<p>California, I am glad you agree that these kids are treated as “consumable items”.</p>
<p>Young attorneys are getting paid for the hours they work. They are much older than a 16 or 17 year recruited high school STUDENT. Please do not compare the two, it is not a fair comparison. </p>
<p>If the NCAA really cared about these students, academics would come first. Bowl games would not exist because these games pull the players out of the classroom.</p>
<p>“If the NCAA really cared about these students, academics would come first.” - WHY? Why do you think that these athletes are looking for academics, in the first place? Many of them are looking for a chance to be recruited as a pro and make money :)</p>
<p>“Young attorneys are getting paid for the hours they work.” - They are paid far less than they deserve.
Look at medical interns. They are paid pennies, and work a lot!
Look at the PostDocs (sometimes 80 hours per week, hazardous conditions, radiation, chemical waste, ridiculously low pay).
Look at young actresses at Hollywood that are ready to take any role - any role - even for free - for a chance to become famous (and they are rumored to be sometimes engaged in questionable relationship to recruited).</p>
<p>“are much older than a 16 or 17 year recruited high school STUDENT.” </p>
<p>What is about the kids that are signing for military? They are recruited right from high schools. Low wages. Dangerous jobs. No chance of making millions in a year. </p>
<p>Life in the military is far more restricted than a life of student athlete on campus in Ivy League. No hot girls, no parties. No possibility to drop out, at any moment. </p>
<p>I understand that often recruited football players are getting into colleges that they are not prepared for – through no fault of their own, if their inner city high school was inadequate.</p>
<p>But for all the help and free passes they are given, shouldn’t some of the responsibility lie on these 18-24 yr old players? They get how the world works. They understand they are one injury away from not playing; they understand the odds of getting into the NFL; and many of them know they don’t want to go back to the neighborhoods they came from. Yet shouldn’t THEY be the ones who at least choose an employable major? </p>
<p>And yet I was looking at the bio of a Penn State player who was majoring in Parks, Recreation & Tourism – really!? Even if you want to be in the hospitality industry, isn’t something like business management, finance, or marketing better? Or is it that you can slide by in a Parks major and devote all your time to football and partying, whereas finance may require you to crack a book, work with tutors to catch up etc.</p>
<p>I also understand that they work really hard at their sport and there are a lot of mandatory practices, sessions etc. but what about the off season? While you’re doing spring practices with no games looming, can’t you use that semester to focus on school and make up for the lack of time in the fall?</p>
<p>I feel like a lot of them do a lot of lip service to how blessed they are to go to college and how football was just their ticket in, but once they have that ticket they realize that football, traveling, press conferences etc. are the more “fun” part of college, so they let the academics slide more than necessary. </p>
<p>There was a recent article about an ex NFL player who started a coaching program to work with college football players to “prep” them for the real world – interview prep; resume writing; thinking about internships and long term career goals. He had to fold that business because while universities were willing to pay him to speak, the football players just would not attend the sessions because they had the mindset of – I’ll deal with that when I graduate, right now I’m worrying about the NFL.</p>
<p>I agree the military option is worse. I am not sure how that justifies treating these young recruits like “consumable items” okay. It is the wealthy powerful establishment taking advantage of the poor. You can defend it all you like you will not change my feelings on the subject.</p>
<p>“It is the wealthy powerful establishment taking advantage of the poor.”</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If it would be a <em>low-income</em> establishment taking advantage of the poor, would you feel better?</p></li>
<li><p>If it would be a <em>wealthy</em> establishment taking advantage of the <em>rich kids</em>, would you feel better?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>“I also understand that they work really hard at their sport and there are a lot of mandatory practices, sessions etc. but what about the off season? While you’re doing spring practices with no games looming, can’t you use that semester to focus on school and make up for the lack of time in the fall?”</p>
<p>Why do you assume they are not? In aggregate, they are graduating at a higher rate (often a far higher rate) than folks of the same race and income class attending the school, and this is despite their often poor preparation. </p>
<p>“And yet I was looking at the bio of a Penn State player who was majoring in Parks, Recreation & Tourism – really!? Even if you want to be in the hospitality industry, isn’t something like business management, finance, or marketing better?”</p>
<p>Yeah, like Cornell doesn’t have an entire school for hotel management. </p>
<p>I don’t want you to think I am defending football - I’m not. And as long as we have high school and college football, I think the schools should be required to buy a LIFETIME disability policy for every student who participates. But, for so many, it is a way out, and it WORKS.</p>
<p>PSU also has a football player who had a full ride offer to Stanford for graduate study in math. But he was loyal to PSU and stayed another year post grad.</p>
<p>The first bowl game is this Saturday. Most schools ended classes weeks ago. Most of the bowls will be played before classes start again. There are many reasons even “money losing” bowls have value to the school/team. If you dont know them you dont know anything about college football.</p>