SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Girls Varsity Soccer So your daughter wants to play college soccer?

ChapinDad:
You bring up some good points. I just want to make a couple of comments on those....

The first thing is tuition. Most schools have clauses in their scholarship program that state something to the following-- a student who receives any kind of scholarship assistance is automatically considered an in-state student. This cuts both ways. Many good S.C. soccer players (boys and girls) have left the state to play out-of-state b/c of academic and athletic opportunities.

Second, local players may tend to stay at the school and complete their elegibility. However, if a girl leaves her home area to play for a top program, she is probably most interested in winning. That is something that a coach scopes out in the recruiting process. That process can take almost two years. A coach and player can have a lot of interaction (NCAA allowed), and in that time, a coach can get the impression of whether a student-athlete is committed to the school and the program. Chemistry also plays a HUGE factor in women's college soccer. A coach may not only select an out-of-state player b/c she is better on the field, but perhaps that player is also better in the locker room. Local players also tend to be more confortable with the town, know more people from high school who also stuck around and thus may tend to get into more trouble than out-of-state players.

Finally, are you and your daughter more willing to go and watch a local school with predominately out-of-state players but plays at a high level --OR-- a local school made up of primarily local or in-state players but plays a poor level of soccer?? From your statements, if you lived near UNC-Chapel Hill, you would not go and see them play and support the team simply b/c they have a lot of out-of-state players.

I would think it would be more inportant to have your daughter see high level women's soccer rather than limiting her exposure simply b/c a local college gets it's top talent form out-of-state. Remember, these coaches have to win and graduate players to keep their job. If a local girl cannot cut it athletically --OR-- academically, the coach cannot take her b/c she will hurt the way he pays the bills!

Voice,

You are absolutely correct in pointing out that chemistry is a HUGE component to team success.....

but.....

no matter how much "homework" a college coach does on a player, he or she cannot predict the outcome until the player has gone through preseason training and at least the first few weeks of the season. Naturally the coach will talk with the player, her parents and previous coaches to assess the situation. Sure if a "red light" goes off, the coach should take a pass.

My point here is that it is very difficult to "recruit team chemistry" whether you are looking at out-of-state or in-state players.

Ok - I have to weigh in on this too. From personal knowledge, USC has raised almost 14 million in just donations for athletic scholarships. This money is donated (mostly) so that people can get football tickets. These donations are used for tuition, book fees, housing, etc. Coach's salaries are paid out of ticket sales. Other income comes from conference affiliation, bowl appearances, television, etc. You don't often see other sports besides football, basketball and some baseball on tv. USC has sold out every fooball ticket available for another 14.7 million in income besides the premium seat money that equals an additional 1.1 million.

As much as I love soccer, there would be few scholarships without the football program. I dare say Coach Berson's program nor Coach Smith's program bring in enough to cover all of their expenses (uniform, travel, coach's salary).

The football program at USC is the work horse for all sports. It brings in the vast majority of the money, so I can't deny that they should have their 85 scholarships. As far as coach's salaries go, you may see that they are making a million a year, but a portion of that money comes from their camps & sponsorships - not all is salary paid by the university.

I hope this will clarify some things for everyone about the state of scholarships at the local level.

This is fascinating...I've never cared enough to form an opinion on any of this...a few questions:

Football scholarships: Why only 85? Why not 105? Why not unlimited?

Football coaches salary: Why shouldn't the university pay as much as they want to...1M, 2M, 10M, or whatever?

Why shouldn't the football program be treated as a separate business unit, paying a licensing fee to the university and doing whatever it wants with the rest of the money?

Title IX: Should the football program be exempt? Should Title IX be proportional?

Now now Chico.... they are going to think my ID and your ID are one and the same....

Chico,

To answer a few statements - 85 football scholarships is the limit imposed by the NCAA. Schools can pay their coaches whatever they wish. Carolina has historically been low in coach's salaries as compared to other SEC or top schools in the country. If the football program is treated as a separate business then there would be a lot of excess money for them and not enough to cover the scholarships for the other "non-revenue" sports such as track, equestrian, softball, swimming etc. As much as we would love for soccer to have a full ride scholarship for every player, it's just not going to happen. The dollars just aren't there.

caalam: Thanks for this discussion...I'm at the very beginning of forming some opinions here. What's interesting to me is that most of the on-going debate in this area is "wrestling teams versus Title IX" -- when in fact I think that the argument could better be framed "socioeconomic equality versus gender equality" -- but I'll leave that for another day.

85 football scholarshipos is the limit imposed by the NCAA now. In the past it's been 105 and before that unlimited. There are organizations that want the number to go to 60 so that athletic departments can better fund non-revenue-producing sports. If the only reason that 85 is the right number is that this is the latest NCAA number, then 60, unlimited, or a lot of other numbers appear just as valid, don't they?

Regarding coach's salaries, I'm not being clear enough. I am not arguing whether USC's or anyone else's coaches are paid too much. I am asking why it is that people feel the need to rationalize these high salaries -- if a coach runs a profitable and winning program why worry whether the coach is being paid over $1M...or over $10M? Why not let the market sort it out?

So your belief is that football programs shouldn't be run as a separate business because the football program implicitly owes something to other programs at the school and thus this revenue must be used to fund other sports. It seems to be a fair position. Then the question becomes how much does the football program owe -- and why shouldn't the number of scholarships go down [at the NCAA level] in order to increase what the football program owes to these other sports [as per some organization's wishes]?

Finally, do you believe that the only schools that are fully funding their soccer programs are those that are running profitable football and are thus able to fund it from athletic revenue? Many schools seem to be funding from an assortment of income streams including student tuition fees, don't they? [Note: I've tried, but I can't find any sources of data for "The Hammer"'s earlier request of which schools are fully funding their soccer programs.]

By the way, I did find an interesting set of numbers the other day for USC. In their latest reporting period, 55% of USC's undergraduates were female. In that same period, just under 42% of athletic aid went to women.

This is not what I'd have expected from an institution in compliance with Title IX. But in reading about Title IX compliance over the last few days, I'm starting to understand that proportional compliance is the exception.

Things to keep in mind. Football at the two large public institutions doesn't represent every football program, univerisity or college out there. USC and Clemson do very well with the amount of income they make in football. Other programs are not as lucky. Ohio and Miami are the two bigs I can thing of that had funding problems in the past few years. Duke and UNC don't make it on football, I believe they play basketball, which we don't do.

The 85 Scholarships and thinking about 60 is not something USC, Clemson, Florida want to happen. They love the 85 and probably would love to have unlimited. They make plenty of money to cover it. The problem for them is that they aren't the center of the world and there are other univerisities that can't fund the 85 and find it hard to compete and with the mega conferences starting to acquire all the TV and Bowl money, don't be surprised if smaller schools don't start shutting down football because of the high cost and move to things like soccer because of the lower costs in order to compete on a national level. Francis Marion has a D-1 women's soccer team that has a chance at playing on a national level. Do you think if they had a football team, it would have a chance at the bowl or TV money?