<p>In some instances, athletes use their sport to pay for college. Alot of athletes depend on their athletic scholarship.... The sad thing is that what happens when they get hurt, goodbye $$$$. A few athletes I know going to a school for their athletic scholarship are doing is simply because otherwise they wouldn't be able to afford college and thus not even have a shot at a degree.</p>
<p>This is an exception, but sometimes the scholarships serve to open doors.</p>
<p>Division I Varsity Athletes, I would think, are virtually "owned" by the school. In other words, their primary obligation is to the athletic program, not academics. The majority of athletes can hope that they are recruited into the professional leagues, as that is obviously the most lucrative avenue for them.</p>
<p>Division III recruitment to schools such as HYP is more controversial--for example, at my school someone who regularly skipped class, cheated, and slacked off was admitted to Columbia for athletics. Although the argument can be made that individuals work hard in athletics, these schools are strictly academic and so athletics should be considered secondary to academic prowess.</p>
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I think it's myth that colleges actually benefit, economically, from basketball and football teams. Of course, there are exceptions like Davidson's recent basketball success or Gonzaga becoming a household college due solely to their good basketball team or the Flutie effect for BC in the mid 80's. But I believe most football teams actually cost more money than they generate. I don't feel like looking up stats, but maybe someone else could.
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<p>You must be crazy. You obviously have no clue how much those bowl games that teams go to generate... especially if the team wins. And that's one game out of the year (although the biggest). Not to mention advertising...</p>
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FAIL. Football is a cash cow for major universities (ie Division 1A schools). Revenue from football helps support a wide range of academic and athletic programs that don't make money .
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<p>Actually very few athletic departments give to the academic side of things with the exception of the scholarship dollars. While football may produce a decent amount of money, that money is spent paying for those "non-revenue" sports.</p>
<p>A couple years ago there were only like 19 schools that had their athletic departments operating in the black.</p>
<p>Within reason, who cares what they score? You are talking about a total of perhaps 110 on the football team and another 18 scholarships on a basketball team. Athletics adds to the college experience for many of the non-athletes who attend the university and enjoy the entire aura that surround game days and reading about the game. A few college newspaper sportswriters have probably had future career opportunities from attending the school that let in some low scorers on standardized tests. As for whether the athlete graduates; a little personal responsibility is in order to make best the opportunity that has been presented. </p>
<p>If you are offended by someone who you believe is undeserving than choose a different school to attend, don't donate to the school and boo them when you see them on TV. </p>
<p>On a sidebar, the posting and comments reminded me of a different debate regarding athletics and intelligence: Fortune Magazine ran an article more than 30 years ago that stated even the dumbest offensive starting lineman on a football team must use more thinking than required for any other sport that is played. The author wasn't saying football players are smarter than say a swimmer or a tennis player or a golfer the author was pointing out to play the position requires more thinking to accomplish the task than the others which mainly require repetitive muscle memory or instinct from thousands of hours of practice to perform at peak. Consider the lineman breaking from the huddle: What's the play, what formation are we in, what's the count, what's the audible or automatic, how's the defense aligned, what's my responsibility if they blitz at me, what's my responsibility if they blitz to somewhere else what will my teammate do and what then should I do, gee what did the QB say the count is, whoops different QB for this play, how does that change things? Next play, do it over again with perhaps completely different circumstances.</p>
<p>This happens even in the Ivies...</p>
<p>nothing new here..</p>
<p>To add -</p>
<p>Last year, a guy from my swim team got a swimming scholarship to stanford, and was also accepted to Yale (only non-state schools he applied to) with no other extra curriculars, a 30 on his ACT, and semi-good grades in school. The schools go to extraordinary lengths to mask the massive advantage that they give to athletes in the admissions process.</p>
<p>Ahh. sorry for the TRIPLE post. My computer is being funky</p>
<p>god doesn't give with both hands</p>
<p>well this is an estimate. i know a D1 athlete at my school, which is private by the way, who has damn near a 4.0 and excellent SATs...</p>
<p>It's stuff like this that makes me lose respect for my state schools. Well that and how much the coaches get paid! I heard that Oregon State U was going to give their coach a $100,000 bonus if he beat U of Oregon in one game. That's a real prudent use of the schools budget, especially when it's under funded! Let's not forget about U of O though. They pay their coach a salary in the lower six figures, but also give him an extra $2 million from perks.</p>
<p>Coaches are paid through athletic department funds entirely for state schools (at least UTK is), not by the school's operating budget. No money is coming out of the school to pay for coaches, but the coaches that make good teams (and hence have large salaries) draw money into the university at many of the best state universities and large private universities.</p>
<p>The former president of Harvard wrote a book called something like "the University in the Marketplace" in which he argues that when all costs are included only a handful of athletic programs turn a "profit" for the school. He finds that the lengths colleges go to in recruiting athletes diminishes the quality of the schools and undermines fairness in admissions.</p>
<p>By the way i think that the worst sport in this regard is hockey.</p>
<p>GC Hornet,
The NCAA rules limit D-I colleges/universities to 85 football scholarships. Years ago teams could have 100-110 football players on scholarship. It is now 85 for the entire team. Most of the recruiting classes of D-1 major programs range between 17-25 players per year.</p>
<p>Oh well. People wanna watch sports, so there must be athletes to play the sports. Law of demand and supply.</p>
<p>If they are capable of getting high score on the SAT's but don't have the time to invest in SAT prep then I don't see the problem with it. Recruits are bad since they take places from more qualified students who DID put the time into SAT prep. However, people will pay to watch sports and schools need money operate so they will always allow it....</p>
<p>only 220 lower? im surprised.</p>
<p>Actually only 46% of matriculates nationwide graduate in six years. Therefore "only 51%" or "47%" of a foot ball team graduating in 5 years is not all that bad. </p>
<p>The real problem is why so few students graduate at all.....oh yeah....becuase all the money and assets went to a football players leaving the rest of the students to flail and fail.</p>
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The real problem is why so few students graduate at all.....oh yeah....becuase all the money and assets went to a football players leaving the rest of the students to flail and fail.
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<p>Or maybe because a bunch are Partier-Students and go out 4 nights a week...</p>