Leading off today: I know what the best-read story on the
New York Times' web site was between the hours of 2 p.m. and midnight yesterday (
"Who do you want answering the phone at 3 a.m. when the governor of New York calls for bail money . . . ), but an important piece of reporting of interest to high school athletes and their parents probably ranked highly for much of the day.
Reporter Bill Pennington took a hard look at college scholarship money and came to the conclusion that the aid actually handed out does not match mom and dad's perception of what's available. Among the findings:
- Ice hockey and basketball players have the best chance of earning full scholarships when you analyze the number of scholarships available and the number of athletes receiving them. On average, any player on scholarship in either sport is getting between 78 and 80 percent of a full ride.
- Be suspicious when you hear of any athlete receiving a full scholarship, especially in baseball. The average Division I or II player is actually only getting about one-third of a full ride because coaches have to split money between 25 or more players.
- Men receive 57 percent of all scholarship money, but in 11 of the 14 sports with men’s and women’s teams, the women’s teams averaged higher amounts per athlete.
"People run themselves ragged to play on three teams at once so they could always reach the next level," said Margaret Barry of Laurel, Md., whose daughter swims at Delaware. "They’re going to be disappointed when they learn that if they’re very lucky, they will get a scholarship worth 15 percent of the $40,000 college bill. What’s that? $6,000?"
Coaches told Pennington they've rejected top prospects because their parents had unrealistic scholarship expectations.
"I dropped a good player because her dad was a jerk — all he ever talked to me about was scholarship money," said Joanie Milhous, the field hockey coach at Villanova. "I don’t need that in my program. I recruit good, ethical parents as much as good, talented kids because, in the end, there’s a connection between the two."
The NYT story was compelling enough for The Post-Standard to devote a entire page to the topic in this morning's edition. And bloggers picked up on it quickly, too.
I can't vouch for the accuracy of the data, but one blogger took the scholarship issue a step farther by cross-referencing scholarship dollars against the number of athletes playing the respective sports in high school.
