Siegel: Athletic scholarships have no guarantees

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Murray Siegel

By Murray Siegel

Across America there are many parents who have no concern about paying for their child’s college costs, due to the parents counting on their child’s athletic ability to be rewarded with an athletic scholarship. Unless these parents have experience as a scholarship athlete or as a high school coach, they may be in for a rude awakening.

There are dangers involved with counting on athletic scholarships. The very first caveat is to know the odds against receiving an athletic scholarship. For example, there are more than 1 million boys playing high school football, yet across all NCAA Division I and II schools there are only 19,000 football scholarships (odds of 50:1).

Among non-revenue sports such as soccer, tennis and track, the number of scholarships is limited. For example, a Division I soccer coach has a maximum of 10 scholarships. To attract enough quality players, these scholarships are split so two-star players might get a full-ride and 16 other players receive a half scholarship. Another concern not understood by most parents is that athletic scholarships are not guaranteed and must be renewed annually. An injury to an athlete or a new coach with a different set of tactics may cause an athlete to lose the scholarship.

How good is the young athlete and what changes may occur as he or she matures? I spent many years as a high school girls’ soccer coach and had a number of players who were not as competitive as 16-year-olds as they had been at 14. The difference was physiological changes that took place as puberty set in. You may not be able to predict the size of your 12-year-old when she or he is 17. Few college coaches want a 4-foot-11 female point guard or a 5-foot-9 male shooting guard.

Also, many parents think because their child is the best athlete in the local league that this translates into national prominence. Unless an athlete is participating at a highly competitive level, one cannot judge his or her scholarship potential.

So what can parents do? The simple answer is guide your child to be successful academically in the most challenging program commensurate with the child’s true abilities. NCAA Division III schools do not offer athletic scholarships, but they do have merit scholarships available for athletes who have shown academic prowess.

An example taken from my teaching/coaching experience: A and B were both potentially good students and both played basketball. A was also a quarterback. A was a thinking-man’s quarterback but did not have great size or speed. A’s father emphasized athletics and aimed his son at being a Division I quarterback. B’s father motivated his son to succeed at both academics and basketball. B received a merit scholarship to a
Division III school that was highly-ranked nationally as an academic institution and he played for four years. A won a football scholarship to a major SEC powerhouse where he was a third string quarterback and never played. In his spare time, he became a bookie taking student bets. The gambling ring was discovered and A lost his scholarship, was kicked off the team, and ejected from the university. Which parent did the right thing?

Murray Siegel is a Maricopa resident. He has a PhD in Math Ed and 42 years of teaching experience. He and his wife Sharon are volunteer teachers of advanced math classes at Butterfield Elementary School.


This column appears in the August issue of InMaricopa.