12u's Playing for Cash Money

[MTR]

Wonder how ASA reconciles their rule with allowing college players to play in ASA Gold Nationals. The college players have been playing all season long while the school pays for their education. The players who receive athletic scholarship money are, in effect, professional softball players.

No, the ASA code specifically states "cash". NCAA players are not given cash. For that matter, a fair amount of the declared value isn't even close to what the scholarship is costing the school.

Why would they care if a team plays in a tournament so that the TEAM might received $1,500 to assist in running their TEAM?

I think that would go back to the cash issue. Equipment, uniforms, airline and hotel vouchers, gas cards, etc. are all great substitutes for cash awards that meets the cash restrictions and helps the team with expenses.

I could maybe understand if the tournament paid $150 to each member of the winning team, but the team playing for funds to support the team doesn't seem to be a problem to me....but I'm not ASA.

And that would jeopardize their amateur status.

[Sam]

Wonder how ASA reconciles their rule with allowing college players to play in ASA Gold Nationals. The college players have been playing all season long while the school pays for their education. The players who receive athletic scholarship money are, in effect, professional softball players.

No, the ASA code specifically states "cash". NCAA players are not given cash. For that matter, a fair amount of the declared value isn't even close to what the scholarship is costing the school.

Why would they care if a team plays in a tournament so that the TEAM might received $1,500 to assist in running their TEAM?

I think that would go back to the cash issue. Equipment, uniforms, airline and hotel vouchers, gas cards, etc. are all great substitutes for cash awards that meets the cash restrictions and helps the team with expenses.

I could maybe understand if the tournament paid $150 to each member of the winning team, but the team playing for funds to support the team doesn't seem to be a problem to me....but I'm not ASA.

And that would jeopardize their amateur status.

Its hyposcrisy, MTR...a school like Stanford, for instance, pays their players $600,000 per year...NAIA school Cal Baptist pays their players around $150,000...the players under scholarship are paid to play...plain and simple. If a player under scholarship tells the coach that they don't really want to play any more.....no scholarship. If you are paid to play, you are a professional.

We can mince words, but the reality is what it is and there are many people that argue against college players coming back to play Gold, chief amongst them Gary Haning. Its not an even playing field due to the game being the college players' job.

[bradrhod]

I hear what you are saying.

Reality is that, it has always been considered, that a free education is not the same as cash, cars, houses, etc. This is a long held tradition in American sports. It is not specific to Softball. Football, Olympics, everywhere it is considered the same.

[Sam]

I hear what you are saying.

Reality is that, it has always been considered, that a free education is not the same as cash, cars, houses, etc. This is a long held tradition in American sports. It is not specific to Softball. Football, Olympics, everywhere it is considered the same.

...yet many scholarships cover not only the tuition, books and fees....they cover lodging and food.....hmmm....extra tutoring......medical coverage....sounds like a sweet executive job package....

[jofus]

Room and board, tutoring (for some), etc., are part of college. Academic scholarships pay for that stuff also, plus, I'm sure a lot of scholarship athletes wouldn't be able to afford college if that stuff weren't included. After all, they definitely don't have time for a part time job like other college students do, and I don't even think they are allowed to have a part time job if they want to, in most cases.

As for a nice executive job package, I have a feeling that most scholarship athletes work a lot harder than most of us in the "real world", and probably longer hours too, especially when you consider the 6:30 am weight room workouts, travel time, community time that a lot of them do, and of course homework, all on top of class time (for those that actually go to class ).

Besides, for your bigger schools at least, one home football game probably covers all of their scholarships for all sports

[Skarp]

I hear what you are saying.

Reality is that, it has always been considered, that a free education is not the same as cash, cars, houses, etc. This is a long held tradition in American sports. It is not specific to Softball. Football, Olympics, everywhere it is considered the same.

...yet many scholarships cover not only the tuition, books and fees....they cover lodging and food.....hmmm....extra tutoring......medical coverage....sounds like a sweet executive job package....

I'll take bad analogies for $500 Alex.

Cash (or assets that can be converted to cash) can be blown on coke and boob jobs. A college degree (or simply education, for that matter) is an asset that persists throughout one's lifetime. Lodging, tutoring, medical coverage, etc., are similarly not salable, and are provided merely to facilitate the provision of education. Education, in case you have forgotten, is the raison d'etre of a university--not sports programs.

If sports programs can be used to expand educational opportunity--through scholarships or by raising money for the university--fine. But to suggest that this justifies (much less constitutes) naked cash-for-play arrangements is misguided and not factually correct.

[Sam]

I hear what you are saying.

Reality is that, it has always been considered, that a free education is not the same as cash, cars, houses, etc. This is a long held tradition in American sports. It is not specific to Softball. Football, Olympics, everywhere it is considered the same.

...yet many scholarships cover not only the tuition, books and fees....they cover lodging and food.....hmmm....extra tutoring......medical coverage....sounds like a sweet executive job package....

I'll take bad analogies for $500 Alex.

Cash (or assets that can be converted to cash) can be blown on coke and boob jobs. A college degree (or simply education, for that matter) is an asset that persists throughout one's lifetime. Lodging, tutoring, medical coverage, etc., are similarly not salable, and are provided merely to facilitate the provision of education. Education, in case you have forgotten, is the raison d'etre of a university--not sports programs.

If sports programs can be used to expand educational opportunity--through scholarships or by raising money for the university--fine. But to suggest that this justifies (much less constitutes) naked cash-for-play arrangements is misguided and not factually correct.

Do the math, Skarp....A kid has $10,000 budgeted to go to college for a year....now the kid has a scholarship to pay for school....all of a sudden that kid has $10,000 to spend on coke and boob jobs....the scholarship puts cash in their pockets....its simple math.

The tournament prize goes to the team...the player isn't playing for a dime of cash that they can spend on coke or a boob job.

Nice analogy, though....really one of your better ones.

[Skarp]

Do the math, Skarp....A kid has $10,000 budgeted to go to college for a year....now the kid has a scholarship to pay for school....all of a sudden that kid has $10,000 to spend on coke and boob jobs....the scholarship puts cash in their pockets....its simple math.

The tournament prize goes to the team...the player isn't playing for a dime of cash that they can spend on coke or a boob job.

Nice analogy, though....really one of your better ones.

Analogy?? I didn't comment on (or analogize to) tournament prize money at all, genius. Read your own post. You claim that scholarships are equivalent to cash-for-play arrangements. I'm saying they aren't. Understand? Debating you is like debating most liberals (who respond to arguments they want you to make rather than ones you actually do make)--always an exercise in patience.

But please do tell--how many softball scholarship recipients do you think have $600,000 "budgeted," that they can then "put in their pockets" after receiving a scholarship at, say, Stanford? Your post assumes that scholarship recipients invariably have money set aside for college, when in fact many wouldn't attend college at all absent a scholarship. Scholarships do not necessarily put $$ in a recipients pocket, and in no event do they directly do so. They are not remotely analogous to cash payments or to CEO compensation packages, as you have claimed.

[jofus]

A lot of kids don't have the money budgeted (nor do their parents), they get financial aid/loans, and then pay it back after they get out of school.

[Skarp]

A lot of kids don't have the money budgeted (nor do their parents), they get financial aid/loans, and then pay it back after they get out of school.

True enough. And the fact that a scholarship recipient won't have to pay money back certainly has value. But it's a value conferred that is in keeping with the core purpose of a university, whereas direct cash or asset payments are not. Cash payments to athletes raise the athletic program to an end in itself, rather than a means to the end of expanding educational opportunities.

Unless I'm mistaken, for most of us our dd's participation in softball is similarly about larger ends than simply playing the game of softball itself.

I don't really have an issue with cash prizes paid to teams (although I don't think it makes me a total newb to suggest that such payments may change the sport in unanticipated--or perhaps anticipated--ways).