The Scholarships Story: Dalla Dalla Billz

In the wake of yesterday's Client 9 scandal, I managed to find an interesting story over at the New York Times regarding just how big of a long shot it can be to earn an athletic scholarship.

It has been well published, and well argued, that college football scholarships are at a premium. For the record, a program is allowed 85 per team. Remember this is greatly reduced from prior years. Well the challenge of squeezing into that number is nothing compared to the 10 soccer programs must work with. It's even less when you consider most schools don't allow the NCAA limit due to financial concerns.

Excluding the glamour sports of football and basketball, the average N.C.A.A. athletic scholarship is nowhere near a full ride, amounting to $8,707. In sports like baseball or track and field, the number is routinely as low as $2,000. Even when football and basketball are included, the average is $10,409. Tuition and room and board for N.C.A.A. institutions often cost between $20,000 and $50,000 a year.

Ten thousand is nothing when you consider that the parents of these non-revenue scholarship kids typically spend thousands of dollars a year on prep programs and travel. This story does a good job of pointing out that, if you want to take a purely monetary perspective, the preparation most kids get simply isn't worth it. Luckily for these travel outfits and speed schools there is plenty of ego involved...both from the kids and the parents.

“I dropped a good player because her dad was a jerk — all he ever talked to me about was scholarship money,” said Joanie Milhous, the field hockey coach at Villanova. “I don’t need that in my program. I recruit good, ethical parents as much as good, talented kids because, in the end, there’s a connection between the two.”

Are you saying parents take it too far and act like asses in public? I don't believe you.

On average, the best-paying sport was neither football nor men’s or women’s basketball. It was men’s ice hockey, at $21,755. Next was women’s ice hockey ($20,540). The lowest overall average scholarship total was in men’s riflery ($3,608), and the lowest for women was in bowling ($4,899). Baseball was the second-lowest men’s sport ($5,806).

This is skewed big time because Hockey tends to be played at very expensive private schools in New England. I would be more interested to hear the total percent of cost, but this is still worth looking at.

I do highly recommend checking out the stat sheet as well.