Not with a ring but a pen, prospective college football players end their courtships with all schools but one today, signing letters of intent which bind them to a particular institution, in turn guaranteeing them one year's worth of financial aid. National Signing Day is the first day football players become eligible to sign such letters of intent, with schools standing-off or being stood-up by players who know from high school playbooks how to generate drama.
The speculation in these ceremonies of college selection is not the same sensation familiar to typical students, who go unscouted, whose only highlights are on their prep books, if at all. Of course, National Signing Day is all tentative, or at least should be. A letter of intent is not a letter of admission, and an athlete swapping the celebratory ball cap for a helmet still, in theory, must meet academic admissions standards at his reach school, the college of his choice.
But the media blitz of recruitment, which will disperse this afternoon after huddling around some hometown kid's first press conference of the rest of his life, is only ever about where the player will be going, not if he will get in. If an athlete fails to gain admission, the agreement of intent is nullified. Hence, Seth Davis in Sports Illustrated writes: "That opens the possibility that if a coach is able to sign a better player, the school can cut the first player loose and say it was for academic reasons."
Davis comes to the signing table on the side of the players, which is fair given that for many an athletic self-interest is compromised by amateurish demands set for them by the NCAA. This, along with a U.S. professional standard which thinks success in college is a credential worth having, at whatever cost, results in some athletes spending time at universities where their bodies are committed but not their hearts, or minds.
But human nature calls, and admissions can be a problem solved for the student-athlete. An NCAA bylaw allows student-athletes to be "admitted under a special exception to the Institution's normal entrance requirements" so long as the institution in question uses a uniform criterion - usually some definition of "talent" - which is a standard potentially available for any person who applies.
According to a 2009 Associated Press report on college athletics, "77 of the 92 Football Bowl Subdivision schools that provided information to the AP reported using special admissions waivers to land athletes and other students with particular talents." Nearly 30 of the schools using special admissions waivers extended them to athletes ten times more often than they did to non-athletes. Among those institutions was the University of Alabama, which admitted 19 football players on waivers from 2004 to 2006, a period during which the school's athletes were 43 times more likely to be specially admitted than non-athletes. The Crimson Tide won national football championships this season and in 2009.
The University was one of six colleges which did not use special admissions waivers at all, the AP said.
It is fitting that Davis begins his article by comparing letters of intent to signing a business contract. Since Faust, since Leviathan, since the covenant at Sinai, the contract has formed in us an unbreakable bond with an image of security, for better or worse and for all time. It is a smart move for athletes to signal their intents, a move to be celebrated by the faithful, but it is not too late for colleges to examine the bargains they have made with themselves for the sake of some golden calf.
Read More
FREED: Infrastructure failings leave Charlottesville out in the cold
By Dan Freed | 12 hours agoInstead of relying on the expected benevolence of civilians, the City should take full responsibility for the clearing of sidewalks throughout the City.
LETTER: Medical students stand in support of transgender youth
By Rachel Rezabek , Russell Hawes , Ishaan Rischie , Elianna Dunster , Kaile Maske , Zain Ahmad and Zoe Ziff | YesterdayAs future physicians, we cannot remain silent, especially since U.Va. Health is one of the most comprehensive gender health centers in the country.
HUYNH: The Supreme Court must support civil rights litigation in Virginia and beyond
By Viet Huynh | YesterdayThe Supreme Court must prioritize protecting the litigating power of the people against potentially tyrannical laws by their government.
