Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Players get up to $17,000 in cash, all legal

imagePerhaps this post will add a bit of context to yesterday’s viral news item on rival fans stalking Alabama football players—visiting their homes, taking pictures of their residences and automobiles, doing searches of court documents (not a free resource, by the way) and spoon-feeding gossip blogs. 

They’re obsessed with the idea that these poor kids cannot possibly afford all of the stuff the stalkers “caught” them driving, wearing or buying, and that Alabama simply must be breaking NCAA rules for all of this to be happening.

Originally posted on May 22, 2011, the following is from Holy Turf, a blog focusing on the passion of college football. I hope you find Flint’s work as informative as I did. It’s an exceptionally good description of an environment that lets college football players enjoy most of the same things that any other college kid can, even if they’re black and come from poor families. It covers Pell Grants, clothing allowances, the Student-Athlete Opportunity Fund, the Special Assistance Fund, cash-in-lieu of payments for off-campus room and board, even the occasional meals that are legally paid for by…  gasp…  BOOSTERS!


That’s it. I have had it with the inane and redundant talk about NCAA football student-athletes, specifically football players, not being able pay for a tank of gas or afford a combo meal at Subway. Stop it! Enough is enough. These kids are given ample resources to “survive” during their years on a college campus, and I will prove it to you. I will show you not only the value of a scholarship, but the cash and benefits student-athletes can get all within NCAA rules.

If this is your first time to Holy Turf, welcome. Let me give you some quick background information. I spent nine years working inside athletic departments at Arkansas and Baylor as an academic advisor for student-athletes. I have seen the inner workings of two athletic departments in two major conferences. Let’s get back to the task at hand. I live in Fayetteville, Arkansas, the home of the Razorbacks. In this article, I am going to use Arkansas as my example.

Before we get to the value of a scholarship, let’s start off with the amount of money available to football student-athletes within NCAA rules. Read the whole post here.


GO READ THE WHOLE THING. We’ll be here when you get back…

If that didn’t satiate your desire for learning how college football players can cope with the daily grind of keeping up with the regular student body on transportation, fine men’s suits clothing and entertainment expenses, here’s another excellent description of Pell Grants and how they’ve been a boon to college student-athletes. It’s straight cash, homies.

This post explains how the Des Moines Register looked at 23 different schools in the Big Ten, Big 12 and Southeastern conferences, and learned that more than 1,000 student-athletes received approximately $5 million in the 2010 academic year. All cash. All tax free. None of it has to be repaid and all of it is within NCAA rules. This is on top of the full ride scholarships the students got. The average player got about $4,500 to spend as he saw fit. Since tuition, books, fees and boarding costs covered by the scholarship, the grant money goes to pretty much anything the kid wants to spend it on.

Including cars with tricked out rims and stereo systems.

That leads to today’s Exit Question: Who has one of the strictest compliance policies covering documentation of student-athlete vehicle registration in the country, again?

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1 comments :

David_Howton said...

Great article. Well done and good research on the issue.

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