Why Sports Scholarships Should be Done Away with Entirely

[Waffles731]

Sports Scholarships simply should not exist. The fact is that they provide opportunities to the wrong people. It honestly shouldn't fucking matter if you are good at football or baseball or shit, I mean so what, you can play a game well. You know I beat all the Arkham Asylum games on new game plus where there is no counter indication. So why should someone get a scholarship for being able to run a ball across a field well in a game when I'm good at video games. The only difference is the kind of game played. Thats what they are being given a scholarship for, the ability to play a game.

Then you have the fact that some universities are perfectly willing to fudge a sports players grades if it will help them play better.

https://www.BBC.com/news/blogs-echochambers-26824892

This is an actual paper turned in by a university of North Carolina athlete and yes it is in its entirety here,

-On the evening of December Rosa Parks decided that she was going to sit in the white people section on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. During this time blacks had to give up there seats to whites when more whites got on the bus. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. Her and the bus driver began to talk and the conversation went like this. "Let me have those front seats" said the driver. She didn't get up and told the driver that she was tired of giving her seat to white people. "I'm going to have you arrested," said the driver. "You may do that," Rosa Parks responded. Two white policemen came in and Rosa Parks asked them "why do you all push us around?" The police officer replied and said "I don't know, but the law is the law and you're under arrest.

You know what he was given, AN A MINUS.

Seriously, if a regular student turned in that paper they would get an F and to be honest, that's what should have happened, he should have been given an F and flunked. Yet because he can play a damn ball game it is not just an okay paper its a great paper.

Here are the facts

1.College is not about sports

2. College is about learning and getting a degree so to be successful in life

3. Sports are not about learning

4. Sports are simply a goddamn game and nothing else

5. Playing a game and expecting to get free education for it is fucking ridiculous

[WhiteSteve]

I'm as big of a sports fan as they come, but I have major issues with the way the NCAA does business, especially with football and basketball. The issue is money though. At a big time program, the football or basketball team pays for their own scholarships, the scholarships of athletes of all the other teams, and probably a ton of educational stuff as well. At a place like the University of Alabama, Ohio State, Louisiana State, etc, the football program is a HUGE cash cow for both the school and the region, and a lot of the local businesses and workforce are bolstered, if not dependent, on the accompanying circus.

However, as a guy who lived with college football players, at UMass, not even a big time football school, I can tell you what a joke the whole thing is. One of my roommates and a couple other friends happened to make it to the NFL and CFL and made a living out of it, but most were just dudes whose ride was over after college ball. I never saw a single one of these guys crack a book, write a paper, sweat a final, or even simply go to class. They woke up, worked out, practiced, then came home and smoked weed, played Madden, and chased women. Or actually the women chased them and they just caught them, haha. A new girl was at my apartment seemingly every weekend, and they would just clean our place, fuck one of my roommates that played ball, and was on her way, rarely ever making a second appearance. Never seen anything like it.

So I definitely get it when people say it's unfair that book-smart kids don't get scholarships and these meathead athletes do. But in fairness, those athletic scholarships probably pay for themselves.

I honestly think they should separate the two. They need to set up a minor league system akin to baseball and hockey and just draft from high school. Then the kids who want an education can play at a college, the kids who want to just start making money and may even already have mouths to feed can go to a minor league team and play for $40K until they make the big leagues. One of the dumbest kids I ever met graduated from UMass, and he can barely read. Real good kid, but give me a break. I saw him at graduation and said "JJ! Congrats! That's a real big thing, I'm proud of you. What's your next move?" Dead ass, kid says "I'm finna go get something to eat..."😂 Bless his heart, haha. But yeah, there should be a separate system. Unfortunately there's too much "tradition" (money) at stake for the good ole boys to allow that��🙄.

[meowcow]

Sports, like any other non-academic pursuit (e. g., fine arts, dance, music) is part of a well-balanced curriculum of any educational institution.

Your picture about football scholarships is incredibly flawed. A person with a high IQ in the range of 170+ would get an academic scholarship and a free ride throughout his education, rather than working 3 jobs.

If scholarships were based only on one's IQ, then you might as well rant about scholarships that are for women-only, minorities, Aboriginal/First Nations.

Most scholarships are from money donated by past alumni, and it is the people who donate that decide which scholarship to donate to. If you became a rich and famous musician (or athlete) one day, you may want to donate and set up a scholarship to your alma mater. It's unlikely that a music graduate would set up a math scholarship. You'd be likely to set up a music scholarship that rewards university entrants with a talent for music.

And so it boils down to who donates the money. Now, one would question, who is @Waffles731 to tell the world how they should spend their cash? If a rich musician or athlete wants to donate to a scholarship to promote music or sports, they can do so.

Your issue with faking grades in some institutions is not a "scholarship" problem. It is a problem with dishonest professors and university administrators.

[Other_Tommy_Wiseau]

Yeah, no. Granted, there are a lot of things to fix. I'll give you that, but it provides a shit ton of opportunities for a lot of kids who wouldn't be going to college otherwise. For all of the scandals there are, there are way more athletes who do good. Look at the last pat summit who recently passed away. In her 35 years of coaching, she graduated every single 1 of her student athletes who stayed in the program all 4 years. Moreover, a lot of the issues stem from basketball and football. There are definitely a few bad eggs like the dude from UNC, but I can give you many more examples of college athletes who are smart

Getting a scholarship in sports is no different than getting a scholarship in band or orchestra (I know a few that got those)

There are a ton of money that gets wasted by a school way beyond sports that don't generate revenue

If you don't agree with it, sure, but don't blame kids who became good enough at their craft to get benefits from it. If you were good enough at your craft, you could get a ride to it, as well. That's the point.

Not my most cohesive writing, but I'm on my phone and I write way worse on it 😑

[OleMissMiss]

Excellent work. You had me at Pat Summit. I applaud all of this.

[Other_Tommy_Wiseau]

@OleMissMiss thanks! I try 🙂🙃🙂🙃

[redeyemindtricks]

Also -- let's not forget, for big D1 programs, sports bring in more money overall than they pay out in scholarships.

If you took away the scholarships -- which would gut the team, resulting in the loss of all that booster money -- then the entire university would have LESS money overall.

So, as a pure bottom line on a balance sheet, giving athletic scholarships (for the big programs) is just good business. It brings in more money than goes out. Simple.

[Other_Tommy_Wiseau]

@redeyemindtricks it's a bit more complex than that. I didn't bring that up because I don't have facts behind it and I can't exactly bring hypotheticals into this. By that, I mean that a lot of the major programs are flagship schools. I don't know how different the revenue would be because the team was gutted. Would they still be flagships? Would the college attendance landscape be different? I don't know. We have examples of other lesser schools like uab. Actually, lsu is it was being threatened to get rid of their ball team. And I don't know about how much more or less revenue they'd make. They aren't getting as much, but they aren't spending as much either. Only like 10 schools actually make a profit off football and basketball. All other sports and programs lose money. But they'd also be losing TV and advertising funds as well. I'd have to see a revenue report.

[redeyemindtricks]

Mandatory disclosure for public universities brah. Here's UF's:
www.fa.ufl.edu/.../...thletic_Assoc_Audited_FS.pdf

Main balance sheet is on page 7. You can see that the athletic program still made a modest profit ("increase in position") even after funding all the scholarships AND turning some money over to the university in general.

[Other_Tommy_Wiseau]

@redeyemindtricks yeah, but how much of that is gained through TV deals and endorsements. I'm not gonna lie, I'm too lazy to look through all of that. But think of it like this. The reason that the school got recognition and money is from the these advertisements and shit. But what if they didn't exist. Cause at this point, a lot of these universities can get serious coin in name recognition and brand alone. Everyone and their mama knows who UCLA is. Partly because of the school, but when they go on tv every week, people start checking it out. I'm also not going to lie, I have no idea how to even explain this in text. I don't disagree with you, but there are a lot more hypothetical stuff I don't want to claim as true because there are a ton of variables that I don't think can really be separated

[OleMissMiss]

I received a scholarship for band. Is that any different?
Scholarships exist to bring students to the university that would be a good fit culturally, academically, and yes athletically - but also give the college something in return, such as their skills in performing (music/drama scholarship), skills in the classroom (academic scholarship), and skills even on the playing field (athletic scholarship), just to name a very select few.
As @Other_Tommy_Wiseau pointed out much more poignant than I could, scholarships also afford opportunities to students who may not have the chance to attend university on their own and reach levels of society that was unavailable to them previously. This includes athletic scholarships.
I don't disagree that the process of athletic scholarships has become completely out of hand. My alma mater could spend half of what they do on football and use those resources to being in students in other areas (such as music which is very dear and close to my heart to start with), but that is also unrealistic. The more Americans rabidly support athletics in all forms, the more money will be involved. And where there's a lot of money, there is usually a complete lack of ethics.

[Other_Tommy_Wiseau]

Also, I didn't point out that a lot of those dollars being spent is booster money, which is usually the issue (particularly for major schools with basketball and football). That's how a lot of the corruption happens. Not all, but a lot. Look up the documentary "pony excess". It's really good and gives you some kind of insight of how things get out of control. Also, TV deals. And 1 thing a lot of stadiums do are they become multifunctional. So you can have concerts and shit. But some of that gets allocated to subsidize tuition... Also, FUCK OLE MISS 😝 GO VOLS!!!

[OleMissMiss]

@Other_Tommy_Wiseau see we had a good relationship until you said fuck Ole Miss. I think you are just jealous that we will win the SEC this year. 😝

[Other_Tommy_Wiseau]

Lol! You're cute! We taking it this year! We shoulda had it last year 😁. We're set this year. We had almost no experience last year and almost everyone is returning this time around. As long as y'all beat bama, I'm fine
www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6qKymzEpuY&app=desktop
We need receivers, though 😑

[PT1911]

I don't agree with you on a lot of things, but about this... yeah...

COmpete waste of fucking money on athletes. Not that I'm jealous of their abilities, their physical condition etc.

But seriously, I'm paying off my debt and went at it alone because I WANTED to be there and get my degrees.

Thos eguys literally get all the academic help possible, and still end up doing poorly in class, courtesy of my tuition money.

I had some friends work as tutors for the athletes, they said they just don't care. Another guy laughed how every day some girl from the women's basketball team in his class would sit right in front of the professor and just start being on her phone, until one day the Prof had enough and called her out.

So yeah, nothing against student athletes, plenty of problems against them wasting my tuition money

[Waffles731]

I'm honestly waiting for someone to actually defend sports scholarships on here.
I know its going to happen and I'm just going to shut them down

[TakeMaker]

I agree, being too stupid for school means you should go do something else, not play games and get your work done for you. Perhaps the big sports team owners should set up Sport Colleges where you can learn to build refrigerators and such... and play football... so if you don't make it as a sports player you can still get a job.

[Wulfila]

Public universities need to be forced to completely restructure their sports programs so that they have two independent balance sheets: one for athletics and one for everything else (academics). If the school can't make their sports profitable on their own merits, then the ball pushing needs to get nixed. At university, I grew tired of subsidizing athletics departments that bled students' tuition money. Most current college sports programs aren't profitable anyway, and they wouldn't be able to survive without siphoning resources.

So, yeah, I don't just say "nix sports scholarships"; I say put all public university athletics up for review at the ol' financial guillotine.

*note: This is for public schools only. Private colleges can do whatever they want.

[pooper89]

The problem is that sports bring money to the school. That's why they don't want to do away with it. And if they can recruit good players and win a lot, that means more money.

But I agree that sports really shouldn't be part of getting into college at all. It should be academic merit-based ONLY.

[KenM9215]

I agree with this to an extent. I feel like some students may make mistakes in high school academically but blossom to be better students in college. So their high school grades wouldn't apply at that point... I think EVERYONE should be given a chance to go to college if they so choose. other than that I agree with you, sports for the most part bring in revenue and A LOT of it... its all about that money.

[sedrftvgyhujik]

It's the spectators that make it worth money. I've played sports even tried for a scholarship (didn't get it so dont hate me) but i've never understood the appeal of watching it.

[BigBallerSodaPop]

I was going to agree until I read this.

[DandelionGirl]

Yeah I agree, it's really not fair. But apparently America thrives on people who play sports. This country is kind of fucked up. They care more about sports than they do education, it says a lot of about this country.

[Fathoms77]

If the school has sports programs, there should be scholarships. But as it seems the majority of scholarship athletes are absolutely not students, it has become a colossal joke.

Just get rid of sports in higher education entirely, not like that's even feasible in the current system but whatever.

[Redstang88]

Right or wrong, the world revolves around money.
Sports teams make money, so universities want good players. They will do what they have to in order to keep said players around.
Is it fair that some idiot gets a free ride because he can run a ball while smart, hard working students struggle? No, but the world isn't fair.

[Waffles731]

"but the world isn't fair."
The world isn't fair is one of those excuses that i find pathetic, the point of progress is to try and make a better world

[Redstang88]

If you look at so-called "fair" societies- everybody equal, no competition- ie communism- it doesn't fucking work.
Competition (lack of equality, "unfair") drives success.

[Waffles731]

So what you are saying is we should stop doing whats right because its hard?

[Redstang88]

What I'm saying is there will always be winners and losers, nothing will ever change that.
"Fair" societies simply dont work. The only truly fair way is competition.

[howzit2015]

I think they are good, because it gives opportunities to people who without these scholarships wouldn't be in post secondary to begin with.

[Anonymous]

You only say that because you don't like sports. I'm happy to have sports because if I doesn't have it I would get really bad grade because of maths and all this bullshit.
I go to one of the best sport high school and we pratically win the national cup.

[Waffles731]

"maths and all this bullshit."
Math and such are what school is about,

[Opinion Owner]

I talk about all the scientific class. I was good in arts, history, geography, morals / religious class, English and sports. The other I was one of the worst XD
Anyways I go always go in sports school because my father thinking it was more important. My high school have one of the best Rugby, ski and natation team.

[pooper89]

You were good in English? Wow... LOL

[Opinion Owner]

@pooper89 I was the best in my class and got 18 on 20 on my final text.

[zagor]

Certain sports bring in tons of money for certain schools, as well as intangibles like positive publicity. So why not reward those who are benefiting the school?

[John_Doesnt]

At least you referred to the right kind of football when talking about football. If that was a soccer player I'd have to hit you.

[Maxemeister]

I completely agree but

Where

tf

Did Rosa Parks come from xD

[Waffles731]

That was his entire paper

[Maxemeister]

Wait 0_0 *looks again*

:o

:'( I cri for America

[Anonymous]

Its only a thing because people watch sports if you dont like it suggest other more fun things for your frends to do.

[brewersfan01]

completely disagree with your opinion

[Waffles731]

Then why should they exist