Beilein calls Burke

[Michchamp]

Athletic scholarships should be good beyond athletic eligibility. You play for 4 or 5 years, maybe make half the progress towards an actual degree you care about, then when you're done playing, the scholarship should continue so you can be a full time student pursuing the degree you really want.

I know scholarships aren't lost due to career-ending injury, but I have no idea what happens in other circumstances.

and I don't know if the additional costs of education beyond tuition (addl fees, room, board, books, supplies, etc) are covered. in some cases, those can be substantial, if not even more than the tuition costs.

 

[Gulo Blue]

I know scholarships aren't lost due to career-ending injury, but I have no idea what happens in other circumstances.

and I don't know if the additional costs of education beyond tuition (addl fees, room, board, books, supplies, etc) are covered. in some cases, those can be substantial, if not even more than the tuition costs.

I think a scholarship should be tuition for life, and maybe room, board, books and such for an additional 2 years beyond athletic eligibility.

 

[tomdalton22]

the problem is that the scholarships and stipends do not come close to adequately compensating the athletes.

As far as the "free education" element of it goes, it's an education with an asterisk. there was just a long interview with Jake Butt (cant find it, but it was either in mlive or the freep) where he mentions that the "student" part of "student athlete" is the more minor concern, and talks about how many classes he couldn't take in fall because they clashed with practice schedule. and this is at Michigan... imagine how bad it is in less reputable schools.

second of all, these kids take a lot of physical and mental punishment (esp. given the CTE risk that we're still learning about). there is no way in hell that is adequately compensated by a 4 year scholarship, even a full ride. "you'll get an education, but starting in 20 years, you'll be too brain-damaged to use it, so better make hay while you still can."

remember Antonio Bass? He's incurred life long knee and leg problems... probably would've been better off financially just taking out loans to pay for college.

some portion of NCAA revenues should go to providing lifetime health insurance for players.

and then there's the whole "we can profit from your likeness, but you can't" rule. there's no real justification for that, other than the NCAA likes money, a lot, and has the power to rule over college kids. If they're concerned over amateurism and what not, they can put the proceeds of the licensing into a trust that pays out following graduation.

if the NCAA could do these two things: health insurance, and a trust for proceeds from licensing, I think that would go a long way to addressing the glaring inequality in the sport. I think it would strengthen it in the long run as well. Players would be more loyal, and you'd reduce the incentives for the cheater schools to cheat and pay players, getting better, more competitive games on the field. The Dave Brandons, Jim Tressels, of the world, and pretty much everyone south of the Mason Dixon line would hate it, but so what? **** all of them! they'll still have plenty of money, and will have to find other ways to cheat.

Major programs like Michigan have about 400 scholarship athletes. Out of those 400 student athletes, maybe 10-15 are going to make a living playing professionally? If feels like the only ones bitching about it are the ones that are going to make it professionally. I would bet that the huge majority of the scholarship athletes are extremely happy with their situation.

Also, the estimated cost of lifetime healthcare is about $320,000 per person. That's about $32M per year to cover every scholarship athlete.

 

[byco42]

I think a scholarship should be tuition for life, and maybe room, board, books and such for an additional 2 years beyond athletic eligibility.

What about academic scholarships? Same lifetime offer?

 

[Michchamp]

What about academic scholarships? Same lifetime offer?

Oooh! curve ball! Makes you think!

I guess if the reason for the academic scholarship could lead to you losing out on the scholarship, and there was some quid pro quo at work like in the case of an athletic scholarship that would make sense.

maybe if you hurt your brain studying too hard to maintain your academic scholarship, the University would guarantee you could still finish school and not need to maintain decent grades, or something?

or if they offered scholarships for "nerd sports" like science olympiad, debate or quiz bowl... I could see the university having to guarantee a four year scholarship for the kid injured in a lab explosion who can't compete in the science olympiad after that. or something similar.

 

[Michchamp]

"I shredded my vocal cords in debate practice, and can't argue anymore, but the university guaranteed my schollie for four years, so I'm good."

 

[Michchamp]

...

Also, the estimated cost of lifetime healthcare is about $320,000 per person. That's about $32M per year to cover every scholarship athlete.

first of all, where did you get that number from?

second of all, so what?

why do they get to push the cost of this on the athletes or society at large? they're the ones running the sport. they're the ones profiting from it. Why should the atheletes themselves and society at large bear the costs, not them?

it's the same as in every other industry and line of work. the people making huge profits whine about the costs of having to clean up oil spills, environmental
damage, safety recalls, products liability or med mal lawsuits, but why shouldn't they bear those costs? they're the ones profiting off the actions that lead to them.

 

[Gulo Blue]

What about academic scholarships? Same lifetime offer?

I'm just talking about athletic scholarships. Academic scholarships come from all sorts of different organizations with different funding and different goals. I'm not talking about doing anything to them.

What I'm getting at is that there's a conflict of interest I think we should try to avoid. We offer an education in exchange for 100% effort on the football field, but to really get that education, you need to put in some real effort. I know people can get education while they have big distractions in life, but in the case of a student athlete, that distraction come from the people offering the education. Coaches have an interest in players not taking full advantage of their education. I'd rather side step this issue completely so players can take full advantage of the education with no pressure to do otherwise.

 

[tomdalton22]

first of all, where did you get that number from?

second of all, so what?

why do they get to push the cost of this on the athletes or society at large? they're the ones running the sport. they're the ones profiting from it. Why should the atheletes themselves and society at large bear the costs, not them?

it's the same as in every other industry and line of work. the people making huge profits whine about the costs of having to clean up oil spills, environmental
damage, safety recalls, products liability or med mal lawsuits, but why shouldn't they bear those costs? they're the ones profiting off the actions that lead to them.

just did a google search. It was based on lifetime healthcare costs. It was based on year 2000 data. That is actual costs, not health insurance costs.

As far as pushing the cost on society at large? What you are saying is these athletes wouldn't be responsible for their own healthcare like the rest of us are? Some girl gets a rowing scholarship and she is covered for life? Makes perfect sense.

Your plan would end athletic scholarships for thousands a year and cripple hundreds of athletic programs across the country. There are probably only a handful of athletic programs that could afford it.

 

[Gulo Blue]

"Tuition for life" isn't nearly as big a financial expense as some of the other things discussed. Pretty sure in grad school, where how long it takes is highly variable, it's pretty normal to charge tuition for some number of years and then drop it and just charge some minimal level of fees until the student can graduate. It's tough to figure out what exactly the costs are for having one more student in the room, but if we're talking about a total impact of a couple hundred students in classes, I think we could roll our tuition for life for all student athletes and not see much cost. Maybe to a few specific programs like kinesiology.

 

[tinselwolverine]

"Tuition for life" isn't nearly as big a financial expense as some of the other things discussed.... It's tough to figure out what exactly the costs are for having one more student in the room...

It's easy to figure out - it doesn't cost anything.

They're going to have the class with or without that one more student...

 

[Gulo Blue]

It's easy to figure out - it doesn't cost anything.

They're going to have the class with or without that one more student...

Yeah, but overhead and stuff.

 

[hungry]

the problem is that the scholarships and stipends do not come close to adequately compensating the athletes.

As far as the "free education" element of it goes, it's an education with an asterisk. there was just a long interview with Jake Butt (cant find it, but it was either in mlive or the freep) where he mentions that the "student" part of "student athlete" is the more minor concern, and talks about how many classes he couldn't take in fall because they clashed with practice schedule. and this is at Michigan... imagine how bad it is in less reputable schools.

second of all, these kids take a lot of physical and mental punishment (esp. given the CTE risk that we're still learning about). there is no way in hell that is adequately compensated by a 4 year scholarship, even a full ride. "you'll get an education, but starting in 20 years, you'll be too brain-damaged to use it, so better make hay while you still can."

remember Antonio Bass? He's incurred life long knee and leg problems... probably would've been better off financially just taking out loans to pay for college.

some portion of NCAA revenues should go to providing lifetime health insurance for players.

and then there's the whole "we can profit from your likeness, but you can't" rule. there's no real justification for that, other than the NCAA likes money, a lot, and has the power to rule over college kids. If they're concerned over amateurism and what not, they can put the proceeds of the licensing into a trust that pays out following graduation.

if the NCAA could do these two things: health insurance, and a trust for proceeds from licensing, I think that would go a long way to addressing the glaring inequality in the sport. I think it would strengthen it in the long run as well. Players would be more loyal, and you'd reduce the incentives for the cheater schools to cheat and pay players, getting better, more competitive games on the field. The Dave Brandons, Jim Tressels, of the world, and pretty much everyone south of the Mason Dixon line would hate it, but so what? **** all of them! they'll still have plenty of money, and will have to find other ways to cheat.

and more athletes would pick Michigan, Alabama, OSU, and other rich schools, so that "trust fund" would be larger when they graduate.

and how do you make it equal for every athlete in every sport? for males and females...this would be required?

 

[hungry]

first of all, where did you get that number from?

second of all, so what?

why do they get to push the cost of this on the athletes or society at large? they're the ones running the sport. they're the ones profiting from it. Why should the atheletes themselves and society at large bear the costs, not them?

it's the same as in every other industry and line of work. the people making huge profits whine about the costs of having to clean up oil spills, environmental
damage, safety recalls, products liability or med mal lawsuits, but why shouldn't they bear those costs? they're the ones profiting off the actions that lead to them.

How many universities can afford to pay out $32M/yr for athlete insurance policies?

 

[hungry]

"Tuition for life" isn't nearly as big a financial expense as some of the other things discussed. Pretty sure in grad school, where how long it takes is highly variable, it's pretty normal to charge tuition for some number of years and then drop it and just charge some minimal level of fees until the student can graduate. It's tough to figure out what exactly the costs are for having one more student in the room, but if we're talking about a total impact of a couple hundred students in classes, I think we could roll our tuition for life for all student athletes and not see much cost. Maybe to a few specific programs like kinesiology.

I'd have no problem with your suggestion, but I would bet that it would not address the "needs" of the prima donnas. This is not what they want. They want a 6 figure contract for playing college football or basketball...they don't look at specifics, legalities of male/female athletes, or what universities they would be putting out of business

They just figure, I am good at bball. I play at MIchigan. I should make lots of money. They aren't thinking about the rower at CMU.