NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Next week, the CEOs of the nation’s 355 NCAA Division I schools will vote to make athletic scholarships four-year deals.
What? You thought scholarships already covered athletes for all four years?
Silly you.
This is one of the dirty little secrets of intercollegiate athletics. Currently, scholarships are allotted on a one-year basis and are renewable every July at the discretion of university officials (read: coaches).
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Comments » 10
JayTee writes:
Another rewrite of old news by Climer.
volinlm writes:
Saban being indignant about scholarships is like politicians being indignant about money in politics.
Vo2Vol writes:
A player should have to earn his scholarship each year. They need to understand that if they do not work hard to improve each day, week, and year, then there are no guarantees. Seems a lot like life.
pomp_and_circumstance writes:
Climer is a pretentious hack that lives to ferret out moral turpitude in all college sports. The "dirty little secrets." And he will always find someplace outside the SEC as a model of correctness. John Adams lives to emulate Climer, but his lack of any moral compass sends him in truly bizarre directions.
BCS football is now (and has been for decades) a training ground for the NFL. What fool doesn't know that? What has a kid truly lost if he simply can't make it on the field? He simply joins millions of others for student loans and all other means to finance his education.
JWilly writes:
I have been in academics a long time and there are very few (if any) academic scholarships that do not require a high level of performance to continue getting the scholarship. Keeping a 4 year scholarship requires maintaining a high GPA. I cannot imagine giving a scholarship that you can get for 4 years w/o any requirements to perform. That would be silly. I believe this is one of those B1G, form over substance, image is more important than reality things.
CoverOrange writes:
Would the coaches have a problem with this if the total scholarship limit was raised to 100? The only benefit to kicking a player off scholarship is to have room under the 85 cap and still sign 25 each year. Another example of tweaking the symptom rather than solving the problem.
RoadTrip writes:
Raise the limit to 100 and if the player chooses a four year schollie they have to stay for four years and are ineligible to transfer. If they don't make their grades they are not eligible to participate until/if they get their grades up and they can't go pro until the 4 years are up. Problem solved.
marinevol writes:
Will the four-year scholarship work both ways? Will the student-athlete be barred from transferring to another school for four years? If not, I absolutely agree with Dooley. A contract should not be binding for only the school and not the student.
marinevol writes:
Great point.
FWBVol writes:
I had similar thoughts and would take it a step further. If a guy goes pro after his junior year would he be penalized for leaving before meeting his obligations of the contract, i.e. scholarship?
Of course this doesn't address all the possibilities. A lot of players redshirt so does a school still owe him a fifth year of school if he was redshirted? What about junior college transfers? What kind of deal will be worked out with them?
Is this four-year scholarship limited to football or is it to be the rule for all sports?
How does that play out in basketball?
And then there is baseball. Under current Major League Baseball rules, players at four-year schools are eligible for the draft, and unlike football or basketball, a baseball player doesn't have to declare or put his name in the pool for the draft. Will college baseball now make players adopt a similar path to the pros by having them declare for the MLB draft?
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