Expectations Lose to Reality of Sports Scholarships

At youth sporting events, the sidelines have become the ritual community meeting place, where families sit in rows of folding chairs aligned like church pews. These congregations are diverse in spirit but unified by one gospel: heaven is your child receiving a college athletic scholarship.
Joanie Milhous, the field hockey coach at Villanova, said she recruited “good, ethical parents as much as good, talented kids.”
Parents sacrifice weekends and vacations to tournaments and specialty camps, spending thousands each year in this quest for the holy grail.
But the expectations of parents and athletes can differ sharply from the financial and cultural realities of college athletics, according to an analysis by The New York Times of previously undisclosed data from the National Collegiate Athletic Association and interviews with dozens of college officials.

Athletic Scholarships

It’s Not an Adventure, It’s a Job

A few months into her first year at Villanova, Stephanie Campbell was despondent.

Stephanie Campbell received a $19,000 athletic scholarship to play field hockey at Villanova, but she said the demands of the sport and her schoolwork left her little time for a social life.

Many college athletes, like Elvis Lewis, who runs track at Villanova, start their classes early in the morning to accommodate training and game schedules. For events away from campus, teams can leave at 1 p.m. and not return until 10 p.m.

As a high school senior in New Jersey, she had been thrilled to receive a $19,000 athletic scholarship to play field hockey at Villanova University, a select, private institution outside Philadelphia. But she had not counted on the 7 a.m. start of every class day, something required so she could be in the locker room by noon to prepare for a four-hour shift of afternoon practices and weight-lifting sessions. Travel to games forced her to miss exams and classes. There were also mandatory team meetings, study halls and weekend practices.

She was overwhelmed.