continued to beat the odds, which is a testament to him.
1 Like
Exactly, good perspective.
And Oher played 8 seasons in the NFL, more than double the average career length. No one could have predicted that he would continue to succeed at every step of the way and defy the âaveragesâ. Definitely not the Tuohys when Oher was 16/17 years old.
2 Likes
Being on the active roster only means that you are on the 53 man roster for the team, but teams can only play 11 players on offense and 11 on defense at a time.
Oher was a 1st round draft pick (23rd overall) coming out of college. He wasnât just on the active roster, he was an NFL starter for all 110 games he played in during his 8 year NFL career.
He had an exceptional NFL career.
2 Likes
Forced?