The NCAA News - Comment
August 19, 1996
Student-athlete view -- NCAA needs flexibility with financial aid rules
BY MITZI R. CLAYTON
University of Missouri, Columbia
Upon reading some recent guest editorials concerning student-athlete employment, I finally have decided to share my feelings and experience.
I realize the NCAA is trying to focus on the needs of student-athletes though such means as increasing the special assistance fund. This is great for the financially disadvantaged student-athlete. However, I beg of the NCAA to look at the lives of many student-athletes from middle-class families.
I was one of the many student-athletes who were neither eligible for federal aid (such as a Pell Grant) nor on a full scholarship, which is not at all uncommon, especially in equivalency sports.
My family experienced the great flood of 1993 first-hand. Our house and 500 acres of farmland were underwater for weeks. In hopes of receiving a Pell Grant, I provided to the federal government numerous pictures of flood damage and photocopies of large medical bills from my mother's long bout with cancer. I was denied due to the value of our farmland, which of course was our sole means of income but which couldn't be farmed because of the flooding.
Therefore, to ease the strain of mounting medical bills and restoration of our land and house, I took a part-time job at a hospital. I went to work every day at 6:30 a.m. to work before class, in between classes and before practice to accumulate 25 to 30 hours a week.
It was certainly a challenge to balance my work, school and athletics obligations. However, my employment not only enhanced my organization skills and work ethic, but it was an essential part of my plan to pay for graduate school.
Then came the day that I was informed that I had exceeded my full grant-in-aid limit and was to pay back the differences and quit working immediately. This was certainly a blow. To secure my job for after my eligibility expired, I had to volunteer my services for two months. Those two months could have paid for an entire semester of graduate school.
There are essentially four ways today's
college students may fund their education: parental assistance, scholarships/grants, employment and loans. When parental assistance is not there or if the student-athlete is willing to take responsibility for his or her own financial needs, that athlete is forced to take out loans because the NCAA limits employment earnings.
At 22, I felt it was time to begin taking control of my life and my work helped me to do so. This is significant because during the course of student-athletes' eligibility, they become so used to having some of the burdens or responsibility that other students endure lifted from their shoulders that they experience "responsibility shock" once they are on their own in the real world.
At the present time, I have completed my master's in sports management and am working in the University of Missouri, Columbia, athletics department as a compliance assistant. Ironically, one of my main duties is to monitor each student-athlete's employment so that it complies with NCAA regulations. The administrative responsibilities this process creates for institutions might be considered too great for the cause. It relies heavily on honesty and communication among the student-athlete, the workplace and the institution.
I truly believe, however, that once a process is established to monitor such employment, it really is not difficult to control and doesn't create that much extra work for the financial aid officer of an institution. If institutions are presently monitoring student-athlete's employment so as not to exceed the full grant-in-aid limit as they should, it would not be difficult to monitor $1,500 beyond that. The number of student-athletes who would gain from being allowed to earn money legitimately greatly exceeds the few who might violate the rules.
I know I am not the only student-athlete who has worried about what the future holds. Allowing us to earn income would help ease some of those concerns.
If the NCAA truly desires to help student-athletes in all aspects of life while maintaining the desired level of amateurism, it would allow them to earn an extra $1,500 (a special committee has recommended permitting student-athletes to earn up to the full cost of attendance).
Please do not continue to make victims out of student-athletes who truly desire to better their lives professionally and financially, especially those who do not receive free aid from the federal government or from the NCAA's special assistance fund.
Mitzi R. Clayton competed in track and field at the University of Missouri, Columbia, from which she graduated in December 1994.
Letter to the Editor -- NCAA policy may work against athletes
As an instructor, coach and academic monitor for football players at East Texas State University, I am quite concerned about and have some ambivalence toward the NCAA's "good-standing policy."
This policy has a profound effect on student-athletes.
We concern ourselves with using the term "student-athlete," saying that they are students first and athletes second, or that they are students who happen to participate in athletics. I feel that they should be treated like all other students. The "good-standing policy," however, puts the student-athlete at a disadvantage.
Regular students are given the opportunity to raise their grade-point averages in order to receive financial aid (scholarships, stipends, awards) by attending summer school at institutions near their residence and having hours transferred back to their certifying institution. Yet, the student-athlete who chooses to do so is ineligible to compete in his or her sport and to receive a scholarship, even though his or her overall GPA is above 2.000 (but slightly below 2.000 at the certifying institution).
Is the student-athlete treated like a regular student? The answer seems to be a resounding "no!" If aid, or the eligibility for aid, were based upon the GPA or hours taken at the certifying institution and all students were ordered to adhere to this policy, there would be no argument. But the NCAA's "good-standing policy" definitely shows a distinct difference between how the "student" and the "student-athlete" is treated.
Institutions of higher learning strive to serve economically, culturally and ethnically diverse populations and to nurture the intellectual and social growth of each student. Are the missions and mottos of our collegiate institutions simply words without meaning? I choose to think not!
As an instructor who happens to coach, I want to feel confident that those who participate in athletics at the collegiate level are treated like all other students. This is not currently the case.
Henry H. Ross
Assistant Football Coach and Academic Advisor, Football
East Texas State University
Opinions -- Nike's marketing images nearing the out-of bounds line
Erik Brady, columnist
USA Today
"What might Baron Pierre de Coubertin make of the ad campaign Nike is running for these Centennial Olympic Games?
"Perhaps you have seen it. There are commercials on TV and billboards in Atlanta. One of the tag lines: 'You don't win silver, you lose gold.'
"Never mind what the French founder of these Games might think.
"What are we to make of it?
"There are about 11,000 athletes in Atlanta. There will be 604 gold medals. By Nike's figures, that leaves somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,400 losers.
"It's not the message we would choose for our children, who are watching these Games on TV.
"We hope they are taking from them some of the lessons the baron had in mind 100 years ago: Sportsmanship. Respect. Fair play.
"But come the commercials, and American culture sends another message, more Vince Lombardi than de Coubertin:
"Silver is for losers.
"And what of bronze? The ad doesn't say, but the tone suggests something along the lines of shooting the laggards in the back.
"Maybe this is making too much of an ad campaign designed to sell athletics shoes. Kids, the target market, are often better able to see through such in-your-face marketing than their elders.
"Nike has no trouble selling its wares. So why the urge to spit in the face of the Olympic spirit? Maybe because rival Reebok is a sponsor.
"Nike spokesman Keith Peters says the message is not intended to be anti-Olympics. The defiant slogans, he says, are meant to represent the attitude of the sort of elite athletes who endorse Nike; they are not to be taken generally. That distinction might be lost on some consumers.
"Nike bought spot ads from NBC affiliates in top 20 markets. The billboards (are) seen throughout Atlanta. Over the glowering images of Nike endorsers are these tag lines: 'I'm not here to trade pins.' 'Pageantry is a distraction.' 'Contempt is a hundredth of a second.'
"The word 'contempt' is in larger letters, all capital. It is a contemptible sentiment.
"Another one says, 'If I say I'm just thrilled to compete, blame my interpreter.'
"But ask the athletes and most will tell you: They are thrilled to compete. The point is so obvious as to be banal: Competing in the Olympics is a victory in itself.
"Even more, it is the spirit of victory.
"Ancient Greece gave us these Games. It also gave us Nike, the spirit of victory, from whom the shoe company takes its name.
"Nike was a winged goddess and companion of Athena, goddess of wisdom. With Nike at her side, Athena led armies into battle, but only for just causes.
"Selling sneakers is not an unjust cause. Trashing the Games' ideals in the name of sneaker-selling is."
Amy White, Olympic silver medal swimmer
The Orange County Register
"I am insulted every time I see (the advertisement). They are slapping every athlete and every country that doesn't win gold in the face. That's not the spirit of the Olympics."
The Independent
"Offering further proof that there is no such thing as bad publicity, Nike has made the Olympic Games into a successful promotional platform in the States -- in spite of (or indeed because of) accusations from the International Olympic Committee that their strapline 'you don't win silver -- you lose gold' rubbishes the Olympic ideal. When people in Atlanta were asked to name Games sponsors for a USA Today/Gallup poll on brand awareness, the fourth most popular response was Nike -- although it is not an official Olympic backer."
Athletics dorms
Danny Ford, football coach
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
The Associated Press
About an NCAA rule banning athletics dorms that will be effective this season:
"This probably worries me more than football, or having to play Florida, or anything like that. The big question is, 'What are these players going to do for the first time without the supervision?'
"You don't know what kind of crowd they're going around with.
"You don't know what agent is sitting over there in his car, you don't know what kind of bookie might be living in the apartment complex....There are a lot of things we won't have control over that we had control over in the past. The way it is now, you're only one night away from having a very bad situation."
Steve Spurrier, football coach
University of Florida
The Associated Press
Recalling his tenure as head football coach at Duke University:
"I never knew where they lived. They just showed up for practice every day, then left in all different directions. I always figured if they're going to get in trouble, they're going to get in trouble wherever they live."
Gene Stallings, football coach
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
The Associated Press
"I think players need supervision. I think they need to be in at a certain time. I think they need to eat breakfast. I think it's important you know what's in their refrigerator."
Rod Dowhower, football coach
Vanderbilt University
The Associated Press
"That's why you go to school -- to have other relationships, to expand. I think that's healthy. Some people worry about discipline. But it's all part of a maturing process. I've watched kids start out rough around the edges, improve and get better in every area."
Paying athletes
John Adams, sports editor
Knoxville News-Sentinel
"It's time to let (boosters) out of the closet, time to stop fighting a fight you can only pretend to win.
"If a Georgia booster wants to pay a linebacker $1,000 an hour to rake his leaves, so be it. If a Kentucky booster believes a point guard is worth a racehorse, a university attorney could verify the bloodlines.
"If 102,000 East Tennesseeans choose to throw their wallets at the Vols every time they beat 'Bama, let 'em fly.
"It wouldn't further corrupt college athletics if the NCAA allowed athletes to take what they could from the paying public. Instead, it might make the system more honest; or at least, more human....We've tried it the other way, and it has made hypocrites of us all. So why not try something different?"
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