New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Athletic scholarships cold be in Ivy League’s future
It wasn’t splashed across the headlines, instead lost somewhere in the constant news cycle of NFL football, college football, MLB pennant races and more NFL football.
But when Congress allowed the Ivy League’s antitrust exemption to expire a couple of weeks ago, it potentially set a path for major change in the conference. Namely, the possibility of Ivy League schools giving out athletic scholarships.
Since 1994, the Ivy League’s antitrust exemption was buried in something called the Higher Education Act. Few, if anyone, knew about it — save, in theory, for the league’s presidents. The exemption allowed Ivy League schools not to award academic or athletic scholarships and instead offer need-based financial aid that, in the cases of student-athletes from some low-income families, can provide a virtually free education.
The exemption expired on Sept. 30, and now the league could be vulnerable to lawsuits, potentially opening the door to academic and athletic scholarships down the road.
And that sounds good to Brandon Sherrod, the Bridgeport product who starred for the Yale men’s basketball team for four seasons before graduating in 2016 and beginning a career overseas.
“I would 100-percent be in favor of it,” Sherrod said. “I think it’s a deterrent for kids that have to choose between taking a full ride somewhere, or trying to depend on needbased financial aid. I know some coaches are able to work around that and find loopholes or boosters or people who can assist in helping guys apply for the right scholarship to make sure they don’t have anything to pay. But those are pretty rare and few and far between.”
Matt Knowling, a junior forward on the Yale men’s basketball team from Ellington, concurred.
“I feel like athletes at Ivy League institutions are some of the most hardworking people in the world for our age,” Knowling said. “To balance the academic rigor in Division 1 athletics is a lot. So, I feel like the athletes would definitely be deserving of that.”
With need-based financial aid, the higher the household income, the more a family has to pay. A family with an income in the $200,000 range might end up paying about halftuition — or about $40,000 a year for a school like Yale.
That’s a lot for a basketball player who might otherwise be able to attend a different, albeit less prestigious, school for free.
“I think what it does for the Ivy League is to continue to make it exclusive, in some respect,” said Sherrod, who is currently back home in Bridgeport waiting to hear from a potential pro opportunity in France. “I know they kind of cherish that history that it’s not for everybody. I do think with scholarships, it would open up opportunities for guys to make decisions of going to schools like that much easier.”
Sherrod, who is currently running free basketball clinics for kids ages 10-and-up in Stratford (Saturdays 9 a.m. to noon at Bird’s Eye Gym in the Stratford Recreation Center, Tuesdays 6-8 p.m. at Flood Middle School), said he didn’t have any “serious hardships” as a student-athlete at Yale. With four kids in the house, Sherrod’s parents didn’t have to pay a high tuition.
“But,” he noted, “I always thought about what it would be like if I didn’t have any debt coming out of school. I think it would have been really nice to have started with a clean slate, and still having an Ivy League degree. And going out and choosing whatever career I want to choose.”
“It would have helped me and my parents,” he added, “if I had been able to sign that letter of intent and got a full scholarship.”
A call to Yale athletic director Vicky Chun’s office was not returned.
Obviously, the trade-off is an Ivy League education that can pay off for 40 or more years down the road. In recent years, highly-recruited players have considered and/or committed to coach James Jones’ program, often with that in mind. Last month, the Bulldogs got their most highly-rated recruit in program history when 6-foot-9 Samson Aletan of Dallas chose Yale over Power 5 programs like Texas and Texas A&M. Tremont Waters, the New Haven product, had Yale down to his final five before going off to play two seasons at LSU, then hitch on with the Boston Celtics as a second-round draft pick.
“I think a Yale education, and the history of pedigree, makes up for some of the money that you’re spending,” Sherrod noted. “I don’t think any of my teammates would say that their experience was something they could have gotten elsewhere. But, being able to go to school for free is different than being able to go to a school for a percentage, no matter how much or how little that is.”
It would seem unlikely the Ivy League will start rewarding athletic scholarships anytime soon. That could lead to lawsuits from student-athletes, and the courts have sided with them in recent years, most notably the NCAA vs. Alston case last year where the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that student-athletes are entitled the same benefits as non-athlete students. That ruling has led to Name, Image and Likeness legislation that has transformed the college sports world, allowing studentathletes to make money through endorsements and other avenues.
Of course, Yale currently offers 34 varsity sports, far more than most schools (UConn, for example, offers just 19). If Yale started giving out athletic scholarships, it could potentially lead to decisions about moving at least some of those sports to club-level … or being put in a position to drop altogether.
Then again, Ivy League schools boast endowments ranging from $7 billion to $54 billion.
Could the Ivy adopt the Patriot League model, giving scholarships only in certain sports? Could it drop to Division 3? Could schools with the most fervent athletic donors (Harvard, Penn) leave the Ivy?
Hard to imagine some of those scenarios, but no doubt, change could be on the horizon with the Ancient Eight.