Chasing the Full-Ride Dream

4-8-91

It was a pretty good week for Cobber sports. In fact, it's been a pretty good month. The baseball team had a successful trip to Florida and then swept NDSU. The softball team won five of six in their season-opening Florida trip. The track teams came back from California with nice tans and some decent times.

And all the Cobber coaches, with no athletic scholarships to offer, were quietly recording their wins and losses in our recruiting battles against the full-ride dream.

The full-ride dream is the hope for an athletic scholarship that will bestow prestige on some 18-year-old athlete, and spare his or her family the investment cost of a college education.

Like the long-shot dream of becoming a pro athlete, the full-ride dream is skewing the focus of thousands of young athletes and their families. The skewing is one which points young people away from academics, away from a well-rounded childhood, and away from serious thought about a productive, fulfilling future.

Granted, when the full-ride offer comes, it can be nice.

The cost of college is no small item these days. Even at colleges where practices run four hours per day, the value of the full-ride is usually better than almost any other part-time college job. And the "work" is usually enjoyable. Even though a "full-ride" used to mean a four-year commitment but is now only a year-to-year contract, it's still a nice offer to get.

The chase for the full-ride begins early these days, for both the young athlete and the hopeful parents. Given the trips to all the summer camps, the off-season league games, the all-star games, pre-season "open gym"

practices and the obligatory home video system, it's no wonder that even the most level-headed parents start thinking that they somehow deserve an economic return for their immense efforts.

Parents and players come to think of an athletic scholarship offer as something they have earned, even though the child's god-given athletic talent might be limited. Friends, relatives and boosters from the town have been telling them for years that the kid is a lock to get an offer. A lot of athletes expect one.

But the number of full-rides available is miniscule compared with the number of athletes and their families who devote frantic years of training and sacrifice in their pursuit.

Of every one-hundred or so families that seriously chase a full-ride, one scholarship might be received.

Financially, those families would be better off taking the money they spend on camp fees, equipment, and travel and putting it in a lottery. Almost any lottery.

But the full-ride dream is about more than money. It's about status. It has become such a mark of prestige that most high school valedictorians are forced to look with envy at some less-studious athlete who gets a "ride."

We all know how stupid this is. And we all feel helpless to stop it. We even join in the envy of the young athlete who's achieved the full-ride dream, as we try to remember our valedictorian's name.

Our collective values and priorities come through loud and clear. One evening this winter I came home from work to find my 12-year-old son watching television. He was supposed to be studying. I turned off the TV and told him to hit the books. "I don't have to study, Dad.

I'm gonna play for UNLV." He was only half kidding.

The disappointment that greets a touted athlete when no scholarship arrives is often bitter, but not always sobering. So great are the community's expectations that athletes and families are often tempted to fudge the facts.

The athlete tells his friends he's getting "some money"

from the school where he's heading. The parents tell neighbors that they "turned down some offers" to make sure their child went to the school that was the best fit in terms of academics and social environment.

Even in the no-athletic-scholarship MIAC, where all financial aid is based on financial need or non-athletic high school achievement, it's not uncommon to hear an athlete tell some friend that their coach "pulled some strings" to get a sweet financial deal. It's baloney.

(Even when we coaches imply under our breath that something like that might be going on at a rival MIAC school, it's still baloney.) But it is odd that athletes should feel compelled to invent a scholarship offer to explain their choice of colleges. There is something wrong when students are embarrassed to say they chose a college because it was the best place for them to prepare academically and socially for a successful career and a rewarding life.

For those few who receive a scholarship offer, there is often a good institution behind that offer, with a course of study and environment that is right for that student. But, sadly, there are not many athletes who will turn down a scholarship offer when the school is wrong for that student. Some do. Most don't.

For those disappointed parents who find that their anticipated athletic scholarship is not forthcoming, there is a significant silver lining. Now, instead of chosing a college based on some coach's offer, they, along with their child, get to pick a college based on factors they should have been weighing all along.

And, twenty years from now, that child and those parents will be sitting on some porch, laughing about how worried they had been over the cost of a good college education, and wondering if they could ever again find an investment that would pay off that well.

These pages are maintained by Jerry Pyle pyle@cord.edu. These articles are copyrighted © and may not be published or reproduced without the express permission of Jerry Pyle.

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