First of all, this is a racist article. Period. What about other minorities on the team, or any college team for that matter?
On my college fencing team, we had whites (Italians, Irish, Jewish, Ukrainian etc,; blacks (one was a good friend of Bill Cosby); Asia Indian; a part-Chinese coach, and a few people we could never identify as to their origins.
We had no scholarships for years. However, in my last two years, several needy fencers got a $500 sports scholarship (which in those days helped pay for tuition for one semester).
We produced three All-American fencers in two years (two were repeaters), won two MAC championships, and placed in a tie for 5th at the NCAA Championships in 1966.
We dumped enough trophies on the Athletic Director’s desk after the ‘66 season that it broke.
We actually went from a so-called cheese and roast beef (alley rat, by the tail) sandwiches and a soda or juice on road trips, to real meals at real restaurants during those last two years.
Meanwhile we had to keep up our grades for eligibility. A few had outside jobs, including myself.
In the end, it was our love of the sport, excellent coaches, and a tremendous team spirit that carried us through a rebuilding to eventually having a ten-year consecutive run of MAC championships.
In those days it was an honor to be on a varsity team. Today, too many look at it as a paycheck-in-the-making. I don’t begrudge them becoming professionals if they have earned it, but the purpose of going to college is to get an education in order to get a job in the future (as most college grads have to do in the course of their normal life).
It is time to revise the whole college sports world and start putting education back in the equation. That is why one goes to college in the first place.
It is time to revise the whole college sports world and start putting education back in the equation. That is why one goes to college in the first place.
One goes to college in order to maximize future earnings potential, so as to prosper, and for many athletics provide that potential...if an engineering major is not required to play sports to graduate, why should a football major be required to study...?