jx 10 wrote:
No argument about foreign athletes taking advantage of USA scholarships $$ and training (especially in past decades).
Don't know what % of runners on scholarship are foreign but it ain't close to majority.
Every USA world champ or Oly medal is former NCAA athlete. Not true of other nations.
Allyson Felix was not.
joedirt wrote:
Among scholarship athletes, the percentage of foreigners is extremely high (not many foreigners coming to the USA as walk ons). The NCAA essentially serves as free Olympic development for a number of foreign nations. Hopefully travel restrictions and COVID fears limit the number of foreigners and force coaches to recruit and develop domestic talent.
Here is the disconnect. A college coach is paid to win NOW at the NCAA level. In a truly well organized sport development system a college coach in late development sports (distancing running and a few others where it is common for peak performances to occur between say 24 and 35), then those college coaches would get credit.
What percentage do you consider high? (Let's stick with D1). 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%? Okay now look at the NCAA stats.
https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/research/demographics/2019RES_ISATrendsDivSprt.pdfPCTHiker wrote:
Yeah, well remember that when you say NCAA, in terms of $$$ that translates into students and taxpayers footing that bill.
Sports at universities should be, once and for all, intramural and/or club sports. Let the elite athletes develop on the dime of clubs, sponsors, coaches, etc., and not on the backs of the taxpayer.
joedirt wrote:
Among scholarship athletes, the percentage of foreigners is extremely high (not many foreigners coming to the USA as walk ons). The NCAA essentially serves as free Olympic development for a number of foreign nations. Hopefully travel restrictions and COVID fears limit the number of foreigners and force coaches to recruit and develop domestic talent.
The NCAA receives no taxpayer money (aside from some grants that are based on research proposals and are a relatively small sum when they do get them). The NCAA is funded primarily through the contract to televise the D1 basketball tournaments (men and women). That money is then disperses to all member schools.
University athletic departments are funded with donations plus revenue from ticket sales and tv contracts plus the money from said March Madness contract. There are other revenue streams like merchandising, but those are small amounts relative to tv and ticket sales. Obviously only a few sports are making money from tv and tickets.
At some universities students do pay an athletic fee that goes to the athletic department. I am opposed to these mandatory fees. Often students who are close to leaving school vote them in and the students who come after get stuck with the bills.
Slow is okay wrote:
Good observation. We love our sports and the scholarships are funded from donations. For every one athletics scholarship, there are probably 10 academics scholarships also funded by donors. The same people who are demanding free education are complaining about athletic scholarships even though a large percentage go to minorities and low income people.
Do you have data to back up that claim? I am open to accepting the premise that some sports are highly represented by players who would qualify for a school lunch program or other government assistance in sports like football and basketball (yes I am making a bunch of assumptions) and maybe track, but I am not so sure when it comes to baseball/softball, tennis, golf, gymnastics, swimming, rowing, etc.
I have read articles arguing that the grant in aid system is actually more beneficial to the affluent than to the poor.
Some readings
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/10/college-sports-benefits-white-students/573688/
This one is aimed at high school but that is where college athletes come from
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/meritocracy-killing-high-school-sports/597121/
I'll raise the question again, because it is NOT tangential to the OP's post. How is it we accept living in a country that collectively wastes billions upon billions in the pursuit of sports as entertainment, while we accept the argument that we couldn't possibly find the money to provide universal healthcare?
It's insane that we are incredibly wealthy and incredibly entertained and also incredibly willing to allow a society that provides no security, no decent healthcare, no pensions. When will more of us take a little time away from our drowning in sports to consider a better society?
PCTHiker wrote:
I'll raise the question again, because it is NOT tangential to the OP's post. How is it we accept living in a country that collectively wastes billions upon billions in the pursuit of sports as entertainment, while we accept the argument that we couldn't possibly find the money to provide universal healthcare?
It's insane that we are incredibly wealthy and incredibly entertained and also incredibly willing to allow a society that provides no security, no decent healthcare, no pensions. When will more of us take a little time away from our drowning in sports to consider a better society?
You think it is a "waste" and yet the entertainment industry (and sports is entertainment) creates lots of jobs and wealth. That wealth provides a tax base to pay for government programs.
For some reason people who wanted single payer healthcare seem to think that will solve all problems. It does not. Every system with single payer has serious issues with healthcare delivery.
This will be a radical idea for someone looking for more government involvement in healthcare: how about LESS! I should also note that here we are talking about paying for healthcare. If you are getting healthcare the US is incredibly good at delivering it.
Look up the Econtalk podcasts for the episodes on healthcare and paying for it. If you are willing to listen to a different perspective that is.
Finally, look at how government on all levels whether a Dem or a GOP is at the top of the heap has royally F'ed up this healthcare crisis. I am not confident a single bureaucracy with a monopoly on healthcare is the way to go. Funny how so many who want single pay and no competition get upset when a single company has a large (and no where near monopoly) on other goods and services. Do you want just one automobile manufacturer? And would you want it to be government run like our schools?
Yeah, NO. Lots of words from the likes of you that keep us exactly where we are, which is the most expensive healthcare non-system in the world that delivers terrible overall results. No I am not willing to listen to any more magical thinking from those who are not prepared to get on board with universal healthcare.
Period.
We are decades behind the rest of the world-of-the-decent and it has become a huge disadvantage for all of us.
Period.
You don't want to go to universal healthcare? I see you as part of the problem and the days of blue ribbon panels and discussions should be over.
NO.
It's time for universal healthcare, among other benefits that will actually allow normal Americans to live decent lives, and that is not all. How about decent benefits? How about the 1% paying much larger wealth tax? How about across the board taxes on every stock market transaction? Increases in gas taxes? Last, how about decent pensions for those in old age?
Because it is illegal. Sports are funded from donations. Universal healthcare is funded from tax dollars. If Gates and Buffet and Winfrey and their billionaire buddies all paid for it, it would be legal and a great thing for our country. But they won't do it because democrats always want someone else to pay.
Universal healthcare is coming. Get used to it.
Slow is okay wrote:
Because it is illegal. Sports are funded from donations. Universal healthcare is funded from tax dollars. If Gates and Buffet and Winfrey and their billionaire buddies all paid for it, it would be legal and a great thing for our country. But they won't do it because democrats always want someone else to pay.
College football is here to stay. Get used to it.
Umm ever hear of Alyson Felix?
Nick Symonds had no scholarship.
rhinetalrunner wrote:
SprintTriathlon wrote:
In Norway it is paid as part of the incometax, but since the healthcare system is very efficient (no parasites stealing the folks money), the rate is low.
They do charge at the doctors, a full exam including labtests is 40 $.
Henrik I was part of the US college system for a short time, but he just hated it.
I was just using the examples of France and Germany, two countries I’ve lived in apart from the US. That’s great for Norway though!
Yes, I do know, and most about Germany, and ordinary people used to want private insurance, but those numbers are dropping rapidly (now at just 11%), since the public insurance is so much better at a cost benefit level.
Not in the form to which you've become accustomed. College football will not return to what it was a year ago. You wish it to be but it won't be.
New Queen wrote:
College football is here to stay. Get used to it.
Bob Mathias won the 1948 Oly decathlon at 17yo, no NCAA athletic scholarship involved at the time.
Glenn Graham won silver in the 1924 Oly poly vault. An undergraduate at the time, his school has never awarded an athletic scholarship, and that school also produced a finalist in the 1956 Oly javelin.
This is off the top of my head, although I had to look up those athletes' names.
Bob Mathias 1948 and Glenn Graham 1924 are counterexamples.
New Queen wrote:
College football is here to stay. Get used to it.
Sports that can be done individually or in small groups are most likely to survive the pandemic. A sport that requires 22 people at once and 150 on a team, not so likely. I think the boomers will bend over backwards to save it because they love hanging out with other beer bellied men and watching football, but if we cared about health, football would be the last sport to be restarted due to incredible team size.
I support socialized health care, but that is a multi-trillion dollar expenditure. This is less than 1 billion.
Imagine I said I bought a toy from the dollar store, and you said "Oh, you can't find a way to pay for a $1000 computer, but you can pay for a toy from the dollar store?"
African transplant expresses disgust with America. Aliphine Chepkerker Tuliamuk -
LONG POST??♀️ Let me make this clear, Racing and winning the Olympic trials in Atlanta was the highest breakthrough of my marathon career so far, I was elated after I crossed that finish line, I was grateful for the opportunity that being an American had given me, emotions were running high. The spectators and the fans along the course in Atlanta were unlike anything I had ever experienced before. They were loud, excited and cheered so well for us. I felt so much love and support while there, and from videos that fans took along the course or in bars, AND NO ONE CAN EVER TAKE THAT AWAY. Then a couple days later, I finally had a chance to watch the replay to see what people at home saw. I was definitely caught off guard, initially I was okay that I didn’t hear my name mentioned even when I was right there, while everyone around me was talked about, as the race went on, I became uneasy, and right when the move happened and coverage came back from break, I broke down, I couldn’t handle it anymore. I stopped watching the rest of the race till the next day. I spoke to my coach and manager about how I felt in that moment. When I resumed the next day, I still didn’t feel like anyone knew much about me. For starters, that was my 10th national championship title, I run for Hoka one One @naz_elite , a team that shares a lot on social media, I may have been the underdog but it wouldn’t take long before you saw this coming, from my last 3 marathons, heck you should have known that on my last podcast that week with letsrun, I was bold in saying that I felt ready because of the training I had had. Anyways If you haven’t watched the coverage go check it out on NBC or YouTube, make your own mind about it. I have watched that race 7 times, and I got enraged each of those last 6. I wondered if the reason was that I was a black woman, or that I am a Kenyan-American, (so not American enough?). I believe that any media covering a race should be fare and do their research, so that athletes can get the exposure they deserve, and fans can be educated on who they are watching; this can also make a difference in our careers in so many ways. Let’s all do better!