Today is the day. Over the last year, older well privileged have scouted and scoured the training of teenagers. They have analyzed every little strength and weakness to the point of knowing exactly what each person is capable of. They have gone through and spoke with them and discussed the possibilities of the future. Now they are asking that this teenagers volunteer themselves for a battle that takes place on television in front of a live audience for people's pleasure. It's not the Hunger Games but rather National Signing Day for collegiate football.
Now all of the above points were not to suggest the brutality of football but the media explosion around it. You will have hundreds of thousands of people watching ESPN cover where an 18 year old is deciding to go to college for four years and cursing the kids who decide to play a switch-up on their schools. This is the culture we live in, that raises athletic scholarships to a point where merely accepting one is a feat worth of national accolades. Some of these guys will get their 15 minutes of fame and not even qualify for school and will never step foot on campus.
So check this out, the NCAA awards roughly $1 billion in athletic scholarships in Division I and II sports (Division III doesn't offer athletic scholarships). These scholarships are split up into approximately 126,000 scholarships over 138,000 students (more on the shady math of the NCAA another day). So you have students being awarded an average of just under $8000 per scholarship and just over $7000 in an athletic scholarship per student, much of this due to the splitting of scholarships in sports not called football, basketball, or volleyball.
Now on the other hand, there is about $3 billion in private scholarships and $15 in public/institutional scholarships and grants for academic and merit based students. That's 18 times what is offered athletically. Also, since there are $3 billion split up into $2000-3000 chunks, that's at least 1,000,000 private scholarships alone. However, there is little to no fanfare for the student who receive these scholarships.
We have generated a culture in which it is a source of pride to accept a restrictive scholarship that is a "full-ride" to an institution to go above and beyond just your studies for mere entertainment of others and disregards the achievements of those who receive much more money to do precisely what college is about, study, learn, and succeed in bettering yourself.
I am not saying that college football is bad, I love college athletics. What I am saying is that it's a dangerous time when a society places more stock in physical prowess than in mental capacity. If the next Steve Jobs runs a 4.3 40, we may never see the next Apple. The most incredible part of all of this, these athletic scholarships that are amazing full-ride's don't cover all of the cost and the restrictions they come with limit options for the student athlete. (more on this in the future NCAA shady math post).
Ultimately, it's probably time we look forward with our minds rather than our muscles. There are a lot of bright people in this nation and we need to let them know that they have options and reward those who are as strong in the classroom as Ray Lewis is on the gridiron. But seriously, when's the last time Rivals gave a darn about anyone's GPA.
Study Hard,
BGann
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