<p>My student is a varsity athlete at a d1 school—
with no athletic scholarship. No athlete in the league gets paid to play.
The athletes train rigorously, play for the love of the sport and they carry full academic loads etc.
Only “need” based aid is available.</p>
<p>Just because they’re called “Revenue Sports” doesn’t make them “Profitable Sports.” Most colleges <em>lose</em> money on their football programs - according to the NCAA:</p>
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<p>When regular students aren’t forced to subsidize these (and other) sports with their increased tuition, and when thousands of students aren’t deprived of a seat in their state college system because the often-abysmally low academic standards that’s applied to a scholarship athlete, maybe then I’ll have a bit more sympathy.</p>
<p>Squiddy- ^^ bitter? ^^</p>
<p>It’s 12 full scholarships per team per gender, though tennis might be different since I imagine it would be a smaller team. I just know for women’s lacrosse, fully funded programs get 12 to split between around 30 players. Coaches tend to increase player’s scholarships with seniority, and they don’t split it equally. Yes, full scholarships do exist, but often it’s not even a full athletic scholarship (ex: school gives $20,000 need, team gives $10,000, team only used a third of a scholarship, but the athlete goes for free). Many schools are not fully funded, so they have less than 12. It’s different for football and such though.</p>
<p>From Wiki:</p>
<p>Scholarship limits by sport</p>
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</p>
<p>I want to take this to the next level, but I do not know if the CC community is ready for this but here it goes:</p>
<p>ELite college athletes should be compensated with money and should not have to attend academic classes since I think their sport should take place in lieu of any other major.</p>
<p>I challenge anyone to tell me why this would not make any sense.</p>
<p>I’d like to start out by saying that I was brought here by the “latest posts” button, and so am not nearly as knowledgeable as most of the people who would be in the “Athletic Recruits” sub-forum. However, I wanted to contribute my thoughts.</p>
<p>For a long time, I didn’t think they should be paid. However, I have been rethinking my views, and came up with a few arguments that have made me consider changing my mind.</p>
<p>Several programs, including that of my school (Notre Dame), are very profitable, and are the ones I will be addressing. The workers most directly responsible for these profits are the athletes. They are generating millions of dollars of value, yet are not being paid.</p>
<p>Of course, one might say that all the money is going to the university, a non-profit entity that uses the funds to educate students, so it isn’t a for-profit endeavor. This is both false and shouldn’t matter at all. It is false because corporations ranging from television stations to clothing manufacturers to video game makers make large sums of money from college athletics and the images of these athletes (in select football and basketball programs, at least). It should not matter because other people making money for the universities still must be paid. Coaches, trainers, equipment managers, maintenance workers and so on are all compensated for their role in the athletics. In the case of the coaches, they are often compensated considerably. Further, other sorts of jobs that profit the university are paying as well. The professor who brings in large sums of research dollars is paid a salary. The person who organizes the alumni donation campaign is compensated. Yes, it takes away a small amount from what’s going to the school, but it is compensating someone for their services in a mutually beneficial relationship.</p>
<p>Is it the nature of the university-student relationship that precludes payment? Perhaps the students are expected to benefit the university without compensation? Well, there are students working jobs from food serving to custodial work to tutoring to sports management that are paid, though they do not generate nearly as much profit for the university as the athletes.</p>
<p>Ah, but the athletes are compensated, aren’t they? They are given a free college education! Certainly this may seem sufficient at first glance, but there are several flaws with this view. First, a college degree is better categorized as a benefit, rather than a payment. Workers are paid, despite having medical and dental benefits. Labor laws do not allow companies to pay only in benefits, as there are requirements for wages. Of course, college athletes do not qualify as workers, but that is merely what is, not necessarily what should be. Then, while there is certainly some value in a college degree itself, the main value lies in the skills that it represents. However, the skills an athlete’s degree represents are not necessarily the skills a normal degree represents. Given the intense time commitment of these sports, the athletes do not have nearly as much time to spend learning the requisite skills to pass the classes to earn the degree. They typically eek by, with heavy tutoring and allegedly lowered standards. (Note that I am mainly talking about major football programs, not the average college athlete.)</p>
<p>Further, these athletes are typically enrolled in programs with the lowest intensity, to allow for more time for practice. These degrees, typically in the liberal arts, have less monetary value (the only kind of value relevant when discussing employment and compensation) than the technical degrees that these athletes simply do not have the time to pursue. Of course, given the lowered academic standards for athlete admissions, it may be unfair to expect them to do particularly well at these schools, leading to an even less valuable degree in context. Combine this with the ever-increasing stress on athletics over academics reported by college athletes, and we see an environment in which the coaches (who have near complete power over the athletes) are preventing the athletes from taking best advantage of their college opportunity, in the never-ending quest for more wins and higher profits.</p>
<p>Add to this the complete irrelevance of the college degree to the aspirations of most of these major athletes. At the big-name football schools that are raking in millions from popular programs, the top athletes are almost always pursuing the NFL draft. A degree in history or sociology is fairly useless to such a person, as opposed to a dedicated history or sociology major who is intent on pursuing the field. So not only are the athletes being paid in watered-down currency (a degree without the full benefits of said degree), but it is currency largely useless for them. That’s like an unpaid intern personally generating millions for an investment company, and being compensated with a pilot’s license.</p>
<p>I’ll use my school as an example. According to a quick Google search and Forbes magazine, Notre Dame football is the second most profitable college sports franchise, at $47 million in profit this year. A lot of this is from an independent contract with NBC to televise every home game, which lets NBC turn a great profit. Merchandising and sponsorship with Adidas also contributes, allowing Adidas to also turn a pretty penny. The total profit for all involved parties is unknown, but again, the school’s profit is $47 million. Some of this funds other sports, and some goes directly to the university in a more general sense. Coach Brian Kelly makes around $3 million a year. The top player on the team is likely senior wide receiver Michael Floyd (last year he made 12 touchdowns, the fourth most in a season). He is not paid any wages for the value he generates, not even when associated with his own image. He will graduate this year with a degree in Sociology, which will be immensely useful when he enters the NFL.</p>
<p>Of course, there are a lot of issues once you decide to pay athletes. Is there a flat rate, or do you pay by performance? The former will be called unfair, the latter could cause negative feelings and unnecessary competition between members of the same team. I would suggest the flat rate as the less flawed method, but I can hear people asking why the backup kicker should be paid as much as the star QB, and I don’t have much of a good answer, other than the negative effects of payment by performance. Ultimately, there are issues with treating the team as a collective every player has equal share in, but I think it’s the preferable system.</p>
<p>Another issue is how much to pay them. I wouldn’t suggest very large sums, as that would take away the benefits of the program for the school. Athletic programs could be cut if the profits from the one or two major ones were diverted elsewhere, so I would think that a school should first apply profits to pay for all athletic programs, then take what is left and give a share to the players, not to exceed a certain monetary amount. There needs to be a balance between the schools not turning a profit and the athletes not being able to afford to fly their parents out for even one game.</p>
<p>Legal payment may help curb the corruption of boosters slipping players money under the table, which leads to economically disadvantaged players endangering their future careers because they feel they need the money.</p>
<p>Of course, I’m not completely certain. As I said, until very recently, I believed that players should not be compensated. However, I can’t reconcile that with my view that people should get decent pay for honest work. In my ideal world, players might not get paid, but my ideal world would be so very different from this one that it hardly matters. I don’t know if my arguments here are right, but they make sense to me right now.</p>
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It makes sense, though it pains my academic spirit.</p>
<p>Calling the sport a job possibility, like business or engineering, could make sense for the top players, so offering a football or basketball major would be a possibility. Like any other major, though, I would call for general education requirements and a certain amount of electives. The math major still has to take an English class, and vice versa, so why shouldn’t the “football major?”</p>
<p>Of course, it isn’t an overall choice on this matter, as each school would have to decide for itself whether or not to offer a football or basketball major. I suspect that they would make the majors have a special application and only let in the people most likely to enter the draft.</p>
<p>Then again, there is no need whatsoever for a football/basketball degree to enter the draft, so it would be a totally useless degree, beyond the already somewhat useless degrees these players are getting. Academic institutions may not like producing useless degrees, and when phrased that way, it sounds like a bad idea.</p>
<p>dlbecker- I find your post very brave and kudos to you for having the guts to say what you think. On some level deep down I have to say I agree with some of your thoughts, because we are living it.
My son is considered elite in his sport and is on a full ride in an equivalency sport. He was an excellent student out of high school (and one cannot get into his school unless you meet the academic requirements, so its not a cushy academic school). He started out in Bio sci dept but found with his athletic demands, missed classes (A TON OF MISSED CLASS) he found trying to stay on top of Chemistry labs and science in general, next to impossible. He has since switched to Econ. but truthfully he just wants to pursue a professional career in his sport.</p>
<p>His sport is not a revenue generating sport however so they do not bring $ to the school. I do not think payment is necessary per se, but having some academic support would be a huge help. </p>
<p>For example he signed up to take a “required class” last quarter, approached the professor on the first day to explain he is an athlete and present his travel schedule. The teacher basically did not give a rip that he was an “elite athlete” representing the university. Prof told him if he missed class he could not pass. </p>
<p>It really makes me upset that while these student athletes are doing the best they can, a professor can hold that much power over them. He had to switch his schedule because of this prof. It is not a university that is “hands on” and babies their athletes, the athletes must be self reliant and take care of all of this on their own. This was the exception to the norm as most of my sons professors have worked with him, but boy it is NOT EASY!!!</p>
<p>So while I do not think athletes should not have to attend academic classes, I do, I feel very strongly that the universities need to help the athletes out (and YES make exceptions when needed) and work with them so they can succeed both in and out of the classroom.</p>
<p>^If you want ( I would need to mull up a good reasoned post), I can write a more thorough explanation for why I feel this way. This is is not the first radical idea i have. Most of my views on higher education are often cynical and misanthropic though (I guess it comes with the territory)… Idk, I just do not see a lot of hope for our generation; as such, you can tell right away when someone strolls passed you wearing a backwards baseball cap and talking in a very beautiful dialect known as ebonics. </p>
<p>Here’s my next radical idea: eliminate backwards baseball caps!</p>
<p>dlbecker, that would make sports like a minor league. What about the athletes who actually want a college degree? Just talking off of my personal experiences, I’m playing D1 lacrosse next year, a sport where the only jobs in the sport would be coaching. I have different aspirations; I want a degree. I think the only sports that really need reform are football and basketball, where tons of student athletes enter the draft before graduating. Both sports have no minor leagues. If you create minor leagues for revenue producing sports, you give athletes multiple ways to go pro, and they can decide between climbing their way up through the minor leagues, or playing in college and going on from there. Minor league players are paid in money, and college athletes would get a scholarship.</p>
<p>momof2010,
There are many schools that DO support their athletes in both their athletic and academic, but it sounds like your son isn’t at one of those schools! </p>
<p>Having gone through the recruit process with my D, we found that some Div 1 schools offer students the ability to take exams on the road, proctored by the trainer on the team; they offer students practice times that do not conflict with the majority of classes (very early morning or later in the evening), as well as academic tutoring/mandatory study times, etc. </p>
<p>Not every campus does this, but for those athletes taking more rigorous classes/majors, it does give them far more support that at other institutions, which can only lead to a better outcome.</p>
<p>Samurai, ^^ Yes, when he was going thru the recruiting process we saw the difference in what some schools did for their athletes and some did not. Private schools seemed to offer a lot more services. He gets priority registration so he can schedule his classes around practice time (which is not flexible) and there are tutors available if needed but thats about it. I would say for the most part the professors have worked well with him, it was just this one class and from what I understand it is most of the department. It is unavoidable because of the class requirements in most majors. I know of 2 players who have “graduated” but do not have their degree because of this one particular dept and class requirement. Seems totally wrong that this is happening.</p>
<p>Well, i’m talking about elite athletics like Andrew Luck who plays for Stanford. The question comes to this: Is he there to learn academically, or play football? Anyone who chose the previous is truly clueless on the matter. Someone like Andrew Luck could care less about academics, yet the University still self-righteously believes in the whole academics first, athletes second mentality to save face in the public eye. Why do people believe this is beyond me and why the university keeps denying this truly is even more baffling since everyone knows it. Similarly, there is always going to be favoritism (amongst certain students, athletes, etc) admission disparity between so-called race vis a vis quotas, etc. Let’s get real here folks, athletes are also given special treatment no matter how you cut it. I could truly care less since I view athletes go to college for reasons other than academics. Then, it follows they should be treated differently and paid as well since the super elite athletes are really not there for academia. Insofar as the d1 students who play just for the fun? Well, that is a a different question then. I had the opportunity to play d3 tennis at my school, but it became so time-consuming and conflicting with classes that it hardly seems worthwhile in the end. I’d rather just join the club team or play on my own conditions than be a slave to a hot-headed coach; what’s even worse is d1 and d3 athletes who get zero scholarship. I do not understand why they readily sign-up anyway. If you ask me honestly, any college sport that does not offer a substantial scholarship is a waste of time. “The love of the game” answer is noble, but I would rather spend my time either studying, have a social life, or lets face it sleeping. This is not some Ayn Ran rant, it’s reality. When I’m spending thousands of dollars on what we view as something worthwhile in the long-run, why should I sacrifice my time to play for something that distracts what I’m paying for? After thinking about this, for “The love of the game,” seems foolish now doesn’t it? I mean, who is the jackass really now?</p>
<p>My 2 cents.</p>
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Ironically this happens every year when discussions about sports in college come up. Actually Andrew Luck is the counter argument to your position … he has a huge pro career in front of him … and at the same time he very much cares about his academics. He is an architecture major and I believed completed his work in less than 4 years with a near 4.0 GPA … he is a shining example of a scholar-athlete. There are lots of great examples of your position … Andrew Luck is not one.</p>
<p>Yeah, 3togo is right about Andrew Luck. However, a system that pays its athletes wouldn’t lessen their ability to learn in the classroom. It isn’t mandating that they not take classes or any such thing. Even offering a potential football major wouldn’t have affected him, since it seems that he simply wouldn’t have been interested (not that I’m certain offering a major is the way to go).</p>
<p>I also wouldn’t necessarily say that Stanford believes that academics come first. Didn’t they have a big list of the easiest classes they gave their athletes? I remember reading something about that. I suppose it depends on who you ask; the coach and the academic dean might feel differently, but I doubt the whole university has one opinion.</p>
<p>This thread isn’t about one person who might already have potential as a pro. Will ANYONE else currently at Stanford make their career as a pro athlete? And for those who don’t, what do they do after college when they have no degree and all they ever thought about was playing sports??? That is far more the issue here.</p>
<p>Paying athletes to simply play their sport and not be ‘bothered’ with attending class means to me they aren’t even students at the college they are attending. What exactly do you propose they do when their days as a paid college athlete are over and they never even tried to get a college degree???</p>
<p>DLBecker,</p>
<p>While I would say you are right that many football/basketball recruits go to school with no desire other than hoping to go pro, I do not think that colleges and universities should be endorsing such thoughts by operating a minor league system as you suggest.</p>
<p>Many many posts ago someone suggested the idea of a post-graduation fund being created for athletes, and I’m surprised no one else as brought it up. Why not have bonuses for graduating and/or achieving a certain GPA in a sort of combination of merit/athletic aid. I guess the problem there is that why would athletes get academic bonuses when the rest of the students do not?</p>
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<p>The following Stanford players are currently playing in the NFL:
Oshiomogho Atogwe – Washington Redskins
Doug Baldwin – Seattle Seahawks
Chase Beeler – San Francisco 49ers
Brian Bulcke – San Francisco 49ers
Greg Camarillo – Minnesota Vikings
Kirk Chambers – Buffalo Bills
Jim Dray – Arizona Cardinals
Trent Edwards – Oakland Raiders
Pannel Egboh – Tennessee Titans
Sione Fua -Carolina Panthers
Toby Gerhart – Minnesota Vikings
Amon Gordon – Kansas City Chiefs
Derek Hall – San Francisco 49ers
Thomas Keiser – Carolina Panthers
Matt Kopa – Miami Dolphins
Erik Lorig – Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Owen Marecic – Cleveland Browns
Evan Moore – Cleveland Browns
Konrad Reuland – San Francisco 49ers
Richard Sherman – Seattle Seahawks
Alex Smith – Cleveland Browns
Will Svitek – Atlanta Falcons
Leigh Torrence – New Orleans Saints
Ryan Whalen – Cincinnati Bengals
Nate Whitaker – Minnesota Vikings
Coy Wire – Atlanta Falcons</p>
<p>And in the NBA
Childress, Josh 2004-2010
Collins, Jarron 2001-2010
Collins, Jason 2001-2010
Lopez, Brook 2008-2010
Lopez, Robin 2008-2010
(Ironically two sets of twin centers)</p>
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<p>check this out … [Scout.com:</a> The Bootleg’s 2010 Graduation Rate Analysis](<a href=“Cardinal 247 - Stanford Cardinal Football Recruiting”>Cardinal 247 - Stanford Cardinal Football Recruiting) … STanford football has a 89% graduation rate … and other top schools like Duke, Vanderbilt, and Notre Dame also have outstanding graduation rates. Again, picking Stanford was not a good example for the point … there are lots of other schools that are very good example with pretty bad graduation rates.</p>
<p>As I mentioned previously, this thread isn’t just about Standford. I am sure a few TOP athletes go on to play pro football/baseball, etc. after college from a number of different schools. For those who don’t and/or were participating in a sport with limited opportunities after college…what next?</p>
<p>How many pro runners or swimmers are there???</p>
<p>Paying someone to play college athletics seems like an effort at solving the wrong problem.</p>