John W Duffill wrote:
>
>  I certainly would have loved to play hockey at the University of
> Maine and have the other students pay for my education.  Would Jason
> Price be attending the University of Maine it was not for the almighty
> dollars he is recieving for playing there(I am assuming he is
> receiving financial help)?
>
> Are you saying that other students don't sacrifice to attend college?
> My parents worked very hard to assist me financially in attending the
> University of Maine. Maybe if we did away with free tuition to
> athletes, who in many cases would not even be attending college, a
> college education would be affordable for everyone.   Because you have
> a talent ie.athleticism, shouldn't mean you get a free ride on college
> or life.  I dont begrudge any of the athletes scholarship or not, but
> stop telling me how much they have to sacrifice to play a game.  I
> still sacrifice every month when I make my loan payment.  I am proud
> to of the sacrifices me and my family made so I could attend The
> University of Maine.
>
 
John,
 
I think you do a disservice to parents like Vicki and players like Jason
with these comments.  You overlook the staggering amounts
of time and money that hockey parents must put into their children's
hockey, without ever having good odds on a payoff.  Vicki probably
put in even more than most because of her family's early years in
California (I think it was) before they headed to Minnesota, but I
would have to say that the typical bill for a kid playing
super-serious hockey (the only kind to get him to D-I) is several
thousand dollars a year, at least.  My best guess would be about
$5,000 a year if a kid plays year round, but that could vary.
You do that from the years of five (or so) to 18 or 19, not to mention
the need for big-ticket prep schools in most parts of the country.
 
And what is the result?  The typical kid never makes D-I, so he never
gets a penny of athletic scholarship money.  And even those who make
it and are contributors are almost always on only a partial scholarship.
 
(Personally, I consider the NCAA's limit of 18 scholarships an outrage
and would like to see it go back to the levels back in the 60's and
70's -- off the top of my head I'd say it was at 24 -- when if you
were good enough to play for a school, you were good enough to get
a scholarship.)
 
Hockey as a monetary investment ranks even worse than junk bonds.
 
Sure, there's the hope for a scholarship and maybe even more at
the end of the rainbow, but any parent who goes to the rink with
his or her calculator in tow, tapping in the eventual payoff in
dollars, is an idiot.
 
They also have to sacrifice enormous amounts of time.  Whatever
studying a typical student does, the athlete has to do while
also working on his game.
 
These kids, and these parents, are driven overwhelmingly by one thing:
the love of the game.
 
Anything they get in terms of athletic scholarships is well-deserved.
They deserve nothing but the greatest respect and admiration for all
the sacrifices they have made to get this far.
 
Dave Hendrickson
 
P.S. And the rate of concussions is getting mighty scary at all levels.