How come more schools aren't getting into trouble with the NCAA?

That's why there are so few investigations and why it's considered so scandalous when Fulmer turns in Alabama or Mullen/Meyer turn in Auburn. I know Spurrier turned in a few schools back in his Florida days. I think he even bragged about it.

 

Look, even the most hoity-toity academic schools offer jocks a considerable financial benefit to enroll at their schools, namely the value of getting accepted at them and getting a degree from them. The best way to get into places like Harvard, Princeton, Williams, etc. is to play a sport, especially if you're a woman. This is a statistical fact. The economic value of a Princeton degree dwarfs what Newton's dad allegedly got from Auburn.
If sports can and does have undue influence over the admissions policies of our country's elite colleges, why are we worried if a kid gets cash money to attend some football factory?

 

You're overlooking the fact that Ivy League schools do not offer athletic scholarships.

I tried to go to one and they wanted me to play football there, but even with an $8K grant (technically academic, but who are we really kidding?) it still would have cost $22K a year to go there. Now, it costs $50K a year to go to an Ivy school.

 

Had a coach from an Ivy League school tell me that the single toughest part of recruiting at those institutions is figuring out which kids are serious about competing in athletics for four years.

Even though they don't offer athletic scholarships, Ivy League sports teams are only allowed so many admissions "slots" by their schools each year so you do, in effect, have a limit on how many kids you can recruit in a given year.

The problem they run into is that kids agree to attend a school and play for that team - be it football, volleyball or crew - thus using a up a slot for that year. Then they quit the team once they're admitted because once you're in, you're in. The kid had no intention of competing but used the admission slot to get into a school he or she never would have been admitted to in the first place.

The team loses a player and a kid who really did want to attend and Ivy League school and compete for that team is SOL.

 

If you're good enough to earn a major Division I scholarship and you think you can realistically go pro, and you're smart enough to go to an Ivy League school you go to Duke, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Northwestern, Notre Dame or Rice where they can still offer you what is considered an elite education while still getting an athletic scholarship.

 

Kids generally don't go to Ivy League schools to prepare to play pro ball. And it's a hell of a lot tougher to get into Harvard or Yale than it is to get into Northwestern or Notre Dame.

The coach I talked to said the situation he detailed is more prevalent - and more damaging- in the smaller roster sports than it is in football.

 

Ivy League scholarships are need-based, for the most part, so good athletes from poor families get a leg up. Also, the expense of Ivy League education is a reflection of the economic benefit of that degree. Anyway, I didn't intend my post as a thread diversion, only to note that sports distorts the educational priorities of U.S. higher education across the board, not just at the BCS conference football programs.

 

I thought what you were saying was that Cam Newton's father should have sold him to Yale.

 

That's info I haven't been able to find. I didn't know if Means knew his coach was shopping him around or not. If he did, and secretly profited from it, oh well.

But if he didn't, it's horrible. That coach had a lot of power over Means (playing time, references). And for a kid, generally, they're going to listen to their coach.

 

Mizzou, if Harvard and Yale ever decided to get into the big-time football business, which after all they invented, the other schools wouldn't stand a chance. Their financial resources are essentially infinite. Cam Newton's Dad wouldn't have been offered a measley $200,000 -- more like he'd get made a partner at Goldman Sachs.

 

It would be great if they did. They need better teams up in that neck of the woods.

 

Lede written by my former Herald colleague Mike Globetti after Harvard got thumped by Lehigh or somebody many years ago: "Ten thousand men of Harvard and not a football player among them."