12u's Playing for Cash Money

[Sam]

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.

You describe the tournament as a "cash-for-play" arrangement, which isn't even close. The player gets no money...even if they win the tournament. You are putting forth an argument based upon the false premice that the players are getting cash for playing.

Next you come up with the argument about parents who spend $10,000 - $30,000 on travel ball don't have money budgeted for college....there are certainly a few...but not many. You are forgetting that I have been around this more than you have....I actually know a lot of people whose kids are going to college on scholarships. If you have $5,000 budgeted and your kid was going to have to work or get student loans, but your kid gets a $50,000 full ride to Stanford....you have $5,000 cash on hand, plus no student loans. Theres really not even any division or fractions here....its simple addition and subtraction....and a little touch of common sense.

Then you fail the math test again. Scholarships put instant money in a players hands and they put future money in the players hands....its the gift that keeps on giving. The IRS could easily deem the scholarship as income as either a gift or compensation....politicians decide not to do so.

When did I mention CEO's? I think I said corporate...

[Skarp]

You describe the tournament as a "cash-for-play" arrangement, which isn't even close. The player gets no money...even if they win the tournament. You are putting forth an argument based upon the false premice that the players are getting cash for playing.

You see, this is what I'm talking about. I said no such thing. Bradrhod said scholarships were different than cash payments and you took issue with that. I agreed with Bradrhod. Tournaments/cash prizes had nothing to do with the exchange. For the love of Christ, read!

Next you come up with the argument about parents who spend $10,000 - $30,000 on travel ball don't have money budgeted for college....there are certainly a few...but not many.

There are many times many people who scrape along in the present without preparing for the future. Some of those people like watching their kids play softball, and so they scrape along to pay for that. Then there are those who wouldn't go to college at all if they had to pay for it. For none of these people does a scholarship represent money found in-pocket. It represents an educational opportunity that does have value, but the fact that it has value does not make it indistinguishable from a cash payment.

You are forgetting that I have been around this more than you have....I actually know a lot of people whose kids are going to college on scholarships.

You've known more kids who have attended college on scholarship than I have? I seriously, seriously doubt that. And where do said folks hail from, anyway? Orange County? Spend much time in Bellflower? Pico Rivera? Lots of people don't or can't budget for college.

If I concede that you have a great deal of highly specific knowledge about softball, and admit that I in fact respect and value that knowledge a great deal, will you please refrain from breaking out your "I'm a guru about everything" b.s. in every single one of our exchanges? Your problem is that you are so enamored with yourself that you don't know what you don't know. You're not a guru about everything, and your claims to that effect only highlight the substantive deficiencies in your arguments.

Scholarships put instant money in a players hands...

Only if:
1) The player was going to attend college anyway, AND
2) The player's parents had money in hand that otherwise would have been spent on school, AND
3) The player's parents elect to give that money to the player anyway.

Otherwise the player is left in precisely the same position, cash-wise.

When did I mention CEO's? I think I said corporate...

Actually, what you said was

sounds like a sweet executive job package....

Did you mean to exclude CEO's from that statement? My bad.

[Sam]

"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."

Your words...not mine. Now if you were stating this in the context of the university only....you're still wrong...its quid pro quo.

Most of the kids I know are from the IE and some in worse straits than the kids you reference...this is my second time through...my middle daughter played in the mid 90's. I know quite a few that have played in college.

You lose on the math argument and you know it, so you have selectively chosen the "instant" money argument...pretty lame...you can't argue they don't get any cash out of it, so you stoop to that...OK.

[Skarp]

"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."

Your words...not mine. Now if you were stating this in the context of the university only....you're still wrong...its quid pro quo.

Most of the kids I know are from the IE and some in worse straits than the kids you reference...this is my second time through...my middle daughter played in the mid 90's. I know quite a few that have played in college.

You lose on the math argument and you know it, so you have selectively chosen the "instant" money argument...pretty lame...you can't argue they don't get any cash out of it, so you stoop to that...OK.

Not sure what your first point is...those are my words, and I haven't backed off of them. You suggested that scholarship awards were equivalent to cash payments (and that it was therefore "hypocrisy" for the ASA to condone scholarships and not allow cash prizes). They are not equivalent. My comment concerned the validity of the analogy you drew between scholarships and cash, nothing more. If the analogy fails, then it is useless as support for your larger contention re the justifiability of cash awards. Cash tournament payouts may be justifiable for all sorts of reasons...or not, I don't know--but they certainly cannot be justified on the grounds that they are equivalent to scholarships.

I didn't say that scholarships constitute no material benefit at all (the non-existent point to which your vaunted "math" argument is presumably directed). Beyond the philosophical value of education for education's sake ("a life unexamined," and all that stuff...), the reason to pursue a college degree is almost exclusively monetary--higher earning capacity, etc. But as I said in my first post, the value conveyed by a scholarship is qualitatively different than the value conveyed by a simple cash payout. A degree once earned 1) cannot be immediately or subsequently squandered, and 2) is centrally and necessarily related to the university's purpose (i.e., education and credentialing). So, though you treat scholarships and cash payments as identical, the two are different in ways important enough to defeat your attempted analogy.

[Big Mamma]

Some are bitter

Let's play ball April 19th & 20th in Beaumont. Big Mamma wants to dance!!!!

[MTR]

#1. A scholarship is not legal tender, is non-transferable (from the user's side), cannot be cashed in for legal tender, nor can it be traded for goods, valuables or services (other than those for which it was awarded).

#2. The declared cost to the supplier is just like that of an unused hotel room, intentionally inflated.

#3. The school is required to provide study assistance to all student-athletes, scholarship or not.

#4. The provided education in and of itself has zero street value. It is simply a tool which when properly applied can bring the world to the recipient's feet.

[daylightkate]

Well, getting back to the topic. I think it's a great idea that a team can win back double, all or a portion of your tournament fee. For us, we will play tournaments for different reasons.
1. See who is out there and who our competition is for our Grand Championship/Nationals
2. Play out of area tournaments because:
a) want to see what the other side of the fence is doing
b) try new techniques
c) Play up to become a better team
d) don't want to play the same teams over and over again
At the end of the day, we are going to pay the money no matter what. We are not playing to get paid, we are playing to develop and get ready for the big finally at the end of the season. Winning a cash prize for the team is only extra icing on the cake. I really don't care if teams are out there just for the cash, bring it on, we just want to play. If you kick our gluteus maximus, well good on you and thanks for the ride.

[Skarp]

Some are bitter

Let's play ball April 19th & 20th in Beaumont. Big Mamma wants to dance!!!!

Who loves you baby!

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[wadeintothem]

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.

Is $600K a full ride? How many players on Stanfords roster would be at that level of scholarship?

[jofus]

Please tell me Stanford (or any other school) doesn't cost 150K a year........

I mean, I knew college costs have increased at an alarming rate, but surely by all that is Holy a 4 year education doesn't cost over half a million at any college?????

I was hoping that was for 12 scholarships a year or something......