to read a current article on the sacrifices payed by kids and their
families striving for scholarships (specifically hockey, imagine that in a
national non-sports magazine), see Kiplinger's february issue on newstands
now or <http://kiplinger.com/magazine/feb98/athfront.html> for a link to
the online version.  john, although i have not read the article i think it
will alone defeat some of your arguments and update other peoples as well.
the estimate of cost to prepare for d-1 level competition, not to mention a
scholarships is 10,000 a year at high school level.
        i am in the military stationed in winter harbor maine about 60 miles from
orono.  i have been regularly attending games since '93 with a break '95/96
while i did some time in cuba and at no time have i ever heard a complaint
form students about the scholar athletes being on a free ride.  i also
attend umaine/um augusta via interactive television.  i personally don't
mind some of my tuition and fees going to support the school.  on the
contrary i think it does a lot of good.  have you ever heard of humboldt
state university.  world class forestry (better than umaine in my biased
hometown view) and fishing school set in (way)northern california.  hsu is
no podunk college, my borther did an internship at nike and is being
recruited by nike, sun microsystems, microsoft and others.  if you haven't
heard of hsu, you never will because their sports are all lower division.
they are lucky to play out of state much less on a national level.  d-1
umaine is nationally recognized in part (mostly i think) because of its
sports (specifically hockey).  i think this prestige while adding nothing
to the quantitative value of my degree adds a certain qualitative
recognition value on the resume/job application.
        then again anybody that could scrape 10k/year to prepare kids for d-1
would be better off investing it.  it would more than pay for full time
school (starting early, using compounding...for more info see kiplinger's
site) at a just below ivy level and the kids could play on club teams and
own the ice with their skills.
 
At 11:54 PM 2/7/98 -0500, you wrote:
>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)?
remaining post and dave hendricksons reply deleted for brevity