Emmert Suggesting Scholarships for Life as Alternative
Pressure on the NCAA continues to build and now Emmert is suggesting scholarships for life.
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/11196036/ncaa-president-ma…
I have advocated this for a long time. Now all they have to do is stop telling players they can't take money from "boosters." Let players make what they can on the open market wheile they are in school and then come back and finish their degrees when they can no longer play.
Players are free to take money from boosters. They just can't do that and play NCAA sports. If the money from the boosters is more valuable than the benefits of the athletic scholarship, players can and will take the money instead of the scholarship. That's how markets work.
"Okay, your scholarship will be good for TWO lifetimes. Is that good enough, O'Bannon? Fine, how about THREE lifetimes?"
If Hoke could convince Wolverine (X-Men, not the actual animal) to join the team, he would need several lifetime scholarships. He would be our new FB/DE threat that plays both ways and he'd be eligible FOR-EV-ER.
So how much do you think it costs to have 1 incremental student in a given class? This is often the argument smaller schools make for supporting non-revenue sports.
I would also suggest that most non-revenue sports students graduate, and given the lower scholarship numbers available, the costs are driven down further. In lacrosse for example, the NCAA limit is a whopping 12.6 scholarships, for teams that carry 40+ guys, so about a 25% scholarship for the average kid. The school is probably close to breaking even on the education portion if the kid pays 75% of the way themselves.
Although I don't actually support scholarships for life for non-revenue sports. The majority of kids aren't leaving school early to go pro, and should be pushed to get their degree when they can. Otherwise kids might just stretch it out like a vacation (I know I would have), which is unnecessarily wasteful.
Mark Emmert was grilled on a few topics beyond this actually, in the even that people weren't following this hearing, including a report released by Sen. McCaskill of Missouri that about 20% of the largest public institutions and 15% of the largest private ones apparently allow their own athletic department to investigate cases of misconduct (the examples given were sexual assault cases)by their own athletes.
The full article from the Washington Post is here - LINK
When it comes to scholarships, McCaskill also dropped this one on Emmert:
McCaskill released NCAA records showing that a majority of member schools sought to keep the one-year scholarship limit in place in a membership vote in 2012 that fell just short of the 62.5 percent majority needed.
If they would throw in Entree Plus for life, that would really be something.
This should be standard practice, not an alternative to letting players see some of their earnings.
Also, most athletes in non revenue sports graduate (and revenue sports for that matter) so the cost wouldn't be prohibitive.
is does this give the players an incentive to not take classes or take the very minimum number of classes while they are playing?
What's the point of taking a full load or attempting to get your degree in 4-5 years if you know once your eligibility is up you can then focus on the academic side of things.
Or is this mainly geared to the players that leave early to try and play professional sports? If you're at the school for 5 years and do not get your degree, that's your fault - no more free ride for you. If you are at the school for 3 years, and turn pro, when that is over you can come back and try to get your degree.
Is this the basis of an argument that if we give them scholorships for life, we can have their image rights for life?