I was going to post about this story yesterday before the whole Carrie Underwood ticket incident occurred, and I really wanted to make sure I came back to it, because despite it's relative obscurity (I first heard about it yesterday, 2 weeks after it broke), this is probably my favorite sports story of the year thus far.
If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know that (despite my recent anti-cynicism rant) I'm fairly cynical when it comes to the administration of major college athletics. I believe that cynicism is fairly well founded, however. And I've always done my best not to extend that cynicism to the athletes in a blanket fashion. That's fairly easy to do, since for the most part I see them as mostly cogs in a massive machine that isn't exactly designed to look out for them, though they can certainly derive some benefit from it.
Anyhow, seeing a story like that of Jonathan Meyers of Greenwich, Connecticut really makes me smile. You can read the full article for yourself if you choose, but to summarize, Meyers is a blue-chip high school football recruit, and has drawn scholarship offers from the likes of Florida, Michigan, and UCLA. Instead of taking one of those offers (most likely would have been Florida), Meyers has decided to play at Princeton, where he can pursue a great education, play lacrosse (he's an All-American in that sport), and play football on top of that, keeping alive his hopes of playing in the NFL. Oh, and by the way, Ivy League schools don't offer athletic scholarships, so he'll have to pay his own way.
Call me crazy, but I think it's all kinds of refreshing to see a kid who clearly has an excellent head on his shoulders and was able to look past the glitz and glamour of the major college football scene and make such a decision, in the face of any number of voices that would suggest he's a fool for doing so. That is not to say that I think that most blue chip football recruits ignore their education, but I do think you see a lot of players make decisions about their education in the context of a subset of schools that would be the best option for their football career. It's like if you have the option to go and play at a big time football school, you have to exercise it. I feel like a lot of players would be well served to look at the situation more holistically, as Meyers clearly has. This is especially true in a day and age in which lower D-IA programs, and even D-IAA programs are getting their players noticed by the NFL. While he may have not taken the "best" course for his football aspirations, he certainly hasn't abandoned them by going to Princeton.
I'm not sure how thrilled his parents will be about having to foot Princeton's 47k a year tuition, but I'm sure they are quite proud of his decision. I know I personally wish him the best of luck, in all his future endeavors, on and off the field.
8 months ago
13 comments:
Good for him. :)
I'm from Connecticut, so when I saw that Meyers was from Greenwich (one of the wealthiest cities in the entire country), it was immediately clear that Princeton's tuition wasn't going to be a hardship for his family. (Confirmed at the bottom of the article.)
Most people who have the talent to be a great sports star are better served by going to the big sports schools with a full scholarship. Historically, great athletes have always come disproportionately from the under-privileged for good economic reasons; very few of them have the luxury (or opportunity) to attend Princeton. It is far more important to most college athletes that A) the education is free and B) the sports program is nationally known and recognized. So I'm not sure that I agree with you that Mr. Meyers is necessarily any kind of example. As for lower level programs, I think an athlete should consider them in particular if he thinks he will probably be a bench player for a major program, rather than a starter. Many athletes would be much better off starting for a lower level program rather than riding the bench for a great program.
As for your cynicism about the NCAA, that's just factual. The NCAA is an obviously exploitative institution: decadent, degenerate, and rotten to the core. They make millions of dollars off college athletes and do everything in their power to ensure that the athletes themselves don't see a single dime of the money. If any other organization behaved like they did, the government would have long ago shattered the trust and forbade their practices, but since virtually every state government is in the business up to their eyebrows, no action is taken and it's rationalized and excused by virtually everyone. It is really quite appalling; I have no idea how college presidents sleep at night. Except of course for that powerful human ability to rationalize virtually anything.
The benefits that athletes enjoy from the system do exist, of course, but they are far lower than would be the case with any kind of free market for minor league sports.
Well, the fact that this case specifically involved an Ivy League school muddies the waters. The Ivy League is the only place in all of D-I where a football player isn't getting a full-ride.
I'm not saying that's wrong, or even a "bad" decision for a kid who has the opportunity to go to a big time school to do so.But, especially in football, more kids ought to let the other factors enter their decision making to a stronger degree, especially in this day and age where you can get to the NFL from virtually any level without much trouble, if you have the ability.
Football is a sport where, even if you are certain you have the talent to make the NFL, you really need to have an "after" plan ready to go, and virtually every number you can look at bears that out.
Perhaps. I must say that you're now running into my skepticism about education as a universal panacea. (I am aware that I'm in a pretty tiny minority on this.)
I totally agree that most NFL players need a smart plan for how they're going to continue on after their (usually very short) careers are over. Of course, the most important factor isn't necessarily getting a valuable and useful degree (though surely that helps), but disciplined finances while they're making pretty decent money (minimum rookie salary is $285,000 ramping up to $820,000 by your eleventh year). Give me three years in the NFL at a league minimum salary and I could support my family for pretty close to the rest of my life. Five years and I'm certain I could. (Granting there's no guarantee I'll get those five years. The average career length is 3.8 seasons.) However, I wouldn't be living anywhere remotely as ostentatiously as most NFL players do while their career is going. The biggest challenge NFL players face is that so many of them fool themselves into thinking that they're rich and the money tap will keep pouring for their entire lives. So they buy houses they can't afford, spend money they should be investing, etc. This is a very, very easy trap to fall into. It is a trap that young doctors, lawyers, and investment bankers also fall into, but they're usually bailed out by their longer careers. (I am firmly of the opinion that people should continue to live as cheaply as possible for the first five years, minimum, at the start of their careers, before they become addicted to a higher consumption lifestyle and when they can get the longest time frame for their investments.)
More important are those people (the majority) who are good enough to play in college, but not good enough to play in the NFL. These people need a very solid backup plan for what they're going to do after college if the NFL doesn't pan out. It is not clear to me, though, that playing football is such a smart thing for these players at all. It's quite difficult to simultaneously get a good education and play a sport at a high level (with the time commitment that entails) at the same time. Athletes go in to college already handicapped before they start.
Universal panacea? Might be going too far. Generally quite useful? Yeah.
Were there an actual minor league system in place in football (as I think there should be), I wouldn't be out there preaching "go to school" to every kid coming out of high school.
Given that there isn't that option, and in order to pursue a football career a player is forced to go to school, and one of the few benefits of the system we both despise is that schooling being paid for, I think kids would be better off making maximizing that particular benefit a higher priority in making their college choie.
Your point about athletes being disadvantaged due to time commitments is fair. Though I will say that I'm fairly certain it's more than possible to be an athlete and get a good education, if you make it a priority.
The disadvantage is there, but I don't know that even the major college football player is giving more time to football than say someone who has to work part-time to get through school is giving up. As a general rule, athletes at my alma mater did very well in the classroom, and while I'll gladly concede that major college athletes have more time commitments than D-III athletes, I don't think the difference is large enough to be a significant hindrance to a player who commits himself to excellence in both arenas.
I'm not even sure that education matters that much, unless you're entering a protected field (law, medicine, engineering, education). When you control for intelligence and conscientiousness (both highly correlated with education), a lot of the benefits of education seem to disappear. What remains appears to be mostly a signaling effect (i.e. some jobs require any sort of college degree without caring what it was in; college is simply being used as a mechanism to sort people on levels of intelligence and conscientiousness).
I find that good athletes tend to do well after college, since they tend to be conscientious and diligent. (It's hard to be a very good athlete if you're not willing to work.)
Certainly it's possible to do well in college while playing a sport, but it's not remotely easy. Division I-A football players, on average, spend 44.8 hours per week on their sport according to an NCAA study released a couple of weeks ago. Track and cross country take the least time (30.7 hours per week). This is quite a difficult load, much harder than just working part-time and going to school full-time. The numbers, I believe, should be viewed with some slight skepticism. People who work very long hours tend to think they are working even longer hours than they really are. In particular, the study claims that a majority of athletes claim to spend just as much time on their sport when it's out of season, and I find this difficult to believe. Nevertheless, while I think the numbers should be cut somewhat, they're probably only overestimating by 5-6 hours per week.
However, I worked 42 hours per week (punching a time clock, so there is no exaggeration there) while going to school full-time all four years during college and graduated summa cum laude, so it's certainly possible to get a quality education while playing a sport. The difficulty should not be underestimated though. I'm not sure I could adequately describe the amount of willpower I occasionally needed just to get me through the week sometimes and I would never have made it the last couple of years (while keeping up my grades) without my wife.
I'm not even sure that education matters that much, unless you're entering a protected field (law, medicine, engineering, education). When you control for intelligence and conscientiousness (both highly correlated with education), a lot of the benefits of education seem to disappear. What remains appears to be mostly a signaling effect (i.e. some jobs require any sort of college degree without caring what it was in; college is simply being used as a mechanism to sort people on levels of intelligence and conscientiousness).
I find that good athletes tend to do well after college, since they tend to be conscientious and diligent. (It's hard to be a very good athlete if you're not willing to work.)
Certainly it's possible to do well in college while playing a sport, but it's not remotely easy. Division I-A football players, on average, spend 44.8 hours per week on their sport according to an NCAA study released a couple of weeks ago. Track and cross country take the least time (30.7 hours per week). This is quite a difficult load, much harder than just working part-time and going to school full-time. The numbers, I believe, should be viewed with some slight skepticism. People who work very long hours tend to think they are working even longer hours than they really are. In particular, the study claims that a majority of athletes claim to spend just as much time on their sport when it's out of season, and I find this difficult to believe. Nevertheless, while I think the numbers should be cut somewhat, they're probably only overestimating by 5-6 hours per week.
However, I worked 42 hours per week (punching a time clock, so there is no exaggeration there) while going to school full-time all four years during college and graduated summa cum laude, so it's certainly possible to get a quality education while playing a sport. The difficulty should not be underestimated though. I'm not sure I could adequately describe the amount of willpower I occasionally needed just to get me through the week sometimes and I would never have made it the last couple of years (while keeping up my grades) without my wife.
Can you direct me to that study?
I have in my head some potential further critiques of it, but I'd like to see it before I bother with critiques that might already be addressed in the study.
Sure, I found it at this site.
The N is large enough. They surveyed 1658 Division I football players. Pointing to the problem I found with it is the fact that football players also claimed to spend more time on classes (39.5 hours per week) than any other sport did. This is consistent with my theory (confirmed by time diary studies) that the longer people work, the greater the discrepancy in how long they think they're working.
So a person who works 50 hours a week might think they're working 52 hours per week, but a person who's actually working 85 hours per week might think they're working 100 hours per week.
Well, it does seem that one of my hunches was accurate, and that the study included travel time.
While time travelling to and from contests is most definitely time devoted to sports, it's not by definition lost time to academics. Travel hours are also often overnight/sleep hours as well. I would wager there's some double-counting of hours in there.
Since this was self-reported, I'd be curious to see the actual survey. The article says they were asked to describe a typical day. That strikes me as a rather rough way to track this kind of thing. Perhaps that's a misrepresentation in the article and they were actually detailing an entire normal week.
None of this is to suggest that there isn't a very significant time committment to D-I athletics, I just am very skeptical of the idea that these athletes are actually dedicating as much time outside of practices and games as they are in. Or at the very least, that it's a necessity to do so to compete.
I doubt they included sleep time in their travel time. However, I think you might be underestimating the difficulty in studying while traveling. Speaking as somebody who tried it several times, I was never able to get much done.
I think it can be done (and I've done it before myself), and yet as I think aboout it, travel time should be almost inconsequential in football, since teams typically don't have more than 6-7 road dates a year.
We can go back and forth on that sort of stuff, but I still want to see the survey itself. All I can find so far is that they were asked to describe a typical day, and if that's accurate, and the weekly numbers were then drawn solely from that, I think there's a ton of room for error in there.
I don't doubt that's it's a serious time committment, but I'm just not sure I buy that it's the equivalent of a full-time job for the average athlete.
I find it very easy to believe. Professional football players put in far more than just full-time hours when the season's in session. The NCAA tries to restrict this by putting limits on practice time, but coaches can "encourage" their players to put in their own time in the weight room, etc.
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