Comment by bo1024 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bo1024 | Hacker News Reader

I doubt football will end anytime soon, but it should.

Especially thinking about universities -- to me, college football is not much more than a tragic exploitation system. Kids are recruited from age 14 and get promised the moon by coaches/staff, spend 5 years getting banged up (concussions etc) for life, and most wind up scraping through with a useless degree if they graduate at all. A tiny percentage go pro and the rest are left out to dry with few career prospects having missed out on their education. Most pros don't make that much during their career and don't have great quality of life after it's over (run out of money, lack of marketable skills, head damage).

The big media companies love it, and heads of universities like the "school spirit" and brand appeal (even though most schools lose money on football). But for the players involved, it's basically a scam. Even though they're getting a free education.

You might make similar arguments for other college sports (not sure how I feel about that having been part of one), but for football I think it's the most clear-cut.

I don't think it's as dismal as you make it look. My brother just accepted a football scholarship at a highly academically rated BCS school. I think there are 66 BCS schools and each one gives out about 20-24 scholarships each year. It's a huge opportunity to get a free education, play a sport he loves and make lifelong relationships with his teammates. A football locker room at the highest levels is about as exclusive a club as there is. I don't know how much tuition is or the other things the scholarship includes, but I wouldn't be surprised if it approaches $200k.

He can be a fool, get beat up and leave without a degree or he can take advantage of an opportunity many people only dream of. The coaches aren't telling him what classes to take. He can take whatever he wants. He can choose a useless program, a great program or anything in between. He can choose to meet the minimum requirements to stay on the team and keep his scholarship or he can choose to excel academically.

On the field, he can choose to hide a concussion or take some time off. He won't lose his scholarship over it. Most players feel pressure to play through injuries, and although it can come from peers and coaches, they often place most of it upon themselves. They are incredibly competitive and don't want to be sidelined for anything.

My point is all the choices are his to make. The same applies to other players. There are few victims in this who aren't victims of their own decisions. If a kid washes out of some dumbass cake walk program for kids who don't give a shit about school, sustains injuries in a sport he would play with or without a scholarship and has zero career prospects is that the fault of the system? I don't think so.

There are ways to twist it around to make it look like a scam, and it's true there are plenty of things wrong with college football, specifically the BCS. It's a feeder system for the NFL, a bunch of people make piles of money and the kids don't make anything. It may be all of those things, but it is also an opportunity for the lucky recipient of a football scholarship to change his life, either for good or bad.

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer but much of what you say is completely inaccurate, some of it factually, the rest logistically.

First, scholarships aren't guaranteed. They are only for 1 year and renewed at the team's discretion. A team can cut you if you get permanently injured. They typically don't because that would look bad to future recruits but if you can't continue with school they aren't going to keep you on scholarship. They can move you to a medical scholarship but that happens less often than you'd think.

Second, I don't think you realize the amount of time it takes to play a college sport. There's a reason a lot of athletes take something like General Studies, and it's not because they are all 'dumb jocks'. The college and university will be accommodating but the fact is that there's a lot of practice time (4+ hours a day) and travel. The football season is longer than most, even longer if the team is good (bowl games). Any hard science that has a lab or field work is probably out.

I just don't think you are realistically looking at what your brother is getting himself into and your expectations seem way off. He'd have to be one of those rare individuals to get a high-end degree and play a scholarship sport. Choosing to be a scholarship athlete is choosing to work on a sport instead of working on a degree of 'substance'.

Completely inaccurate? Are you speaking from experience or pretty much making this up based on what you think happens?

I read through the paperwork for the scholarship that was provided to my brother by the university so I understand how it works. He's spent the past year visiting schools and talking to various people about this. People have visited the house and his school to go over it all. I've been hearing all about it the whole time. This is exciting for the whole family. It's not like a letter showed up in the mail out of the blue one day saying he could go to school for free. I understand the year to year thing and how it works with injuries. In practice, it is uncommon to lose a scholarship unless you are a screwball.

I also realize that it takes time to play a college sport. Four or more hours of practice every day is nothing new. My brother has been doing it for the past four years at a school that demands a high academic level. He also has his own personal coaches that he works with. Half of the games he played in required travel-- quite a few of them three or four hours each way on a bus. This is all piled on top of hours of homework that always got done. Hell, his days are longer than mine and I have a full time job and a toddler. Granted, he never had to stay overnight anywhere, but playing football was still a huge time commitment. He made many sacrifices to do it.

My brother loves playing football and also places a high value on education and future career opportunities. I think it's every college football player's dream to play in the NFL, but he is realistic about the possibility and planning to make his money doing a regular job like everyone else.

There are plenty of kids that make this work. There are also many that don't. For some of them it's too difficult. Others didn't care much about school in the first place.

In the end, I'm just not buying the argument that the whole system is a scam designed to make a ton of money off the hard work of these kids that get nothing. Both sides benefit. One side gets the money. The other gets the opportunity of a lifetime. Besides, no one is forcing these kids to accept scholarships, and if they are playing at the kind of level to even be considered for one they know damn well how hard it is.

I'll give you the short answer. I did NOT play D1 football, I didn't play football at all. I did do IT work for a D1 university and talked with the athletic administration folks many times. I know a lot about the athletic scholarship process. But don't just take my word for it:

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/nli/nli/document+library...

I'm sure your proud of your brother, I get that. And I'm sure he's a smart individual. But how many of us skated through high school? I played 3 sports in high school and graduated at the top of my class without even trying. College ain't high school.

Take the money out of the equation. Let's talk about time because that's all that matters. The coach will come by the house and tell you you can be pre-med and play football. Consider them as car salesmen. They need to sell you a product and will say just about everything to make that happen.

But one of two things will happen with a heavy class load AND a season of D1 football: either grades will suffer or the sport will. Do you think the coach is going to tell you to skip a couple practices to catch up? Nope, he's going to ask you to take some easier classes and you'll have to to keep your scholarship, otherwise you'll get replaced by someone who will.

Here's a great article about the athlete turnover even at a school like Stanford:

http://paloalto.patch.com/articles/stanford-football-players...

>> But for the players involved, it's basically a scam. Even though they're getting a free education.

Sure, universities make money off college football, but let's not call this a "tragic exploitation system."

The players aren't forced to play. They 'love' football. That's why they're playing.

The far majority of college players (in all sports) know that they're not going to be playing professionally. But yet they still play. Because it's their dream to play.

The fact that they volunteer doesn't stop it from being a scam or an exploitation. Especially when you consider that they're being talked into it at 16, 17 years old and their parents often don't have all the facts.

It can be your dream to play, but in many cases it's about trading 5 years of "living the dream" for a reduced quality of life, for the rest of their lives. Job prospects, marketable skills, physical and even mental health. The current system offers kids the chance to live their dream, yeah, but in doing so it runs them through the mill and tosses them out the other side.

Not true in all cases or for all sports, but true in football far too often.

How are they "talked into it"?

Football is by far the most dangerous sport but players know the risks before they go in.

I played high school football 15 years ago and the big issue back then was paralysis.

The first day of every season we were shown an extensive video about paralysis and the best way to avoid making risky tackles.

It was a scary video to watch. But players know the risks.

I also played in high school and every year the training season began with an all-league screening of a version of this video, Heads Up:

http://www.nata.org/Heads-Up

I truly enjoyed football and the friends I made playing it. I've played many other sports and IMO there's no other team sport like it: no room for ego, a lot of pain and a lot of perseverance and discipline required. But I got my bell rung a lot and I was just a "skill" player. Several times I walked back to the huddle after getting hit on an across-the-middle route, not really sure where I was. Injuries happened all the time. It's a fast and violent game.

But players know the risks.

I use to feel retrospective fear whenever I think about the things I did when I was that age... even knowing the risks.

American football is totally unknown to me, but in my country there's that bullfighting thing. People that likes it doesn't seem to realise that it will disappear anyway in less than fifty years, probably much less. So I've found the article very interesting because the similarity.

Part of the point made by some of the ex-players that are contemplating suing the league is that the risks have been concealed from them, systematically.

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