The Shame of College Sports

[AXOmom]

I agree that although schools aren't required to provide long term medical care for injured athletes or continue their scholarships-they should. I do want to note, however, that some schools do choose to provide some long term medical care (St. Mary's, for instance, which is a small school provides up to a year of care).

More (not all) will honor scholarships after a player is injured. Failure to do so usually results in bad PR for the school.

I looked around a bit because I was curious about what the NCAA rules said regarding scholarships and injured athletes. It seemed to me, at least if I understand it correctly, that one of their rules would actually give schools an incentive to drop an injured athlete's scholarship. It states that as long as the student-athlete is on an athletic scholarship, the school must count that student toward the total number of scholarships allowed in that sport even if he/she can't play or participate.

I would think, though, that many schools would get around this by simply finding some other type of scholarship to provide for that student if they felt the student would not be able to compete again at the collegiate level.

Also, I'm not sure most student athletes realize or are told by their schools that due to a lawsuit the NCAA has had to establish a $218 million relief fund for injured athletes.