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Kindred: Four-year scholarship guarantee too costly for some schools http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/columnists/kindred/article_fcabd61e-1b3e-5189-8b54-6a12d54d1a11.html…
Kindred: Four-year scholarship guarantee too costly for some schools
Print Randy Kindred rkindred@pantagraph.com
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It sounds terrific. An athlete signs on National Letter of Intent Day and is guaranteed a four-year scholarship to a Division I university.
No longer does he/she have to worry if his/her scholarship will be renewed on a year to year basis. The deal is locked in. Also included is a boost in health care benefits to athletes and financial assistance for former athletes who return to finish their degrees.
Again, sounds great.
Big Ten Conference presidents came out in support of it this week. And on Friday, Indiana athletic director Fred Glass told the Associated Press the school will immediately begin guaranteeing four-year scholarships, and agree not to reduce the amount students on partial scholarships receive based on illness, injury or ability.
Glass called the program “Hoosiers for Life,” with the school paying tuition, books and fees for any scholarship student who was eligible at least two years at Indiana and leaves school early for a family emergency or to pursue a professional career (i.e., entering a draft) or any other reason.
By now you’re probably wondering how much this will cost and how Indiana will pay for it.
Glass couldn’t put a price tag on it, other than to tell the AP it likely would be “hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.” He said the university would try to raise funds and create an endowment.
There is the rub, and it’s a big one.
Indiana likely can pull it off. It has the benefit of being in the Big Ten and reaping the millions in television revenue from the Big Ten Network and elsewhere. It also has a large alumni base.
But what if you’re not Indiana, not in the Big Ten, not in a power conference … yet still are in Division I?
What if you’re Illinois State?
Finding an extra “hundreds of thousands of dollars a year” is a monumental – perhaps impossible – task for the ISUs of Division I. So you continue to provide scholarship money on a year to year basis, unless of course the four-year guarantee is mandated by the NCAA.
At present, the NCAA simply says schools can offer four-year guarantees if they so choose. The option has been available since 2012, and many have gone that route in football and assorted other sports.
Pressure to make it a department-wide policy, like at Indiana, has been heightened by an ongoing lawsuit against the NCAA led by former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon and the threat of the first college athletes union at Northwestern.
It may lead every school in every power conference to join Indiana. While that is a clear “win” for the athletes at those schools, where does it leave ISU, Missouri State, Southern Illinois et al?
Competing with the power conferences for recruits would become that much tougher. The separation between the Division I haves and have-nots would grow wider.
The four-year guarantee is designed to better serve the needs of athletes and discourage a coach from “running off” a player after a year or two years because a better one has come along.
In theory, it is about commitment and trust from the school to its student-athletes. In reality, it is about dollars and cents.
That’s the rub.
