College Football Scholarships

I want to go off subject a little and talk about the college student athlete situation. I don't think the facts are very clearly stated. Now we are only talking about the NCAA. Each level you go down the ladder of the D1, D1AA, D2, and D3 (haven't learned what I'm still calling the new names) the less scholarships awarded. At the D3 level there are 0 scholarships awarded to student athletes. Now lets not kid with ourselves the money is at the D1 level and that is where people have a problem. These kids sign contracts (national letters of intent) that are one year contracts. There are programs where they honor your contract for 4 years irregardless that it is a one year contract, but there are also the other programs that are cutthroat (SEC football programs). I think a prime examples is the kid in the movie Hoop Dreams that goes to Marquette and because of off the court issues he couldn't play basketball anymore. Marquette continually renewed his scholarship. Now there are also over signing football schools that don't have the ability to renew some scholarships.

Now I side with the NCAA on the current subject. It is hard not to write biased and that is I feel I should state who I side with right away. Now people feel that these college athletes are being exploited. There is a millions of dollars to be made by the NCAA and it is based on the athletes performing. Now the other side of that is that they are receiving scholarships that help them make the big bucks. There have been accusations against that student athletes are forced to choose easier majors to stay eligible. I am still young and probably don't know better, but I consider kind of that early manhood. You need to start making decisions on your own with others influences. There is going to people that steer you in the wrong direction and the right direction in the real world. I know how impressionable college students are, but if you want to be a doctor and your capable of it then do it. Now if you aren't capable of it, coaches might be doing you a favor. Lets also be honest with ourselves some of these athletes are going to make it the pros and just to point out the obvious, the athletes that are going to make the big bucks at the next level is where the money is at in college athletics.

This is my argument. Public colleges have to abide by government laws. You can't say that these athletes are being exploited and believe in Title IX. Why? because of Title IX the students are paying full tuition are paying for womens sports. If you start paying college athletes, it will become so much harder for the underdog. You think every schools alumni bases is the same. One school has Nike backing them up. I agree that the underdog argument shouldn't be considered, as your talking about fairness to the athletes. My point I am trying to get to is the colleges as a whole really don't make money. Without subsidies 14 schools turn a profit. With subsidies that number jumps up to 60. I attend a school that all athletic events are free to students. It probably makes sense for them to do that because they can at least get money off the concessions stands and a good team will bring in season ticket holders. Who knows if fans really help a team be a good team, but no recruit likes seeing a bunch of empty seats on a visit. Here's my point, how is my university suppose to compete athletically with the 14 schools that are actually making money. We're not making money on football here. You have schools like Florida that are bringing in bank on football just to even out the losses across the board. The way Title IX is setup is based on scholarship for scholarship and football takes up a lot of scholarships, but that is where the money is at. Personally if you want to pay the athletes then let the colleges run it like a business and not have to make up programs for woman. I think women athletes should be allowed to play in the men's if they are good enough.

My reason for agreeing with the NCAA really boils down to the contract and options. They are signing a contract and they know what they are getting out of it. If it is a bad deal don't sign the contract. If you want to go pro, the NCAA tends to give scouts a good look at you. If you don't well I'm paying for full tuition and apparently think it is worth it. Here's the kicker, nobody is forcing these kids to sign the contracts. They do have options. As I recall there is more than one place to play a sport after high school. Some kids are going over to Europe to play basketball and then coming back and entering the draft. I have to say that football is definitely different, but there is still options out there. If people are signing there national letter of intent, they must apparently believe it is the best deal for them. If you want to pay the athletes then I think you should agree that this should be looked at as a business decision. From a business standpoint, if your offering the best deal to 99.99% of the people why would you just offer them more. Football is really where the money is at and it is going to get costly and then how are you going to abide by Title IX? Especially when football's profits are paying for every other sport on most campuses. Football doesn't bring in jack here, so we really can't compete.