You should do some reading on poverty among high-school & college athletics.
Study: "The Price of Poverty in Big Time College Sport" - 9/13/2011
Highlights
- The average scholarship shortfall (out-of-pocket expenses) for each “full” scholarship athlete was approximately $3222 per player during the 2010-11 school year.
- The room and board provisions in a full scholarship leave 85% of players living on campus and 86% of players living off campus living below the federal poverty line.
- The fair market value of the average FBS football and basketball player was $121,048 and $265,027, respectively.
- University of Texas football players’ fair market value was $513,922 but they lived $778 below the federal poverty line and had a $3,624 scholarship shortfall.
- Duke basketball players were valued at $1,025,656 while living just $732 above the poverty line and a scholarship shortfall of $1,995.
- The University of Florida had the highest combined football and basketball revenues while its football and basketball players’ scholarships left them living $2,250 below the federal poverty line and with a $3190 scholarship shortfall.
My father, Jimmy Collins, was once one of those young athletes. He grew up in poverty in Syracuse, New York. Every night, my grandmother, a single parent with barely a grade school education, prayed her children would beat the odds and find success, or at least make it out of Syracuse alive. Dad’s way out was basketball. Awarded a scholarship in 1966, he went on to lead New Mexico State University to the Final Four in 1970. He earned national accolades and even a Sports Illustrated cover.
While his image was used to sell magazines across the country, he lived in relative poverty and had to scramble to make ends meet. He worked a series of increasingly dangerous jobs — including a short-lived stint as a rodeo clown! My family laughs about it now, but at the time he could have easily destroyed his body, let alone his career, in the blink of an eye.
Today, the student-athletes who generate the most revenue for universities, brands and TV networks are in the football and basketball programs. The vast majority are black. To maintain “amateur status” and thus be eligible to play, athletes cannot accept any money or gifts off their image or likeness. Because of rigorous practice and game schedules, most cannot work while under scholarship and some may go hungry or have difficulty paying rent. Some, like my father, come from impoverished backgrounds and need income to support their families.
Meanwhile, like modern-day overseers, predominantly white coaches, administrators and white schools reap the rewards of this black labor. More than 82 percent of college basketball coaches are white, more than 92 percent of FBS head coaches are white, and more than 86 percent of conference commissioners are white. Not a single person of color has served as commissioner for one of the Power Five conferences. In 2015 alone, the top programs made a combined $9.1 billion. The NCAA itself just signed an $8.8 billion TV deal with CBS Sports and Turner to air its March Madness tournament.
Student-athletes work tirelessly to perform at the highest levels of athletic competition while simultaneously endeavoring to graduate on time and prepare for future careers. Their efforts generated more than $1 billion for the NCAA and its member institutions in the 2016-17 school year alone. But while many coaches and commissioners took home seven- and even eight-figure salaries, student-athletes did not receive a penny of compensation beyond their scholarships, which do not always cover the full expenses associated with attending college.
The exploitation of student-athletes also produces serious adverse health outcomes, including debilitating knee and ankle injuries and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease. Many student-athletes, especially Black student-athletes who are often concentrated in high-profile, revenue-generating sports, such as football and basketball, also struggle to graduate on time. It does not need to be this way.
I'm sorry you weren't able to get away with whatever it was you wanted to get away with.
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