Another student athlete entitlement coming to a university near you?

[wh]

Scholarships for life

http://www.vuhoops.com/villanova-basketball/2014/7/28/5946643/scholarship-for-life-complete-carolina-is-an-education-positive-move

[LaPorteAveApostle]

Great idea.  Michigan's been doing that for a few years now, though.

[bbtds]

I go back and forth on this question all the time. Are the student athletes being overly exploited for dollars? Or are they spoiled, entitled kids who should be given a harder path in life?

I have come to believe that on a spectrum of spoiled to exploited the student athletes are somewhere in the middle. They are not as spoiled as the rich, non multi-millionaires, whose parents make life way too easy for them and they are not as exploited as the middle income to poor students who eventually pay, through loans, all the costs involved in a college education today but can't find a job after they graduate.

They don't have it all bad nor all good.

[VULB#62]

And now another sign that the apocalypse is drawing in upon us....     

FSU will pay for a $60,000 insurance policy for QB Jameis Winston (in case he is hurt and can't play professional football) out of its "emergency" fund.
  It's not cash or crab legs and butter in hand, but a sizable fringe bennie for being on a football "scholarship " at a BCS school.

http://q.usatoday.com/2014/08/05/florida-state-pay-jameis-winston-heisman/

[valpo64]

Now that the athletes, or at least some of them, will end up with injury insurance, the next thing will be some sort of retirement program that could benefit an athlete if he or she stays for 4 full years of eligibility...are you kidding?  What a mess!!!  Let's hear it for the walk-ons!!

[LaPorteAveApostle]

the next thing will be some sort of retirement program that could benefit an athlete if he or she stays for 4 full years of eligibility

actually, that makes a lot of sense; as someone who spent nine years in college, it turned out I could've "gone pro" earlier and made my moderate amount of money sooner.  why not reward athletes that 1) don't quit to make more money and/or 2) don't transfer when Poor Little Baby's PT gets cut? 

why would anyone stay in school when they could go pro?  after years of being a purist on the issue, i have concluded instead that the only good reason to do so would be to improve one's stock. (Only in revenue sports, obv.)

[VULB#62]

We bought into this crap when we went D-I.  If we were D-III we would just be laughing at all of this.  But we're not D-III and, to be candid, I enjoy the fact that we are on ESPN and that my school gets national recognition.  So..... ya take the bad with the good and move on.  But I think that we do things the right way as best as we can, so.... maybe we can also laugh along with the D-III schools a bit.

I love that we offer 19 varsity sports where many of the money based schools have maybe 13-14 and focus mainly on the revenue sports.

I love that our kids do community service stuff and take pride in it.

I love that the majority of VU athletes are not on full athletic scholarship but still compete because they love to compete.

I love that we are PFL in football and hope we will always be non-scholarship -- I just hope we can do enough to get and stay competitive.

[VULB#62]

Judge releases ruling on O'Bannon Case:  NCAA Loses

A federal judge ruled Friday that the NCAA's limits on what major college football and men's basketball players can receive for playing sports "unreasonably restrains trade" in violation of antitrust laws.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, in a 99-page ruling in favor of a group of plaintiffs led by former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon, issued an injunction that will prevent the NCAA the "from enforcing any rules or bylaws that would prohibit its member schools and conferences from offering their FBS football or Division I basketball recruits a limited share of the revenues generated from the use of their names, images, and likenesses in addition to a full grant-in-aid."

Although Wilken's ruling could enable football and men's basketball players to receive more from schools than they are receiving now, Wilken rejected the plaintiffs' proposal that athletes be allowed to receive money for endorsements. "Allowing student-athletes to endorse commercial products would undermine the efforts of both the NCAA and its member schools to protect against the 'commercial exploitation' of student-athletes," she wrote.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2014/08/08/ed-obannon-antitrust-lawsuit-vs-ncaa/13801277/