quote:

In response, I'd say that:

-- one-third of Americans believe in UFOs.

-- 34% of Americans don't believe in evolution, not even in evolution guided by a supreme being.

-- half of all American adults think Hitler came to power in a coup

-- a quarter of Americans believe the sun rotates around the Earth

In response I'd say that nobody has much on the line when they say they "believe" any of that.

But I'm not the one writing the article in the Chronicle. If I were, you bet I'd have some better evidence than two personal stories. He doesn't even need the stories to get across the points that most sports only offer partial scholarships and that getting one is far from assured. But that's kind of boring, isn't it ...

Oh, BTW, I have spoken with MANY people who have kids with some athletic talent. NONE of them were under any illusions about how the system worked in their sport, and NONE of them made big financial decisions based on the mere hope that sports manna would drop from heaven to pay off all the bills and generate a good "return on investment." My conversations with parents of athletically talented kids certainly doesn't qualify as "statistical evidence," but it's more valid (to me) than what is contained in this article.

Heck, even the stories don't confirm the idea that these kids and parents were duped by the system. The article is a big nothingburger. All the author does is point out in an overlong way that athletic scholarships rarely cover the cost of college. He never really says that these families didn't know that. The families played the dickering game given the hand they were dealt. I'm shocked, as Capt. Renault used to say.

quote:

Originally posted by Piano*Dad:

Oh, BTW, I have spoken with MANY people who have kids with some athletic talent. NONE of them were under any illusions about how the system worked in their sport, and NONE of them made big financial decisions based on the mere hope that sports manna would drop from heaven to pay off all the bills and generate a good "return on investment." My conversations with parents of athletically talented kids certainly doesn't qualify as "statistical evidence," but it's more valid (to me) than what is contained in this article.

I'm thinking there might be some selection bias at work here. The people who converse with you people with whom you are willing to converse are probably a tad smarter and more willing to acknowledge reality than the average bloke.

I suspect that's true, but I have a much bigger n.

College athletes and their families are not the only ones spending a disproportionate amount of their money on developing their child athlete. People with Olympic dreams also bankrupt themselves trying to pursue their dream.

This sort of thing is not at all unusual, in my experience. The lucky ones figure out early on that there is no future, but some have just enough talent to get close enough to keep going.

But where does it all end? Take the swimmers family. The mom says the kid now has a sport she can participate in for life. Yes, well, my kids swam at the neighborhood pool and the neighborhood swim team, and they also have a sport they can participate in for life. They also have a really good education because they didn’t spend the entire time in high school and college staring at the bottom of the swimming pool.

That the article is based on anecdotal evidence doesn’t bother me. It is not intended to be a scholarly piece. It might wake up some parents who have kids in middle school who might have delusions about getting a significant amount of college age to play a sport.

One thing to add is that things are particularly difficult in college tennis. It used to be that college tennis players were American kids. Now, the American kids get shoved aside because colleges recruit internationally. So the person vying for a slot on the college tennis team against your kid is a very hungry player from Russia who will do anything to improve. Good luck with that.