At the half. I don't post much. This might be my 2nd post ever. But I do read the forum from time to time. I work with college students and through a family connection get to know student-athletes on campuses where I work pretty well.
These are kids, some 16, 17 years old. Not adults. Not businessmen. If they started reading what they were signing, they'd like be thought of as troublemakers. They sign these the first week of camp with no parents and certainly no lawyers. Who wants to be known as the troublemaker before you've even seen the field? And who has time to read all that? You've got physicals, you're getting sized for equipment, you get a playbook, you may still be registering for classes or finishing up summer bridge classes, you're moving into your dorms only perhaps to pile on buses a few hours later to some far-off camp.
They have a college football scholarship. Period. That's as far at their thoughts go. Not if it's a year. Not will I get another next year. They trust coaches and administrators are helping and protecting them - because that's what those coaches tell them they're doing for them. The team's got a game coming up in 3 weeks. That's where kids thoughts are. Oh, and that going to class thing, too.
Most kids who aren't asked back are told IN JANUARY. Barring academic or behavioral problems, many coaches help them transfer to other schools so if they want to, they can continue to play, whether they are walk-on or scholarship. On some teams and from what I understand this was true during the Tedford era, there is virtually no distinction between schollies and walk-ons. Many walk-ons earn schollies only their senior years. BUT if they earn one as underclassmen, yes, they do expect it will be renewed every year, like all the rest of the schollies without problems.
No one explains anything in detail to any of these kids. They're discouraged from looking at things besides film and the playbook with a critical eye. Yes, even at CAL.
You think Dykes stood up in front of the whole team, awarded walk-ons scholarships and said, "This kid is here for a year! Yay." That's anti-climatic. Coaches don't want any of these kids ESPECIALLY scholarship players even thinking that they could be asked to leave/go unfunded if they make their grades, keep their heads down and do what they're told to do. And scholarships are the carrot he holds out for the 20 kids on each team who are PAYING for the honor of being crash-test dummies on the practice squad. To a "good" kid, no coach is making it clear, a scholarship is not renewable. A kid with school or behavior problems - he's threatened all the time with the loss of the scholarship, but the "good" kid. No, he nor his parents are aware (and having knowledge something is different from being fully aware of something) that his schollie is renewable annually, whether he earned one as a walk on or earned one as a freshman or transfer schollie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a business. Coaches don't motivate these kids with the business aspects of college sports - they motivate them by promoting a "family" atmosphere. And in what functional family does an adult kick a kid - who has given him no problems - out of the house before he can support himself?
These are kids, some 16, 17 years old. Not adults. Not businessmen. If they started reading what they were signing, they'd like be thought of as troublemakers. They sign these the first week of camp with no parents and certainly no lawyers. Who wants to be known as the troublemaker before you've even seen the field? And who has time to read all that? You've got physicals, you're getting sized for equipment, you get a playbook, you may still be registering for classes or finishing up summer bridge classes, you're moving into your dorms only perhaps to pile on buses a few hours later to some far-off camp.
They have a college football scholarship. Period. That's as far at their thoughts go. Not if it's a year. Not will I get another next year. They trust coaches and administrators are helping and protecting them - because that's what those coaches tell them they're doing for them. The team's got a game coming up in 3 weeks. That's where kids thoughts are. Oh, and that going to class thing, too.
Most kids who aren't asked back are told IN JANUARY. Barring academic or behavioral problems, many coaches help them transfer to other schools so if they want to, they can continue to play, whether they are walk-on or scholarship. On some teams and from what I understand this was true during the Tedford era, there is virtually no distinction between schollies and walk-ons. Many walk-ons earn schollies only their senior years. BUT if they earn one as underclassmen, yes, they do expect it will be renewed every year, like all the rest of the schollies without problems.
No one explains anything in detail to any of these kids. They're discouraged from looking at things besides film and the playbook with a critical eye. Yes, even at CAL.
You think Dykes stood up in front of the whole team, awarded walk-ons scholarships and said, "This kid is here for a year! Yay." That's anti-climatic. Coaches don't want any of these kids ESPECIALLY scholarship players even thinking that they could be asked to leave/go unfunded if they make their grades, keep their heads down and do what they're told to do. And scholarships are the carrot he holds out for the 20 kids on each team who are PAYING for the honor of being crash-test dummies on the practice squad. To a "good" kid, no coach is making it clear, a scholarship is not renewable. A kid with school or behavior problems - he's threatened all the time with the loss of the scholarship, but the "good" kid. No, he nor his parents are aware (and having knowledge something is different from being fully aware of something) that his schollie is renewable annually, whether he earned one as a walk on or earned one as a freshman or transfer schollie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a business. Coaches don't motivate these kids with the business aspects of college sports - they motivate them by promoting a "family" atmosphere. And in what functional family does an adult kick a kid - who has given him no problems - out of the house before he can support himself?