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1960 • Baseball Clip • Jackie Robinson Mail Bag - Radio Show · Retro Sports Radio: Classic Games from History

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  This is RetroSports Radio. Visit RetroSeasons.com for more sports history.
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  I guess one of the hottest issues in college circles these days is the question of athletic
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  scholarships. I'd like to give you my views of this controversial topic right after we
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  have this important message. I promise my opinion on athletic scholarships. Now how
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  about them? Are they good or are they bad? Should they be abolished or should they be
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  applauded? Let me tell you what Dr. A. Whitney Griswold, the President of Yale University,
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  said recently. He called college athletic scholarships a racket and an educational
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  swindle. The good doctor is entitled to his opinion, but I happen to disagree with him.
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  It's true that a few schools allow an athlete to graduate with a BS that marks him as a
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  basketball scorer rather than a bachelor of science. But with the good doctor denying
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  a boy the chance of an athletic scholarship if the youngster couldn't pay his way through
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  college. I, for instance, could never have attended college were it not for an athletic
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  scholarship. I've heard arguments that point up the fact that colleges are overcrowded and
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  a good athlete has a better chance to get into school than a non-athlete. This argument
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  would make sense except for the fact that it presupposes that the athlete is an inferior
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  student. But the vast majority of our institutions of higher learning insist that all students,
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  athletes or not, maintain a certain academic level. I think that when people treat the
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  phrase college athletic scholarships as something that should not be said in the presence of
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  children, they're not talking about scholarships but recruiting. Recruiting, of course, is
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  something else. Some of the colleges make no bones about the fact that they employ a
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  recruiting system for athletes. Other schools deny recruiting at all. Yet, year after year,
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  the same schools never fail to come out with a crackerjack athletic team whether it be
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  in football, basketball, baseball or track. And who are they kidding? Wouldn't it make
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  more sense if the various athletic conferences established a code covering recruiting? Wouldn't
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  it be better if this were brought out into the open? This way, competition would be fairer
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  and the lopsided score is rarer. I'm for recruiting just as I'm for the awarding of
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  athletic scholarships to deserving students, providing, and this is the key, providing
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  each athlete keep up his scholastic standing. After all, it's more important to get an education
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  than to play three years of varsity football. I hope you agree. Well, it's happened again.
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  We're out of time. And that just about does it for now. And I'll see you soon.