<p>^^There was a thread about Maryland and entitled athletes.</p>
<p>McAdoo and the others cannot have athletic scholarships, so the school would have to figure out what kind of scholarship they’d give him. Free tuition? Free everything? How do they fund that and why would just these ex-athletes qualify? How would they qualify and not violate NCAA rules?</p>
<p>I have an issue with a public school having a scholarship funded with public money just for ex-athletes who blew their first chance at an education. I do feel the athletes bear some responsibility for their own education too.</p>
<p>My suggestion for offering the scholarship is in response to the lawsuit. If it is decided that the college is in the wrong, then the result might be a cash payout to the athlete and a proportion of that will go to the lawyer, and potentially thousands of other students suing the college for the same. The end result will be that the current and future students will pay the price for this, years later, because of the financial drain on the college.</p>
<p>But the college never promised the athlete a sum of money, or an education for that matter. All UNC promised was the opportunity for the student to enroll in classes to get that education. In this case, if UNC is proved to be in the wrong, IMHO, all it would be liable for is an opportunity- I agree that it is the student’s responsibility to do the work to get that education. </p>
<p>My suggestion is also based on not knowing the motivation for the lawsuit. Is this about education or is it about money? I don’t know, but offering an education instead of a cash payout would settle that question. </p>
<p>I’m not a lawyer, by the way, or involved with a college or sports at the professional level. This is just my idea and based on the fact that I would be sad to see the college not be able to provide a good education to others if it was financially drained. </p>
<p>The athletic department could gift the money to the general university funds, but cannot earmark that money just for college athletes who washed out or it would have to count those scholarships as athletic scholarships, reducing the number of scholarships for current players. General fund money must be used for all students, cannot be marked just for athletes. If the athletic department could do that then there would actually be no limit on the number of scholarships for each sport. </p>
<p>In the good old days, athletes took money from all kinds of sources, mostly alums and benefactors. Football players had jobs that paid $15/hr when the minimum wage was $2. They took free meals and lived in special dorms and traveled on vacations on private planes owned by alums. Can’t do it anymore. IMO any money at the school that is directly only to athletes or former athletes will be counted against the teams. Even certain outside scholarships that are awarded just for athletic reasons count against the total the team can grant.</p>
<p>Maybe a good penalty would be that the teams would have to count these returning athletes against the total scholarship numbers, reducing current scholarships while the former players complete their degrees. It would be possible to have a pro earning millions to be on scholarship years after he should have graduated. However, this would also punish schools that did everything in their power to legally assist student athletes to graduate on time and the student just didn’t, knowing he could continue to stay in school, full ride, for years.</p>
<p>Private athletic money from boosters could be used to fund scholarships for the athletes that didn’t succeed academically while they played football, just as private money pays for very large merit scholarships for out-of-state students at Alabama.</p>
<p>The Pac 12 conference has announced that its athletic scholarships going forward will include the ability for athletes who did not graduate in four years to return to school to complete their degrees. Expect other power 5 conferences to follow suit. That’s overdue and appropriate.</p>
<p>The biggest scandal in big time college sports (as was laid out in detail in the NWU union case) is that the players spend 40+ hours a week on football. Even if you are a good student, that’s a tough row to hoe.</p>
<p>If you don’t want to pay them, fine. But don’t ask them to work 40 hours a week and also expect them to be students too.</p>
<p>Unless, of course, the 40 hours per week were listed as a 13 credit PE course.</p>
<p>However, consuming that many credits on “PE” would make it hard to complete other requirements for a bachelor’s degree (major requirements, breadth requirements, etc.).</p>
<p>Well, as I pointed out earlier in this thread, UNC has already done this as a result of their new reforms. Any athlete can return at University expense, to finish their degree.</p>
<p>Macadoo’s problem is that he was caught cheating. When UNC self reported the issues, HE was the issue. UNC could not go to a bowl for a while because of this. He is “patient zero,” here.</p>
<p>A woman in the compliance office called about the problems with McAdoo. It’s ridiculous that he is suing. He is one of the few actual outright cheaters, in addition to the rest of it.</p>
<p>“The Pac 12 conference has announced that its athletic scholarships going forward will include the ability for athletes who did not graduate in four years to return to school to complete their degrees.” </p>
<p>I would like to know how this is not considered a benefit given to athletes and not given to other students. Under NCAA rules, they can’t give athletes benefits not available to all students, and to me this would be a benefit in violation of NCAA rules, no different than giving them a check at the end of their 4 years. “You are done with your playing time, but you can keep going to school for free, and you don’t even have an obligation to follow any rules anymore. You can now accept gifts and go part time and don’t have to answer to coaches.”</p>
<p>Of course, the deal may only be for players who followed all the rules, remained NCAA eligible for all 4 years, took a full course load, and are therefore only a few credits short of graduation. I doubt the offer is good for students who flunked out, who left early to go pro, who have 4 years of courses to make up.</p>
<p>The NCAA rules are arbitrary and came about originally because the schools wanted to keep the students amateur because they were afraid of being liable in case of injuries. Really, that’s why they started. originally, football players for the Ivies and others were actually paid to play.</p>
<p>the NCAA rules also came about before professional athletes were paid so well and before there were these massive TV deals. The college revenue sports have become massive business and everybody has benefitted from this but the students. Almost everyone involved in this business, and it is a business, is making an obscene amount of money. Additionally, these revenue sports at the top schools pay for the entire athletic department. </p>
<p>The athletic scholarships are paid for by boosters. They are not part of the school expense.</p>
<p>People are making millions of dollars in this business. The NCAA is mostly interested, at this point, in keeping the amateur model so that the adults can continue to make all this money off of these kids for these years. The NFL gets a free farm system, the kids have to play there if they want to play pro ball, and the NCAA will change the rules as they see fit. To keep from having to pay the revenue athletes, where even the least valuable player on a top team is worth 120K a year, fair market value, they will allow these athletes to return to school to finish.</p>
<p>I know people think the NCAA is somehow about making sure only students play sports, but that’s got nothing to do with it at all.</p>
<p>“I would like to know how this is not considered a benefit given to athletes and not given to other students.”</p>
<p>A few months ago the NCAA schools voted to give the power 5 conference schools “autonomy.” Which means they can make up certain new rules that just apply to them. The enhanced scholarships being put forth by the Pac 12 and B10 are being done under the autonomy authorization. 4 year guarantees, stipends, enhanced health insurance, being able to return to complete your degree, etc. </p>
<p>The power 5 schools (who have the big revenue) know that they have to sweeten the deal be given to their athletes. They were being held back from doing so by the non-power division 1 schools. The power 5 threatened to bolt the NCAA, which convinced the non-power schools to let the power 5 proceed on their own.</p>
<p>To return, I believe the Pac 12 requires the kids to have completed 50% of their degree requirements.</p>
<p>" Athletic scholarships will be guaranteed for four years for student-athletes in all sports.
Student-athletes who leave school before graduating will be able to use the remainder of their educational expenses later to earn their degrees."</p>
<p>This doesn’t mean that the athlete will get the full tuition paid, only that if they have a 4 year scholarship and have completed at least 50% of a degree, they can use the remaining scholarship money to continue their education. What often happens now in non headcount sports (and the vast majority of scholarships aren’t full scholarships) is that freshmen get a small scholarship and the amount goes up with good performance, commitment to continue. Now that there can be 4 year scholarships, the math will only work if everyone gets a small freshman scholarship. If the coach has 12 full scholarships to split among 36 players, does everyone get 1/3? Right now usually not, as some seniors will get a full scholarship and some freshmen will get 1/10th (and some none at all). Can the scholarship amount increase each year on the 4 year scholarships, guaranteed? I think so but I’m not familiar with the rules for the 4 years, only with the 1+1+1+1 scholarships. Our coach told us DD scholarship would not go down if she remained eligible and ‘showed effort’, and that it might go up, but that’s just an oral promise. If a player leaves after two years, does her scholarship money get redistributed or just put in a fund for her to use later? If it gets put in a fund and the coach can’t re-award that amount, that is really going to limit the coach’s recruiting as she might have 10 or so students on scholarships who aren’t playing. She still needs 30+ players, so now she might be down to 8 of the 12 scholarships to split among them. I had one coach tell me she doesn’t give scholarship to freshmen because you can’t depend on them even finishing the first year. </p>
<p>Athletes who study hard for 4 years but come up short for graduation have used up their scholarship funds, so they are SOL but someone who dropped out after 2 years could return and have a good chunk of money available for tuition without having to play for the school anymore? That doesn’t seem right to me. Tiger Woods could go back to Stanford and finish and not pay? Does another golfer have to get less in scholarship so Tiger can finish?</p>
<p>“However, consuming that many credits on “PE” would make it hard to complete other requirements for a bachelor’s degree (major requirements, breadth requirements, etc.).” </p>
<p>You should read the NLRB decision in the Northwestern unionization case. The NW football players routinely work 40-50 hours per week on football. Despite the NCAA rule (which is like swiss cheese) that you are limited to just 20 hours per week on your sport. </p>
<p>Classes come on top of that. If you’re not going to pay them, then you shouldn’t be able to work them like that. No surprise they have a tough time keeping up in class.</p>
<p>Until about 2 years ago, NCAA rules prohibited athletic schollies from being more than one year. Sleezy, patently illegal and heinous. Considering that all schools routinely guarantee academic schollies for 4 years.</p>
<p>Given the legal butt-kicking that the NCAA has been receiving, they reversed the rule to permit (but not require) multi-year schollies. Now the power conferences are doing the right thing (finally) saying they will require 4 year guarantees.</p>
<p>FYI, this is all about full ride athletes – football, mens hoops, womens hoops. All this stuff has limited impact in the world of shared partial schollies and non-revenue sports. Its apples/oranges. </p>
<p>No idea if the power 5 conferences will/will not apply these new enhanced schollie rules to non-rev partial schollie sports. Up to them if they want to pay a 1/10th stipend to a 1/10th cross country runner or not. </p>
<p>How I read it was that ALL PAC 12 scholarships would be 4 years, even the equivalents. Definitely easier to grant a head count for 4 years because there is nothing to negotiate - it’s all or nothing. Still doesn’t seem right that the athlete can chose to leave after 2 years and come back whenever s/he wants to finish, gets the benefits, doesn’t have to play. </p>
<p>If it is all sports, all 4 years, I see those 4 year awards being very small, and then the coach giving more money for junior and senior years. Nothing changed.</p>
<p>I still see no way around calling these athletic scholarships which are limited by NCAA rule. If some former football player comes back and is ‘using’ his scholarship, that is one less for the on field team.</p>
<p>A few years ago there was an athlete on a full hockey scholarship to DU. It was discovered that he had a heart problem and couldn’t play hockey anymore. The coach agreed to not only honor the scholarship for that year but for all 4 years (this was before 4 year scholarships were allowed, but it was understood that the scholarships were renewable). It remained an athletic scholarship and went against his total. The NCAA allow DU an additional scholarship for those remaining years, but it didn’t have to.</p>
<p>I don’t see how this is any different. If a football team has 85 scholarships, and 5 are being used by athletes not on the active team, it should have 80 left to award. If 60 of those are under 4 year contract already, well then there are 20 for the new freshmen. I don’t see the big schools agreeing to that. Non-scholarship players, who are currently often awarded a scholarship after freshman year, would never get one because they’ d all be needed for freshmen and all committed for 4 years.</p>
<p>2 and Done – the power 5 can now make their own rules. Consider them to be a division all by themselves. Division 1+</p>
<p>If they want to award unlimited scholarships to former athletes who now longer play or who have no more eligibility left, the D1+ schools can vote to do that.</p>
<p>If the D1+ schools want to pay stipends, they can vote to do that.</p>
<p>The D1 schools are not required to do those things. But they can opt in if they want to. </p>