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zainny | 12 years ago

Can anyone explain the interrelation between sports players and college for me? We don't really have such a concept in Australia as far as I'm aware. Am I understanding correctly that to play a sport professionally a person must first attend a college and complete some degree? Why does the US even have this system? Do any other countries do this as well?

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jasonwatkinspdx|12 years ago

It depends on the particular sport and the leagues involved, but most future professional players will play a couple years at the college level. High-school super stars in some sports may go into the professional league directly but it's uncommon. In many sports no matter your skill level you cannot build the physique necessary to compete until a bit later in life (american football for example). Also, some leagues have implemented rules designed to prevent direct recruitment from high school, notably the NBA.

There's typically no requirement to finish college however. It's relatively common for athletes to move up to the pros and skip the last years of their academics.

The US's system is mostly due to history, but the current structure continues because it is worth an extraordinary amount of money. The schools with top athletic teams bring in revenues of 100 million or more. The governing body for college athletics generally prohibits significant payments to the athletes themselves, so all that income goes to coaches and other staff, as well as supporting businesses. College coaches are usually the highest paid people on campus. This continues to be a bitter political topic, because many people see it as unfair that college athletes are generating so much money for everyone but themselves. The other side points out that allowing paid recruitment and player endorsement/advertising would have a corrupting effect as well as make it difficult for smaller schools to be competitive.

As far as I know, our system is unique, and that's probably because we were televising college athletics earlier and more heavily than other nations.

mcv|12 years ago

> As far as I know, our system is unique, and that's probably because we were televising college athletics earlier and more heavily than other nations.

It's not just that it's televised, it's that sports are tied to schools and colleges at all. Netherland has tons of youth sports, but all in indepdent, often volunteer-run clubs. For many sports (football and hockey[0] at least) there's a youth league for every two-year age group, and after the last one, when you're 18, you move to the adult leagues. Those are generally amateur leagues, but professional football clubs have their own youth programs (playing in the same leagues) and recruit from all clubs in the vicinity (not to mention rival clubs and foreign countries).

[0] And here I mean the football where a round ball is played with the foot, rather than American Football; and the hockey that's played on a field, rather than ice hockey.

KC8ZKF|12 years ago

Most baseball players go to the minor leagues right out of high school.

revelation|12 years ago

It's not just college. Apparently sports are also a big part of high school, with money supporting a schools competitive team coming directly from the school budget.

That is simply not at all how it works here. You of course have sports education in school, but it is not competitive and you can't choose either.

alexeisadeski3|12 years ago

>The governing body for college athletics generally prohibits significant payments to the athletes themselves, so all that income goes to coaches and other staff, as well as supporting businesses.

Most of the money goes to the university itself.

waylandsmithers|12 years ago

As far as I can tell, this is a uniquely American phenomenon, and how we got here could easily be the subject of a full research paper.

Here's my theory:

It all starts with Harvard and Yale wanting a leg up on each other in their football rivalry, which dates back to 1875. Professional football did not start in the US until many years later. Football, and to some degree basketball and other sports, came to represent a very serious way for colleges to express rivalries with each other.

Seriously: "After The Game of 1894, which came to be known as the "Hampden Park Bloodbath" and about which newspapers reported seven players carried off the field "in dying condition," the two schools broke off all official contact including athletic competition for two years."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard%E2%80%93Yale_football_r...

As such, each institution became hell-bent on defeating the other at football, which led to the relaxing of academic standards to admit superior athletes. Things have spiraled out of control from there. Many schools now face very serious pressure from alumni and other donors who demand athletic success. Recruiting top high school athletes is an extremely shady business, as both schools and athletes have a lot at stake.

Harvard, Yale, and the other Ivy League schools today do not do this to the extent that some others do and have policies against awarding scholarships based on athletics-- they are small and elite institutions that can't get away with admitting students who literally cannot read. But even the schools with these policies admit athletes who would probably not get in based on their academics alone.

ef4|12 years ago

That's not really it. You don't need a degree to play professional sports, and some of the most talented players skip directly into professional leagues without finishing college. But college is where they have the best chance of honing their abilities and getting noticed.

College sports is all about money. Consider this map:

http://deadspin.com/infographic-is-your-states-highest-paid-...

Why are the mostly highly paid "public servants" in most states athletic coaches? Because the public universities make huge amounts of money from sports: the TV licensing deals, the ticket sales, the merchandising.

The players get paid nothing -- at most they get their tuition waived.

alexeisadeski3|12 years ago

>Why are the mostly highly paid "public servants" in most states athletic coaches? Because the public universities make huge amounts of money from sports: the TV licensing deals, the ticket sales, the merchandising.

That's not why.

The coaches are paid a ton because were they to quit, they could be paid a ton somewhere else.

Why would they be paid a ton somewhere else?

Because other colleges want to win!

Why do they want to win?

Because without their football team, schools like Alabama and Texas and USC and and and would have ZERO credibility.

JoeAltmaier|12 years ago

If you're a naïve boogerbrain, they don't get paid anything. Then why do they wear expensive clothes and drive sports cars? They get plenty of 'in kind' gifts and privileges. Colleges are investigated all the time for outright bribing promising students.

gaadd33|12 years ago

Do any NFL players go directly from high school? I think I've heard of a few NBA players that have come close and MLB has its own minor league system so they recruit directly from high school.

jsumrall|12 years ago

Yes and no. Ideally it's just a university sports team. But now college sports have gone from university students playing football in their spare time to exceptional athletes who attend classes in their spare time.

Some universities, such as UNC and Virginia Tech, have seen massive profits by selling merchandise thanks to these sports teams, and have made sports a higher priority than the actual academics. Now younger people are choosing to attend universities based on their sports team rather than the academics.

Anyone who disrupts this big business of college sports can expect to feel massive backlash from the university and the crazed fans of the sports teams.

jsumrall|12 years ago

And as someone else pointed out, the coach of the teams get paid more than the president of the university!

They get paid more than even their most valuable professors!

EliRivers|12 years ago

As well as the money-spinner leagues, are there amateur (that's possibly not quite the right word for it, but the big college teams are clearly professional in all but name) leagues of the same sport for students who really are there to study and just want to play some inter-collegiate sports as well?

gadders|12 years ago

It does seem strange compared to the UK system as well. Here, for football (soccer), most people would join a club or youth team at 16 or so. Nobody expects football players in the UK to have brains. I can think of only a couple of footballers with a college degree - Graham Le Saux and Steve Coppell, I believe. Joey Barton has A Levels but is probably not a good advertisement.

fit2rule|12 years ago

On the other hand .. Australia has a huge sports-worship culture, akin to the US in many ways with regards to ferocity and cult behaviour among the proponents. I've never understood how it is that certain realms of Australian culture think that being a sporty person is more important than being an intelligent, well-informed person - but there is some sort of cultural disassociation between these two worlds that appears to be culturally driven.

In the US, its been driven even further in that there are billion-dollar industries behind the sports cult. Perhaps thats the ticket: sport is a cult because there's money to be made.

stormcrowsx|12 years ago

Evolution has ingrained competitiveness in us and its our way of proving our little section of the world produces better things than yours.

A mostly wasteful use of resources but to the majority this is a sufficient way to prove your city/state/country is better than another. I'd rather see who can fly the furthest into space but eh enjoy what you got.

forgottenpass|12 years ago

Am I right in assuming you have below-pro level "farm leagues"? In the States, for various historical and financial reasons, some sports will effectively replace their farm leagues with Division I inter-collegiate sports.

rplnt|12 years ago

This is probably the case. However, I don't see how it is relevant to education (other than money mentioned elsewhere). "Minor/second/.." leagues could survive on their own. No need to take schools into account.

AlisdairSH|12 years ago

In addition to the responses already entered, the NFL (in combination with the NFLPA, the union that represents players) also requires athletes entering the draft to be three years out of high-school (typically 21 years old in the US).

So, even if you happen to have the physical aptitude to play professionally at age 18, you are barred from doing so.

rayiner|12 years ago

In the U.S. a number of sports developed first at the college level. American Football, in particular, was developed and popularized by colleges (particularly the Ivy League schools, and particularly by Yale). Collegiate football remained more popular than professional football well into the early 20th century.

eru|12 years ago

People play while at college, I thought. The colleges make money off of the media spectacle. Lots of the players are good at sports, but not good at any of the things they are supposed to be in college for.

(But I'm no American, and have only visited once. So take my explanation with a pot of salt.)

_delirium|12 years ago

> We don't really have such a concept in Australia as far as I'm aware.

There do seem to be university sports leagues in Australia, they just aren't taken as seriously afaict, e.g.: http://www.aurl.com.au/

jstevens85|12 years ago

While university sport certainly exists, the major differences are that i) they don't generate any revenue, and ii) student athletes don't receive any advantage in university admissions.

vacri|12 years ago

It's not that they're not taken seriously, just that they're not in any way a requirement to be a professional player. To play cricket, aussie rules, rugby, hockey, netball and so on at the professional level doesn't require a feeder system of athletes from the tertiary education sector. Professional athletes also aren't introduced by sportscasters as 'name, college'.

Who knows, it might catch on. Other American sports oddities have, like that annoying singing of the national anthem before each match and providing a role for athletic women in professional sports by making them cheerleaders...

maxerickson|12 years ago

A tradition of friendly competition turned into a huge business.

The leagues have some rules about when players can be drafted, but those rules are more about simplifying and reducing competition in recruiting than they are about the players.