Awarding deserving athletes
The SMU women’s swim team has had a remarkable 16individual national champions in recent history. In the past 13years, the Lady Mustangs have had 11 national top 10 finishes.
All these accomplishments have been achieved with only a maximumof 14 athletic scholarships allotted to women’s swimming, asdetermined by the college athletics’ governing body.
The Mustangs’ men’s track and cross-country programsonly have a combined 12.6 athletic scholarships to give out.
Yet, the men’s team has managed to finish in the top sixat the national indoor championships in four of the last fiveseasons and has finished in the top 10 at the National CollegiateAthletic Association outdoor championships in five of the lastseven years.
Furthermore, the track team has had six individual nationalchampions in both 1999 and 2000. Heck, even the SMU men’sgolf program has produced five NCAA All-Americans in the past fiveyears.
The SMU football team has a 3-19 record leading back to lastseason. Such a dismal record is additionally accentuated when onelearns that the Mustangs can give out 85 full athleticscholarships.
Nationwide, thousands of high-caliber athletes are beingrewarded for their athletic superiority through athleticscholarships. The scholarships offer fractional aid, but in manyinstances, student-athletes receive full scholarships thatcompletely cover their tuition and room and board expenses. Inturn, many of these athletes on scholarship are held at highstandards, and athletic prowess is expected.
In essence, the athletic departments are paying the athlete toperform. They are funding the student-athlete’s education andin return expect them to be winners.
So much is the pressure to perform, that in many instances,academics are relegated to second on the priority list. Althoughthis tends to leave many school administrators up in arms, it issimply the reality.
College athletics have become a multi-million dollar industryand too much is at stake. To be on an athletic scholarship intoday’s collegiate setting means performing consistently at ahigh level.
Production from the SMU’s scholarship football players iscategorically non-existent, and it shows out on the footballfield.
SMU’s football team is in the midst of an unbearable 0-10season, and there appears to be no end in sight. Judging by theremaining teams left on the schedule, SMU will in all likelihoodfinish the season without the taste of victory.
To consider this season a failure would already be anunderstatement. Coach Phil Bennett was brought in to salvage adownward spiraling football team, but the spiral seems to havetightened, and each additional loss simply adds another exclamationmark on this ongoing embarrassment.
We’ve all heard it. “Give Bennett a few years, untilhis own recruits get in there.”
That may be true, but are we so naive to accept that? Besides,are we prepared to wait that long for a win? We are talking aboutone win.
However, as time passes, it is becoming more noticeable that thereal issue here goes beyond the wins and losses. The question thatemerges now has to do with the unmistakable lack of production fromthe Mustang players, 85 of whom are attending SMU at no cost.
Now let’s line up the questions. To whom are thesescholarships being awarded, and why aren’t they helping theteam get some wins? Follow the progress of the rest of SMU’sathletic programs, and you will be amazed.
Every team is finding ways to win with far fewer scholarshipswith which to work. Something is definitely wrong with thispicture.
SMU football needs to award athletic scholarships to deservingathletes and maybe we will begin to win.
