I’m curious to hear what some of you think about this exercise in opening the doors to the sausage factory, via a former Purdue football player. His conclusion after four years on scholarship:
People will probably ask me what the solution is and I don’t have the answer. Current players can discuss compensation, nameless marketing, coaching ethics, schedules, useless degrees, etc… Former athletes could discuss post-graduate education, company partnerships, and resources to find careers. The possibilities are endless but the first thing is acknowledgment. If I knew what I know now, that Engineering degree looks a lot better.
He wanted an education, but wound up getting a job. That’s what he signed up for, right?
Get The Picture 
I graduated from UGA in ’79, so I’m an old fart. The football and basketball players back then only really focused on sports during the season. The rest of the year they were pretty normal students.
Today it’s 24/7/365. And that’s for all the sports. A friend’s daughter was on the golf team. She hardly ever had a day off. Another friends son has been a walk on for football for four years. So it’s real life.
So like this young man, i don’t have an answer. But there is no doubt that it’s a job. And UGA (and the others) are benefiting at the expense of the athletes.
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Having played back in the day, Coach Dooley pushed us to be the best we could on the field & in the classroom. I had numerous teammates in Terry College w/ me earning our BBA’s. I also got to take a non-business major w/ Coach Dooley who was auditing the class as part of his desire to be well-rounded. He walked the walk so to speak.
That’s not to say we didn’t have plenty of football related activities during winter & spring quarters (yes, I’m old too), but we were able to balance our life. We also had McWhorter Hall for our dorms allowing a short walk to B-M versus having to commute from East Campus Village or an apartment.
While there may be some scheduling challenges, the coaches should allow the student athletes to choose their degree & work w/ them to attain it. To push the athletes into useless majors is a disservice & doesn’t prepare them for life after sports.
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What’s interesting about that is kids now are doing the same thing in HS. Their life becomes their sport in hopes of getting a scholarship or some day going pro. When you talk to parents with kids that are good enough to play at a higher level inevitably they hope their kid can get an opportunity/scholarship to play at the next level, no matter what the sport is. It actually starts in elementary school- the camps, club sports, on and on. It’s a business now
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Very true. With the cost of college now a days, I would probably hope my kid got a scholarship if she had the skills. The problem is that a parent banks on that scholarship and then the kid feels obligated to go to a school offering a scholarship rather than the school he or she really wants to attend to study in the field of choice.
College athletics provide a ton of educational opportunities for those who may not be able to afford it.
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Just tie her success in sports (or academic) to your love. That will motivate her!. I keed, I keed.
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it’s disgusting. My cousin’s overbearing wife who was on the dance team at her college (ie no scholarship) has their 2 daughters doing all this insane traveling to dance competitions. All at a price they can’t even afford and the adults have no life outside of it as well. Nothing will come of it all either.
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I’ve told the story before of my wife, who back in the mid ’00’s worked in career placement with many soon-to-be and recent UGA athletes (grads and non-grads alike), and the stories she shared with me regarding quite a number of the football players were downright sad.
Also, my niece is a current T&F athlete at a well-regarded ACC school academically, and she has been pressured to give up her intended major of study (biology) for something less rigorous that won’t demand so much of her time. Both her coach and guidance councilor (sic) pressured her on more than one occasion not to pursue something as hard as biology, even though she was a 3.8 GPA student in HS and thus far has a similar college GPA.
Now if a female athlete competing in a low profile sport at a relatively low profile athletic program (but strong academic institution) is being guided away from specific majors and towards easier ones instead, then I can only imagine how football and basketball players are being pressured. Yet, the NCAA continues to champion this whole free education nonsense, which more and more is a farce.
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Really good article, and quite the reminder of how things work in-house. I once spent some time talking to a few players who were moonlighting for a catering service at a summer wedding. They talked about those 18 hour days as well. I came away with this thought. If the current no-pay model continues, theses institutuons should at least offer them training on a TRADE instead of these useless degrees.
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Maybe life time scholarships would help. At least then the “do it for the degree crowd” might have a point. The current model of a 1 year scholarship just flies in the face that it is all about the student athlete. There are so many holes in the NCAA propaganda bucket that I am surprised that anyone can find any water in it at all.
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That is the best idea. Let them take as many classes as they want as long as they want (as long as they use their eligibility). It seems like most kids these days go to college for 5-6 years. Most of the athletes are already starting below the average academically. They should only take a couple classes during the sports season (and have their summers for work?). They need more than 4 years to get a quality degree.
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Classes are generally 3 credit hours. Full time is 12 hours, but most students do 15, which amounts to 5 classes. That is 30 semester hours a year, unless you are lucky enough to get a summer class here or there. That equals 120 hours in 4 years, give or take a few. The last time I looked, most degrees take 130+ hours, so there is your extra semester….and that is if everything lines up perfect….which seldom happens. Four year degrees flew out the window with the quarter system apparently, but I never did quarters and don’t know much about that system.
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It’s been a while since I attended college (although I did finish my online degree last year) and most degree programs I saw required exactly 120 hours to complete. I thought it was lined up that way intentionally so that if you took 15 hours per semester as you described you’d get your degree in 4 years.
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There’s a lot of hard, honest truth in that article. More young men need to tell their stories as well. The players are the only aspect of the ‘amateur’ system actually required to be amateurs and they’re far worse off for it. As much as I hate to say it, we the fans are culpable too. We don’t demand that the NCAA and our schools treat players honestly or humanely. I know I’m in the minority here, but I believe the system, at least as currently configured, could come crashing down pretty quickly thanks to issues surrounding concussions and player health and safety. Maybe not. But the potential is there and ignoring it, which is the preferred strategy, won’t help.
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This article is sobering. Over the next 3 weeks, the NCAA is going to seek the romanticism of amateurism with the student-athlete who is majoring in something other than sports. Remember this article when you see that drivel from Emmert and his merry band of hypocrites.
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http://www.nfl.com/photoessays/0ap3000000496661
Its amazing that it seems to have worked out for these guys.
Reading the story, it just seems like he was talked out of his dream. I know that never happens in the real world. Didn’t they also put a limit on practice times and things like that?
I have said in a previous post that I’m against paying players. While that still hold true in a sense, I would agree that they deserve more than the current stipend.
However, this woe is me stuff is really getting old.
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Fake news! Cupcake!
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Sure it is snowflake. Go back to your safe place.
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They limit the amount of time for mandantory practices. Its a year round job. Don’t want to do summer workouts? Fine, lose that scholarship! Kids can be cut from their scholarship and the scholly is for one year at a time. The players are getting a raw deal. The market forces will prove that once the players get a market that is more free.
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I ask again, how do these other kids do it? The kids today have so many resources at their disposal.
Is being a college athlete easy? No! I will be tye first one to admit that. Do you have a lot of time during the day to concentrate on anything but your sport or school work? No! But don’t give me a story about a disgruntled player who it didn’t work out for and not rebutt that with stories of players for who it did work out. Its almost like CNN around here.
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Here’s one it worked out for but not without the holier-than-thou AD and the NCAA taking away what would have likely been a Heisman Trophy for trading on his name while in school.
http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/college/article10058831.html
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I’m not totally sure about the direction you are going with this. I’m going to assume that you are upset about Gurley being suspended. He broke a rule. Do I agree with the rule? No. But he knowingly broke it. How many laws do you know of that you disagree with? Does this give you the right to ignore them and not expect to be punished? I’m not saying the current system is perfect and doesn’t need some revamping. I’m just sick and tired of this “woe is me” bitching.
With the availability of everything on the internet these days, there is no reason for ANY recruit to sign anything without full knowledge. If a kid is in it more for the education than the game, then why don’t they sign with Harvard, Yale, or some school along that line rather than with Bama or UGA?
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You said come up with someone who it worked out for … I did. TG3II parlayed his football prowess and how it developed in college into a lucrative career. Good for him – he’s a DGD. I’m also not blind to the fact that many men and women (like the guy in the article) who play college sports are pushed into majors that are designed to keep them eligible and available to participate in the sport rather than to prepare them for a future career outside of their sport.
I also used Gurley to demonstrate the absolute hypocrisy that is rampant in the system in the rules and the enforcement of the rules I vehemently disagree with (see Manziel, Johnny; Newton, $cam; and Winston, Jameis for a few examples). He came from a family that didn’t have two dimes to rub together. As people were making money off their “Free Gurley” t-shirts and the bookstore was selling #3 jerseys like crazy, he gets punished for what everyone else is doing … making money off his name and likeness.
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Cool, i understand your response now. And you are right about other people making money off of him. Again, i dont agree with the rule, i’m just saying that he knowingly broke it. As a semi comparable example —- My son interned for a company for almost a year while he was in college. He would go to school from 8-12 everyday and then intern for them from 2-7ish in the evenings. He got paid $200 a week. In reality, college football is like an Internship (on steroids). A lot of kids go there in hopes of being drafted. The smart ones get an education also.
You are spot with your comment about him being a DGD. As well as his family not having much money. Fortunately, it has worked out well for him.
As for being steered away from a degree choice. I’m sure it happens all the time. Sometimes because the coaches want it (TOTALLY WRONG) and sometimes because people see that the athlete just doesnt have the ability to pass. Not everyone can take a full load for a chemistry major and still play. And no matter how you cut it, their scholarship is for athletics.
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Is that you Sean?
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Well by God if it worked out for 15 people (10 of them white) then that proves there is no issue at all. End of story.
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Your sarcasm is duly noted. But what I really liked was the way you subtly threw race in there. But thats the typical M.O. of people who know they don’t belong in a discussion or argument. Are there other examples? I’m sure there are since THOUSANDS of college athletes graduate every year. Let me slow it down for you. My point, which obviously is way over your head, is that it can, and does, happen. If someone wants it bad enough they will not fold to pressure and will do what it takes to achieve their dream.
Now if you don’t mind I would like to quote a saying I recently read “End of story.”
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Totally, that’s why everyone can be president right? Forgive me it I came of subtly my intent was overt. Race is always a factor and always has been in this country. The only people that don’t understand that are white people (mostly over 50 for some reason) who rarely if ever face any true racial opposition. But as long as you’re sure there are more examples then that’s plenty good enough for me. Nothing to see here folks. Keep it moving.
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Forgive me if I came off subtly*
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If anyone doubted you were an idiot and racist before, the kimona is wide open now. I am sorry for the brain damage you have incurred, but it is no excuse to slobber on everyone with your stupid BS. Whites are dumb is doing a great job of opening the doors, you regressive folks have driven the divide to where blacks are worse off than before. Way to seize the opportunity by following really selfish leadership. Pathetic what has happened in the last half century. No one can make America great again, this division will only continue to get worse. Fucking imbecile.
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Good thing you didn’t give a typical white guy answer. You seem like a low energy kind of guy. Do you really think things are worse for black people now than they were 50 years ago? I guess it’s my fault for pointing out how things actually are. My bad dude.
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LMAO, This isnt the 50s or 60s anymore. The only people who see race as an problem are those that are looking for an excuse for failure. Normally those below the age of 40 who have a sense of entitlement. You know, the “I’m owed everything and don’t want to work for it” generation.
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I’m just acknowledging that I had a leg up being born a white dude.
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“If I knew what I know now, that Engineering degree looks a lot better.”
Ain’t that the truth.
Signed,
A History major
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Keep your head up, buddy. History as an undergrad is a perfect springboard into a law degree that will prepare you for a lifetime of sports blogging. 🙂
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Yeah, but that engineering degree AND that law degree….
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🙂
One of my engineering professors was also a lawyer. He preferred engineering because there was no debate over what the right answer was. He was an interesting chap.
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HA! So true.
I try to talk to my kids about getting an engineering degree or going in that direction, but you can’t really push a string uphill.
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Like much in life, there is no perfect solution.
On one end, College football could return to it’s original form. High school football pretty much draws players from the existing student body (yes, there are schools that offer scholarships, and schools that get prime players somehow moved into their districts, but aside from that) in each particular school. They are students that try out for the team.
That ain’t happening to college football because none of us is that much of a purist and besides, it wouldn’t work because of cheating. The desire to win at all costs is what morphed into the invention of athletic scholarships, paying players (under the table), lower entrance requirements for athletes, cheating scandals etc..and here we are with the NCAA supposedly enforcing all the regulations and laws opposed to those institutions that are dedicated to skirting them. And the beat goes on. Soon there will be Law School programs on how to beat the NCAA.
If college sports did return to the original model there would be an immediate creation of a pro-minor league. These talented kids are going to play somewhere and the pros need it. If it can’t be college football, they’ll invent a farm league.
But the TV money would be all but gone. Nobody watches minor league sports. Not on TV. The failed alternatives to the NFL show that people aren’t interested in a sub-NFL league. TV would never let it happen.
The other end, (reality) leaves us with fixing the model we have; Major colleges as the NFL farm league.
So who is to pay the players? Who pays the players in the Baseball farm leagues? The NFL needs to pay them, that’s who. And what of the kids that don’t make it to the NFL? Same thing that happens to kids that don’t work out in farm leagues…you pay them until you don’t need them anymore. In college, you pay them until they graduate or leave the team on their own.
How much to pay therm? Minimum wage is a good starting point., with a small raise for every year they stay in the program.
Same pay for all .
Where Oh Where will the NFL get the $$? LOL..they’ll come up with it because it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than running their own farm.
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I think the high school model might actually work and would force the NFL’s hand on the developmental league. Make college athletes have to be actual college students first. Once there was no college audition for the best players, the NFL would have no choice but to create some sort of farm league. The farm league wouldn’t make any/much money, just like minor league baseball doesn’t. The NFL would have to accept the cost of their farm league as a cost of doing business like MLB does with its minor leagues.
To keep the playing field as level as possible, the NCAA should mandate that the entrance requirements for scholarship athletes be equal to the average of the incoming freshman classes of all the schools in the P5 conferences. This would help the Georgia’s and Vandy’s and punish the Auburn’s and prevent a college from deciding to become “Football U” by dropping entrance requirements. Measured with a stopwatch, the quality of play would go down but since the rules would be applied to every program, the relative competition would be about the same and the product on the field would be as entertaining as it is today.
Making athletes have to be legitimate college students would go a very long ways towards solving almost all the problems surrounding the “pay the players” issue. I think the TV revenue for college sports would not be too adversely impacted. Most college fans are fans of a school not fans of a player. Those who want to see paid players could watch the farm system games.
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I’d watch that. I like the idea of tying player admissions to the avearge school admission.
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You basically just described the club sports. They don’t draw crowds last I checked.
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There has been in big time college athletics what we used to refer to during the Vietnam War as mission creep. I graduated in 1969 from UGA and the relationship between most of the players and the student body was somewhat normal. There was the exception like Jake Scott who was somewhat wacko. These guys did not train 18 hours a day. Hell they had time to have “second jobs”. Most of them got to go home for the summer and get summer jobs, except for the pig stealers. I used to talk to a lineman who work the evening shift at a convenience store near the University apartments on Baxter. He was always joking about giving his kids golf clubs so they could be on scholarship in golf. The job requirements got harder in direct proportion to the rate at which the pay for coaches and AD’s got higher. When you are making $30,000 a year coaching kids then it was a job but when you are making $3,000,000 you will do most anything to keep the career.
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It was still that way in 1983 when I graduated. I knew players and saw them out in Athens and everyone went home for the summer. A few players were in fraternities and more than a few lived in apartments off campus with other regular students.
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It’s not like these athletes’ lives are over and there’s no chance to earn an engineering degree the same way the other 99% earns theirs.
Wah, wah, wah. The man stole my youth.
These guys are chasing a dream and listening to adults who are fully invested in the dream. Suckers.
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For me this is just more evidence that all Student Athletes should have to meet the same entrance requirements as every other student at that given institution.
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That’s a good idea in theory, but you would see every school go “test optional” like a number of colleges and universities have already. Test scores and GPAs would govern NCAA eligibility only. College admissions appears to be an art rather than science. I still don’t think this gets to the point that the author of the article was making. It sounds like the Purdue guy wanted and had the ability to major in engineering, but the athletic department wouldn’t allow him to due to his athletic commitments.
Are you willing to have the Georgia football recruits meet the admissions requirements of the broader university? If so, you will likely be seeing some bad football played because a lot of these guys wouldn’t be admitted on their academic record alone. 90,000 people aren’t going to show up and millions aren’t going to tune in to watch what amounts to club-level football on Saturdays.
Just my $.02.
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“It sounds like the Purdue guy wanted and had the ability to major in engineering, but the athletic department wouldn’t allow him to due to his athletic commitments.” Maybe. I took it that they didn’t think HE could do it. I mean there are a good many guys that play football and get an Engineering degree.
“Are you willing to have the Georgia football recruits meet the admissions requirements of the broader university?”
Absolutely. I think it is fair to require that they meet the minimum requirements of all of the other incoming freshmen of that given class.
“If so, you will likely be seeing some bad football played because a lot of these guys wouldn’t be admitted on their academic record alone. 90,000 people aren’t going to show up and millions aren’t going to tune in to watch what amounts to club-level football on Saturdays.” Stanford seems to do ok. I suspect if every school had to live by those same standards the “drop” if any would be proportional. Remember the coaches use those admission requirements and GPA as a selling feature in recruiting.
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I can tell you that Stanford bends its standards for some athletes.
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On one side of the coin you have the athletes that would not get into school but for their football ability. They are at school to play football.
On the other side of the coin are athletes who have no aspirations of playing professional sports but have the ability and desire to play in college. There is no way I want him holding a 50 hour a week (or more) job to play a D1 sport that would in turn impact his academic performance.
So the end result is that the true student-athlete has to choose between academics or athletics. Or just play club sports. If the schools require all athletes to meet the admission requirements of the other students at that school, I think the problem is solved.
The money has morphed college athletics into something that is in many ways unfair to the athlete and the student. The D1 football player is likely at an academic institution where he has little chance to succeed academically even if he had all the time in the world to study. The true student who is an excellent athlete and wants to play for his school has little chance to achieve that goal either.
None of this stopped me from screaming my lungs out for Nick, Sony, Lorenzo, Roquan, Davin, Javon, Dominick, and Isaiah.
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He should have pursued the engineering degree when he had the gift to do so. I had a similar schedule except I wasn’t playing a game, I had to work.
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But he would have had to take calculus or he would never have been a hell of an engineer.
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“I’ve seen players transfer and careers go to hell because they couldn’t take the scolding that would follow.”
Players should definitely get paid, but this seems a little soft.
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Say that when you sacrifice the amount of time and effort that they do, sometimes doing serious harm to their bodies, while being limited academically and given very little money.
All of a sudden the constant ass chewings by middle aged guys making their livings and getting rich off your back don’t seem so tolerable. Frankly, I don’t know how most of these kids put up with that shit.
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Whether or not there is somebody making money has nothing to do with being able to take a good old fashioned ass chewing. I was a college athlete, and I’ve dealt with plenty of coaches. I still work in college athletics, and I can tell you that kids have become really soft.
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It has a ton to do with it. If the kid knows the ass chewer is making a lot of money doing it while the kid is making jack shit sacrificing his body and his education, you better damn well believe that is going to wear on him.
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Most kids likely wouldn’t be able to generate more than the value of a full scholarship on the open market so you’re only talking about a select few money players. Plus, a lot of college athletes don’t think that way. They’re too busy being soft and playing on instagram to think about the economics of college athletics.
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I disagree. If schools could acquire players the way they acquire coaches, most kids would generate more than the “value” of their scholarship.
And is the scholarship valued correctly if the kids are pushed into majors that aren’t worth a damn and made to work full time for the athletic department instead of being able to focus more on academics?
But anyway, that’s a hell of an argument you’ve got there. The kids should take the ass chewings because, in your opinion, they don’t know any better.
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The kids should take an ass chewing because an ass chewing never hurt anybody, and if you’re mentally tough it won’t bother you. That’s my point. The value of the scholarship is the cost of tuition regardless of major. Now I’m starting to question your understand of economics lol.
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If it’s not worth the time and effort and putting up with being yelled at by a middle aged guy (God forbid they get a job and a boss isn’t pleased with their performance) maybe they shouldn’t accept the scholarship and should take out a loan to get that engineering degree. They could get a job and have more money and not have to put up with all the terrible things required of scholarship athletes.
The pussy kids of today would bitch if they were hung with a new rope.
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That’s rich coming from someone who constantly bitches about people continuing to donate and buy season tickets because he thinks the Hartman Fund is a scam.
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I guess there is some connection between my comment and “donating” to the Hartman extortion fund but I really can’t figure out what it is. I didn’t say the kid should donate to the Hartman fund to buy tickets. I said he should get a student loan like millions of other kids do if his real passion is engineering and the life of a scholarship athlete is so bad that his college years were miserable.
I guess you’ve been waiting to say something about my stance on the forced donations and this was the first comment of mine you saw. Carry on.
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