Sporting Scholarships
Tomasalia
21-01-2006, 15:11
Are sporting scholarships a good or bad thing?
From the sporting point of view, the players are all intelligent, and if things go wrong they can theoretically follow a career. The downside is if you get an amzing player who is completely thick, then the sport misses out on him (most of the time).
From the academic point of view, you're promoting fitness and health, but how can you justify preventing students from benefiting from the best learning facillities, by filling their places with less intelligent sports players.
Discuss:
BogMarsh
21-01-2006, 15:12
Bad.
Not conducive to honing the R's.
But hey... it's a free country!
Iustus Libertas
21-01-2006, 15:27
Would it not be logical instead to set up separate sports academies where they can concentrate on sport and nothing else? Universities could still offer sports scholarships but only to those who demonstrated capable academic ability as well.
Such a plan would leave no athlete, bright or no, behind....
Mariehamn
21-01-2006, 15:30
Sporting scholarships are good.
Don't have to pay.
Whether the person is thick or not is their problem.
Cannot think of a name
21-01-2006, 15:37
First, it is important not to conflate a sporting scholarship with a relaxed academic standard for athletes. While both occur, they are not the same thing.
If the student meets the schools academic standard and is a talented enough athlete that s/he will be a blue chip (I may have misused that term, betraying me as not a sports fan) for the school, then why shouldn't s/he get a scholarship? I am a little disturbed when the scholarship is withdrawn if the player is injured playing for the college. It seems a little mercenary.
Like I pointed out, I'm not a sports fan, but I don't begrudge sports. People need to get that out somewhere and I prefer they do it on a field. There are side benefits from sports that can be valuable as long as focus isn't lost, which can happen pretty often. But again, this is not the sole problem of the athletic scholarship and it is important not to confuse the two problems.
If I can get a scholarship for being left handed or whatever other things that are out there, I don't see a problem with a talented athlete using that to fund an education that they may not have been able to afford otherwise.
Meeting the academic standard of the school, remember, is a separate issue.