Excellent Article on State of College Sports

[Topper]

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... _page=true

[rich59]

I thought it was an article. It is a book but it really identifies the problem which seems unsolvable. Hard to see any good ending, especially for the likes of SMU.

[Topper]

We might call it something like the Athletic Department/Broadcast Money Complex. Think about the fact that NCAA institutions are "not for profit" and yet Mack Brown rakes in $5 million base per year plus many hundreds of thousands of incentive based dollars. What non-profit institutions pay salaries like that? By my very primitive calculations, Mack's salary would fund about 125 SMU athletic scholarships. (I went to SMU not Rice, so my math is sketchy). Who knows how many scholarships his salary would fund at UT where we citizens already pick up a hefty chunk of the cost of the players' educations. But the money goes to the bloated athletic departments not to creating more opportunities for kids.

[rich59]

Here is the problem, as I see it. My point of view is based on being an SMU grad. For every bloated multi million dollar, rolling in dough program, there is the wanna be but not likely to ever get there SMU or Rice or Houston or most of all the "mid majors." Sure, SMU pays JJ around $2 million but I believe that is all or mostly from private donors and the overall football program, at least on paper, runs a deficit. The other athletic programs at SMU and most of the other similar schools are all operating at a deficit and have to be subsidized by the school. In other words, the majority of colleges are not making a profit from football and most also not from basketball, much less the other sports. So the big problem is the monster programs which incudes most of the colleges in the BCS. One size does not fit all.

Here is where another myth, IMO, pops up. That myth is that the colleges are making monster profits off of poor unknowing football players. Many of the players have no money for a date or gas or for a trip home. BALONEY. The players are getting an education and room and board which probably is worth $30000 per year and up. Don't their parents have a little duty to contribute enough cash so that the guys can have a date or get at least a bus trip home? 30K/year is pretty good recompense for a kid barely out of high school(hopefully.) In 1953, I was at Texas Tech on a partial scholarship after a try out in two a days. I had $50 in a checking account and the coaches said they would give me room, board and books and I had to pay my tuition, which was $25. I was in hog heaven. I had no car. My folks would infuse my account every so often with a little money and I made out. Those numbers are not relevant today but I find it hard to believe that a player on full scholarship at SMU or anywhere else is truly a hardship case.

[Stallion]

the hole is this nauseating argument is that nobody forces any recruit to go to College and get an education on scholarship. In almost all sports there are avenues to turn professional without attending college and earn a living with a business that operates a professional league. What really is happening is that writers are projecting blame onto College Football because of the NFL's failure to form their own minor league. That's not Colleges' fault. Colleges have a right to define athletics to be strictly amateur. Its really that simple.

[Mestengo]

Stallion your turning back into a negative sour puss. Did you get the bar tab on your CC for the cruise ??

[smupony94]

Somehow, Mitch and Stallion merged

[smuuth]

Thanks Topper. Funny how little pub the issues actually receive. Coaches continually threaten players with this "one year scholarship" problem. This was one of the best articles I have read on multiple ncaa and institutional problems with college sports.

[ponyscott]

Here is the problem, as I see it. My point of view is based on being an SMU grad. For every bloated multi million dollar, rolling in dough program, there is the wanna be but not likely to ever get there SMU or Rice or Houston or most of all the "mid majors." Sure, SMU pays JJ around $2 million but I believe that is all or mostly from private donors and the overall football program, at least on paper, runs a deficit. The other athletic programs at SMU and most of the other similar schools are all operating at a deficit and have to be subsidized by the school. In other words, the majority of colleges are not making a profit from football and most also not from basketball, much less the other sports. So the big problem is the monster programs which incudes most of the colleges in the BCS. One size does not fit all.

Here is where another myth, IMO, pops up. That myth is that the colleges are making monster profits off of poor unknowing football players. Many of the players have no money for a date or gas or for a trip home. BALONEY. The players are getting an education and room and board which probably is worth $30000 per year and up. Don't their parents have a little duty to contribute enough cash so that the guys can have a date or get at least a bus trip home? 30K/year is pretty good recompense for a kid barely out of high school(hopefully.) In 1953, I was at Texas Tech on a partial scholarship after a try out in two a days. I had $50 in a checking account and the coaches said they would give me room, board and books and I had to pay my tuition, which was $25. I was in hog heaven. I had no car. My folks would infuse my account every so often with a little money and I made out. Those numbers are not relevant today but I find it hard to believe that a player on full scholarship at SMU or anywhere else is truly a hardship case.

You are way behind and not being fair....many parents don't have ANY available $ for their college kids, especially in this recessional economy and with jobless rates so high, it's unfair to suggest for some families.
In addition, SMU football players now get $1,300 every month to go here...that's plenty of dough to have fun with, especially if you live off campus with several roommates.

[rich59]

You are not aware, I suspect, of the circumstances of my upbringing. The short version is that today my family would be considered borderline poverty stricken. The only way I got through SMU was by living at home, working in the oil fields in the summer, holding down a job during school and getting a student loan which was paid back after graduation. I did not know about the $1300/ month the scholarship players get. Is that for room and board if they don't live on campus?

[Mestengo]

I was tossed out in the st at 18 without a job, hungry no car . Best thing that ever happened to me. Suck it up!

[rich59]

To me the sad thing about what is happening in college sports today is this. College sports is supposed to be part of the experience for the student body in attending college. It used to be a good rallying point for alumni also. Today, in the quest for TV money, much of that has been lost. In the old SWC, it was not difficult or expensive for the students and alums to travel and be present in person at the contests and ancient rivalries caused great excitement.

Another sad thing is that if you look at the SWC in the late 70s, early 80s, before the SMU DP, the SWC was possibly the strongest conference in the nation and most of it was contained within the state of Texas. In those days it was rare for a good high school athlete in Texas to go outside the conference and the only outside school to poach successfully was OU and even they were having difficulties when SMU was at their peak. It was not unusual for the SWC to have as many as five teams in the top 25 with TU, A&M, Houston, Arkansas, SMU, Baylor and TCU being often present in the polls. SMU won more games in football in the first five years of the 80s than any other team in college football and if memory serves, during one week in 1985 SMU was ranked number one in the nation in both football and basketball. Of course all that began to change when the Belo Corp. decided to torpedo SMU. One wonders what would have happened if the Dallas news media had been in Austin or College Station?

Today, one could make a case for, with the economy and demographics of the state of Texas, if the SWC of the 70s-early 80s was in existence today, it would be one of the strongest and most lucrative and most student body and alumni friendly conferences in the country. Perhaps even good enough for TU!