I am simply curious - does Tech, or any other school for that matter, really make a “deal” with athletes that they will get 4 (or even 5) year scholarships? I thought they were one year scholarships that were renewable at the option of the school. At the risk of being legalistic, I am speaking about enforceable “deals”, not simply an unspoken way of doing things. With the growing freedom of athletes to transfer, one has to wonder if such an historical “understanding” can and will survive. What would happen if an entire team, or some large number of players, transferred and the team lacked the numbers and talent to compete in an upcoming season? That’s an extreme and unlikely example, of course, but if athletes gain the unfettered ability to transfer, one might expect an increasing adherence to the existing one-year, renewable scholarship model.
All contracts have explicit and implicit (the "spirit" of the contract) terms and, unless I'm mistaken, you can sue over both.
Sure, Tech could, within legal limits, pull a scholarship if the player doesn't perform. Indeed, at
some schools we know, that's par for the course. But think of what that says to incoming students. It says that Tech never really cared whether they got an education or not and that there is no reason for them to think that if they don't see the field they will still be in school. I know that if I was a parent, I'd never send my son to a place like that unless I was pretty sure he was going to be a pro and he was too. (Hence, why it works at Bammer.)
This is also a feature of what has become a truly corrupt system. "Corrupt" is a word used far too loosely these days, but it fits here. What are publicly supported post-secondary institutions
for if not to educate all who can get into them? Originally, athletic scholarships were conceived to expand opportunities for education for poor, but talented students. The way the factories behave has twisted the idea to fit another goal altogether: winning at all costs. Including the
future of most of the players they recruit. They do this so that the coaches can justify immense salaries and satisfy a lazy fanbase often dominated by people who never blackened the door of the university or college in question. And, of course, to try to squeeze money out of donors because the population as a whole demands education for their children and
refuses to pay for it. The whole enterprise is riddled with corrupt incentives from top to bottom. Places like Tech, Wake, and Puke (give the devil his due) try to play the game as uprightly as they can, but they are under constant pressure (see the posts above) to dive into the mud with the rest. No reason at all to give in to it. NONE.
