Why the scholly limitations is good for baseball

[HammerOfTheDogs]

Polkie Sherrill can whine and ***** all he wants about the scholarship limitations on baseball, but I believe that's what keeps college baseball the best major sport on campus. The 11.7 scholarship limit keeps knuckleheads who are borderline retarded (as well as the full-fledged retarded) from infecting the campus. As we all know, baseball players can get wild, but at least they're following the college traditions and don't have to take "interduhsinplinary stuudies" just to graduate.

As we've seen this weekend, two possible NFL-calibre football players piss away millions of dollars for firing weapons on campus (and spare me the "they're just kids who made a mistake" ********. If they had any 'nads, there's a place where they can fire all the weapons they want to their hearts content, but I don't think they have the balls to join the Army or Marines). Every year, we get to hear sheep talk about these "kids" who shoot, steal, rape, loot, assault police, etc. "a second chance", ie, grown men and women who usually vote Republican, but when it comes to their football team, become a bunch of flag-burning, pot-smoking, troop-spitting, bedwetting, limp-wristed liberals trying to defend the "Kids".

As a matter of fact, we need to expand the idea of "limited scholarships" to football and baseball. Limit the football team to, say, 30 and basketball to 6. THEN you'll see just who wants to come to college to get an education. It would force the NBA and NFL to stop using colleges as their minor league farm systems. It would help universities get back to their main function, which is to educate young men and women. It would save universities money by eliminating Retarded departments established just so Scholarship athletes can get a degree. Finally, the players that are there will be there for a degree as while using athletics to help them grow as people.

The only two sports that don't use colleges as their farm system are hockey and baseball. You NEVER hear sheep fans asking for us to pray for some "kid" to make a 17 on an ACT, or that he can get out of jail for firing a weapon, etc. It's also no coincidence that Major League baseball players and NHL Hockey players are far more intelligent, and actually have stronger unions, than the NBA or NFL (where the players have to go to college). In other words, baseball and hockey players aren't as retarded as football and basketball players.

P.S. I used the word "retarded" in this post. Between Polkie Sherrill, LT, Bonny and Clod, etc., I didn't use it enough.</p>

 

[saddawg]

go watch Millsaps and MC play. They are this utopia you speak of.
Too much money being made on football and basketball these days.
If baseball became as big as FB and BB, moneywise, you would see the same crap there.

 

[Todd4State]

but part of the problem is that because baseball players only get a fraction of a scholarship, a lot of them go pro after three years and don't get a degree. You also have a lot of baseball players who are forced to go pro out of high school, and they don't even get the three years of education because their families can't afford to send them to college, even at a reduced price.

Yes, the NFL uses college as their minor league, but because they do, a lot of their players get degrees and because it's pretty much taboo to come out of high school and go pro, everyone pretty much has to go to college.

I do agree that football especially has way too many scholarships, but baseball has way too few.

I think the NCAA should look at pro rosters and use that to set the scholarship limits.

Now, this not based exactly on the pros, but is loosely based on the pro roster limits for the regular season:

Football should get 60
Basketball should get 15
Baseball should get 25

I also think that school should get the right to choose how to divide up the scholarships. For example, if I'm a baseball coach I could give half of a full scholarship to one player and the other half to another if it works out better for my team.

And this business of not giving athletes academic scholarships is ridiculous, especially given the NCAA's mission. I say that any player that receives an academic scholarship of any kind must have it approved/reviewed through the NCAA to prevent dishonesty.

 

[WPDawg]

You are right. Limitations on schollies would produce a higher percentage of students who want to be in school and are using their athletic talents to help them get an education. Is baseball the only sport that partial scholarships can be used? . I would like to see the big 3 sports limits come closer to what professional roster limits are: NFL-45, NBA - 12, MLB - 25. 25 for college baseball might be to high but I would like to see around 18. You make a good point with the 11.7 but it seems it should be bumped up some while football should be reduced greatly.

 

[DiamondReb]

So if you limit scholarships in the other two sports what are the kids that otherwise would've gotten a scholarship going to do? You completely ignore the fact that basketball and football players can't go pro out of highschool. On top of that you've got say what less than .1% of highschool basketball players that are actually good enough to play professional basketball and less than 1% of highschool football players that are good enough for the NFL. So basically all you're doing is taking away a chance to go to college and (hopefully) get a degree away from kids who otherwise don't have much of a chance to go to college and reap the benefits that brings. It's just not logical. The obviously solution is that baseball needs and deserves more scholarships and women's rifle, softball, and that garbage deserve none. Polk is right about everything he's pretty much ever said with regard to scholarships, the ncaa, etc. It's really a shame how the ncaa has screwed the situation up so much.

 

[HammerOfTheDogs]

If the NFL and NBA would take some of the hundreds of millions of dollars they make every year, and invest it in minor leagues, then colleges wouldn't have to put up with the travesty of semi-literate athletes who can't even read attending college and lowering the quality of you degree.

Maybe Polkie Sherrill is just annoying, but your average college player truly deserves to be in college. He just isn't there as a hired mercenary. If you gave baseball 20-25 scholarships, then you'd see the increase in a combination of thuggery among students/asshattery among sheep fans.

P.S. For the sheeple who don't think minor league football or baseball would work, look at the popularity of minor league baseball.

P.P.S. I do agree with you that women don't deserve athletic scholarships.

P.P.S.

So basically all you're doing is taking away a chance to go to college and (hopefully) get a degree away from kids who otherwise don't have much of a chance to go to college and reap the benefits that brings.

Didn't appear that Jesse Bowman or Michael Brown gave a monkey's <17> about "expanding their minds through a college education". Why should that scholarship money be given to people who need tutors and untimed tests to make a 17 on their ACT, when it could be given to real students who will actually use that chance to earn a real degree?

 

[Todd4State]

football wouldn't work because it never has when tried before. Anyone remember the Mississippi Pride?

Minor League baseball works because of the nature of the game, the fact that the stoppage in time between innings allows for entertainment, easy opportunities to give out gimmicks and things like cups and hats, and the fact that it can be relatively inexpensive to go to.

 

[Bulldog Bruce]

Colleges are NOT in place to do good deeds and educate the masses. They are a BUSINESS. Therefore, they do things that are good for business. The drag out for four or five years what you can learn in two. Having athletic teams was discovered a long time ago to be a good thing. Limiting scholarships in any way is idiotic.

Colleges should accept their business plan is to ready people for a career. Professional sports in this country, and even world wide, is a trillion dollar industry. Why do you not do everything you can to prepare those who wish to pursue this career with the same fervor you prepare people to be lawyers, doctors, engineers, etc. The stupid argument people are going to bring up is that very few people have a chance to have a career in a professional sports. Well there are curriculum for many occupations with little opportunity such as Acting, Music, Television Broadcasting, Art. These careers have very few people who are very successful in those endeavors also. Give the customer what they want. If they want to be a professional baseball, football, hockey, tennis, basketball player, teach them in the best way possible. Stop the bull about it being an extracurricular activity.

There are also many ancillary jobs in professional sports such as management, broadcasting, sales, marketing, IS and all the other jobs that any other big business utilizes. The NCAA should EMBRACE Professional sports. MSU would have a coup to develop a degree for professional sports players and industry. Just think of the advantage that you would have in recruiting players by not having limits on what they really want to do. Training them in areas that really will help them with their careers. A side benefit would be the money you get back by those people making large dollars in those careers.

Then all athletic scholarships are academic scholarships and they can cut all the crap. Just like you give a person who gets a 30 on the ACT a full scholarship, you should give the kids who bats .500 the same full ride.

 

[HammerOfTheDogs]

football wouldn't work because it never has when tried before. Anyone remember the Mississippi Pride?

It's never been tried under the supervision of the NFL before. If NFL teams had minor league farm teams, they could develop players (especially offensiv linemen) in their own system, plus the occasional superstar could make the early jump. Also, the NFL has the best PR people in sports. They could make it work, especially if there's at least one minor league club for every NFL franchise.

The NBA has a developmental league, but the NBDL is only there for guys who've finished their eligibility in college, NOT a true minor league.

 

[HammerOfTheDogs]

BTW, you were a baseball player at State, weren't ya? I notice it wasn't a scholarship football player making your arguments.

You were in the pros. I it's no coincidence that the MLB Players Union is the strongest union in sports yet is the only major sport in America that doesn't use colleges as their minor leagues. It seems that pro players aren't as coddled coming up so they learn the ropes much better.

While I like your outside the box thinking about this, it'd never happen at State. We're just about to run off a President who's increased student enrollment and school funding because a few neo-Marxists posing as professors didn't like that he was making them actually do their jobs for once.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

Cut the crap about 'this will get us the players who really want to go to college.' When was the last time you cared about the GPA of whoever was the starting pitcher for Friday's game. I actually understand Polk's argument over scholarships, but it was stupid for him to devote more time to that than to coaching a team. Let him be an activist on his own dime.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

And it hasn't worked either (see NBDL and NFL Euorpe). And for a reference on the 'success' of minor league baseball, look at average attendances of minor league vs. major league games. The top minor league baseball games might reach 15k in attendance and pro teams typically get 25k-60k in attendance. The top college football teams (think 'minor league' for football) draw well over 90k whereas most pro teams draw 60k-80k, with the top stadium being about 90k. The thing is that the colleges want the status quo and the pros want the status quo in football and basketball, so ain't nothing gonna change.

 

[dawgstudent]

Maybe Polkie Sherrill is just annoying, but your average college player truly deserves to be in college.

You know why? Because your average college baseball player comes from at least a middle class family where the parents actually care about academics. I will say this over and over, baseball is soccer in the US where the affluent play.

 

[HammerOfTheDogs]

You know why? Because your average college baseball player comes from at least a middle class family where the parents actually care about academics. I will say this over and over, baseball is soccer in the US where the affluent play.

</p> Maybe we need to get back to the idea of college being for people who actually want to be there to learn. That's a weird concept, isn't it? There are many very poor families who have kids who, if they work hard and study hard, can go to college on an academic scholarship.

Maybe having smart young men who buy into the college life, and want to better themselves academically, would work if we tried it.

 

[dawgstudent]

I am just saying, which I love to say, baseball is a rich boy sport.

 

[RebelBruiser]

The reason you don't have baseball players shooting up the place while you have football and basketball players doing stuff like that all the time is demographics plain and simple. Not going to get into the race argument here, but typically baseball is a middle to upper class sport. And also it typically requires having a good father figure at home for a player to be able to develop. Reason being, you can't play catch by yourself, and you can't develop or learn baseball fundamentals without help from someone.

Football and basketball on the other hand are more about pure athletic ability than baseball is, so it's much easier to do without having to learn fundamentals at home first.

There was an article in the Memphis paper a few years back exploring why county school baseball was so far superior to city school baseball, and one of the prime reasons they found was a lack of father figures in the poorer parts of Memphis (city school districts). Hence it was easier for a group of guys to get together and play a game of pickup football or basketball. On top of that, all you needed was a ball to play, whereas with baseball everyone has to buy a glove, and you need at least one bat. So baseball isn't very popular in lower class or poorer parts of town.

Point being, I don't think scholarship limitations has much to do with baseball players being better college citizens. There are still a decent number that goof off and struggle with grades. I think the main reason they don't get in the same kind of trouble as football and basketball players is because on average baseball players come from stronger family backgrounds than the football and basketball players, and they come from neighborhoods where you don't hear gunshots on a regular basis.

Edited to add: I didn't play college baseball or even high school baseball, but I know that I learned almost all of my baseball fundamentals at home with my dad in my front yard. I probably wouldn't have played baseball if not for my dad teaching me at home. And I'm sure the same goes for almost everyone else on this board, especially those that played in high school or college.

 

[saddawg]

The reason you don't have baseball players shooting up the place while you have football and basketball players doing stuff like that all the time is demographics plain and simple. Not going to get into the race argument here, but typically baseball is a middle to upper class sport.

You are either a piece of **** or you are not. I've known some well off folks who are sorry as hell. A high profile lawyer comes to mind.

I also played ball and have worked with, and gone to school with people from terrible backgrounds who are as good as gold.
That's what's wrong. There is always some reason people are worthless. Never their own fault.
Shitheads are shitheads, where ever, and how ever they grow up.