Bomani Jones: PAC-12 fighting for student athlete rights & postpones season UPDATE: BIG 10 done too
- Thread starter playahaitian
- Start date
Its always been somewhat of a sacrifice/ risk. Many black student athletes are first generation college students with garbage majors. Too many are gambling on the hopes of going pro either domestically or internationally.
If you are there to guide them and direct them, they will be fine. You have to use the university more than they use you or your child. If your child is a student athlete. Negotiate to have his scholarship for all 4 or 5 years with an injury clause. Meaning if he or she gets hurt and can no longer play, they still get to keep the scholarship. All student athletes on scholarship can ask for this. Most will be approved.
To be honest, I think this desire to play stems from two places. First, the student's fear of diminished exposure regarding professional prospects. Second, the loss of identity. Without sports, many will feel lost and that their worth as a person is diminished.
Just an observation.
According to UCLA, as a non resident I should budget about 67K a year if i wanna go there. Thats 335K over 5 years.
Tuition and Fees
Learn more about the costs associated with attending UCLA, including residency, tuition, fees and more.www.admission.ucla.edu
During the season, the schedual is packed but they get all the extra help they need for class, free of charge of course.
Kids dont HAVE to enroll in bullshit majors. They can put their education first if they want to. UConn and Alabama have the same number of scholarships to give out. Nobody plays football at UConn thinking they gonna make it in the NFL. In fact the overwhelming majority of the kids playing college football today dont have a shot at the NFL. Those who make it are the exception.
So all these other kids get a great shot at an education and are living the sport they love.
That 335K is still less than 1/3 of the WORST coach in the Pac-12. That's still 700K less than what EACH player on a 53 man roster is worth to the school.
And yes 99% have to take bullshit majors. Every now and then you will get a N. Suh, who is a chemical engineer, but that is far from the norm.
Your'e kid also doesn't have to pay Out of State fees to UCLA. Your local college is FAR less than 70K a year, so you too have options. These football players, especially the Black ones, have one shot. They know it, their parents know it and the coaches USE that discrepancy.
Shit ain't free for these young men.
Yep, universities only care about keeping the players ELIGIBLE while they are enrolled.
They could give a fuck about whether they graduate or having a meaningful degree.
I have a cousin who played football and was a starter at an ACC school about a decade ago.
He wanted to be a Pre-Med major, but they flat out told him his course load wouldn't jive with his football schedule.
He ended up having to major in 'Health and Exercise Science', which is almost worthless now.
Remember, that time people were calling Kirk Herbstreit stupid when he said there wouldn't be a season....Even,though anyone with a brain knew this would happen.
This discussion is about the athletes solely so my focus is on them.
As far as the lifeline you speak of; it gets some of them food, shelter and health care support that they never had before. That part is good. But that lifeline comes with strings attached; for one, your scholarship might be guaranteed now (it wasn’t forever) but that doesn’t mean the kid is getting all the best of the program for four years especially if they fall out of favor with the coaching staff. Peoples attitudes changes towards a kid, from the trainer to the tutor, when you go from being 1st or 2nd string to 4th. Coaches will play games with a kid to force them to transfer so they can have the scholie for another kid, and if you’re if little value to the program, they aren’t big on the kid using that money to actually learn something, when they could get another human battering ram in whose first and only focus is the sport.
Yeah sure we all have options.
These kids dont have to accept scholarship offers either.
They better off getting in debt like every other student, according to yall.
Sorry its just not true that they have to take bullshit majors. If a coach tells me I gotta major in something with no future, im signing with another school and Im snitching. End of story.
They dont have ONE shot. The big leagues might happen. It probably wont. Go build yourself a future.
The responses Im getting from ya'll are that black parents failed and these kids dont have much going on upstairs. I dont believe in that. At all.
Of course the lifeline comes with strings attached. It should.
This is the real world, not some fairytale.
Its still a lifeline only the chosen few can get.
Everyone else has to get in debt and STILL work their ass off to succeed in college.
How many of these athletes you work with would refuse the scholarship if they could do it over again?
Did you play High School ball? If so, you know the dream is like crack. I lot of kids are willing to stay eligible just for a shot at stardom. “You can get a degree later, xxx will always be there, use the fame a work it”. There’s a whole system that supports that train if thought. As a parent you try to keep their head on straight but they are adults.
I did play high school ball. Never had the talent to get a scholarship so i never had that dream. I know some dudes who did, in basketball and football. I probably personally know just one guy who had a shot at the big leagues. He got kicked off the basketball team. Those who focused on the right things got the right results, I can tell you that. And yes you are right, parents have a huge role to play. Thats not different from anything else in life though. Parents play a huge role for their kids in college not on a scholarship either.
This convo cant be all or nothing. People going nowhere putting it in those terms.
I hate when people try to say that players get a free education. Nobody says this about non-black dominated athletes getting paid for their service.
^^^^^
White people love throwing around the words "free" and "entitlement" towards any perceived benefit to black folks.
Black athlete = "free" education given to them by the state/university
White athlete = earned scholarship obtained through hard work
Its official big 10 postponed
First of the Power 5. My money is on Pac-12 next, then Big 12 and ACC. SEC will likely play and wait for a few illnesses before pulling the plug; the politics of the South give them enough coverage to push forward a while longer.
First the MAC, UConn, now the Big Ten. Smart moves as others who decide to play will wait until players and the coaching staff gets sick and rethink their decision to push on. 
The SEC is the most vulnerable conference to this pressure. The notion of indifferent
white male coaches making young black men play in medically dangerous conditions,
free of charge, so that Republican politicians can win their elections does not look
good at all
white male coaches making young black men play in medically dangerous conditions,
free of charge, so that Republican politicians can win their elections does not look
good at all
This part. A lot comes down to the cost of test too. Especially the California teams
Lol