Posts: 130
Threads: 5
Joined: Jan 2021
For those who see themselves ditching college sports, let me propose an alternative.
I'm back at my undergrad alma mater, Dickinson State of the NAIA, trying to help out in administration. Believe it or not, the NAIA had an NIL rule before the NCAA did (just like it had widely integrated sports before the NCAA did, women's national championships before the NCAA did, etc.). But, realistically, there is not much NIL'ing--at least, not yet--at our level.
Our student-athletes (well, the vast majority of them, anyway) are not under the impression that they will be playing in the NFL, NBA, MLB, or Olympics someday, though we actually did have a graduate anchor the Bahamian London Olympic 4 x 400 relay team. [It's a great story. Someday I will tell it here.] It really is "for the love of the game" at our level. Our football team made 600+ mile BUS trips to play its last two games this season. That's one way, btw, so 1,200+ miles in a bus just to play a game. And the bus crashed on one of those trips. [Happily, nobody was seriously hurt.]
That doesn't mean they don't take it seriously. Our kids work their tails off, pretty much year round, in the weight room and in some job they found to help them pay for college. [Some big time college athletes are getting NIL contracts. Ours get jobs.] The play a very entertaining brand of sports. They are a little shorter, a little less strong, and a little slower than D-I athletes. But they still are pretty darn good, and fun to watch. [Side note: Once our rodeo team's fall season is over, a group of rodeo student-athletes rides horses to lead the football team onto the field. Our version of Ralphie at CU. We love it.]
It's not ideal. Many of our student-athletes are good or great students, but we have to work hard to get some of them to class. Money still has an influence. Pretty much every one of our football seasons ends in the first round of the playoffs, when we go (600+ miles!) to get beat by some private school that has a much bigger athletic budget than we do. But there is something special about rooting for young women and men who really are out there because they love to play and love being on a team. Also, you might be surprised at how many of those young people who, at first, had to be encouraged to get to class end up with a degree and a good start to a career. The whole sports as a springboard to life happens quite a bit, though of course not always, here.
My wife and I had two sons who played college sports. One was a D-I football player. The other played golf at Dickinson State, like his dad (and grandfather). Both had good experiences, but as I look back on it I think the DSU golfer was better treated than the DI football player.
We struggle to put our athletic budget together just like everyone else. But we don't get distracted by brobdingnagian television contracts or big ticket revenue. [Don't get me wrong: If I could get a television network to pay for a big chunk of our athletic budget, I'd do it. In fact, I even tried, early last season when it looked like the NAIA might be the only college football around, to convince ESPN and other networks to televise our games. But the big boys starting playing, which botched that plan.] At our level, our football coach, who has won seven conference championships in a row, is also our Athletic Director, also teaches, and also picks up the trash when he's at our games (like I do).
It's not perfect. But it's a pretty nice version of college athletics. If the money at the DI level (which I obviously still enjoy, as I read this board regularly) eventually turns you off, consider adopting a small college team.