Congrats to the 69 Billiken Student Athlete Graduates

[JMM28]

If Grandy got so screwed why did he sign up for another year of getting screwed after he graduated?

Maybe the for profit schools give you a sack of cash at graduation.

[Quality Is Job 1]

Maybe Grandy is merely protesting a graduation ceremony fee. A degree is a reward for years of hard work and great cost, but a graduation ceremony is brief occasion for family and friends to come celebrate with the graduate. Considering the cost of travel and passports for family members coming from Canada and the potential cost of a ceremony fee, I can see why Grandy might not be thrilled to attend the ceremony (and possibly not have family there). But that doesn't take away from the accomplishment or value of the degree.

[billikenfan05]

Maybe Grandy is merely protesting a graduation ceremony fee. A degree is a reward for years of hard work and great cost, but a graduation ceremony is brief occasion for family and friends to come celebrate with the graduate. Considering the cost of travel and passports for family members coming from Canada and the potential cost of a ceremony fee, I can see why Grandy might not be thrilled to attend the ceremony (and possibly not have family there). But that doesn't take away from the accomplishment or value of the degree.

Or maybe not

[kmbilliken]

Since when do they charge a graduation ceremony fee? How much is it?

[jimbofive]

Since when do they charge a graduation ceremony fee? How much is it?

[Old guy]

Grandy is better off than many of the other graduates since he has little educational debt to pay off. This is a major problem for most kids coming out of college. They graduate, have no job, no money, and owe a fair amount of money. Not a fun situation to be in.

[JMM28]

Grandy is better off than many of the other graduates since he has little educational debt to pay off. This is a major problem for most kids coming out of college. They graduate, have no job, no money, and owe a fair amount of money. Not a fun situation to be in.

Exactly. I thought of how stupid Grandy Glaze is today when I was hitting submit on one of my last student loan payments, 9 years after graduating.

[Pistol]

I don't think tuition is the point.

Some students finance their eduction with student loans. Others finance their education with their parents' (or grandparents' or someone else's) money. Grandy financed his education by offering his services as a full-time athlete.

All of these things are true and also may not necessarily what his gripe was about. It's more likely his way of complaining that student athletes deserve some form of a stipend and/or account payable upon graduation because they devote so many hours to working on their sport without pay, which also prevents them (along with prohibitive NCAA rules) from getting other forms of paying work during the school year.

He may have been inarticulate and at least slightly wrongheaded in his tweet, but I just wanted to point out that it could be rooted in something more reasonable.

[Littlebill]

I don't think tuition is the point.

Some students finance their eduction with student loans. Others finance their education with their parents' (or grandparents' or someone else's) money. Grandy financed his education by offering his services as a full-time athlete.

All of these things are true and also may not necessarily what his gripe was about. It's more likely his way of complaining that student athletes deserve some form of a stipend and/or account payable upon graduation because they devote so many hours to working on their sport without pay, which also prevents them (along with prohibitive NCAA rules) from getting other forms of paying work during the school year.

He may have been inarticulate and at least slightly wrongheaded in his tweet, but I just wanted to point out that it could be rooted in something more reasonable.

As a student athlete in a major college program, you get everything you need paid for.

[ACE]

When GG was a freshman, Harriman mentioned that Grandy grew up dirt poor in a very rough area.

[Pistol]

As a student athlete in a major college program, you get everything you need paid for.

Care to elaborate?

[Littlebill]

Care to elaborate?

Food, clothes, room/board etc.

[slufanskip]

I don't think tuition is the point.

Some students finance their eduction with student loans. Others finance their education with their parents' (or grandparents' or someone else's) money. Grandy financed his education by offering his services as a full-time athlete.

All of these things are true and also may not necessarily what his gripe was about. It's more likely his way of complaining that student athletes deserve some form of a stipend and/or account payable upon graduation because they devote so many hours to working on their sport without pay, which also prevents them (along with prohibitive NCAA rules) from getting other forms of paying work during the school year.

He may have been inarticulate and at least slightly wrongheaded in his tweet, but I just wanted to point out that it could be rooted in something more reasonable.

You'd think a guy with a 4 year degree from a school the level of SLU would be able to present himself better.

[Clock_Tower]

I don't think tuition is the point.

Some students finance their eduction with student loans. Others finance their education with their parents' (or grandparents' or someone else's) money. Grandy financed his education by offering his services as a full-time athlete.

All of these things are true and also may not necessarily what his gripe was about. It's more likely his way of complaining that student athletes deserve some form of a stipend and/or account payable upon graduation because they devote so many hours to working on their sport without pay, which also prevents them (along with prohibitive NCAA rules) from getting other forms of paying work during the school year.

He may have been inarticulate and at least slightly wrongheaded in his tweet, but I just wanted to point out that it could be rooted in something more reasonable.

Yes. But even stipends would likely be conditioned upon the successful completion of drug testing/abiding by team rules so again, Grandy would have had issues. Sorry, but I say good riddance.

[Clock_Tower]

I doubt you are a business major.

The players work all year, even in the off season, to play for our school. During the long season, there are countless meetings, plus practice, running, weight room, then games, all of those 72-96 hour road trips... do the financial analysis. Well, find someone who can.

I'd say they make about $ 25 an hour, give or take, but they deserve it.

And almost none make it to the pros to make any real money other than Larry the Legend so this work does not lead to a real future career.

And they miss so much of college life, especially a good social life and the team commitment makes it much more difficult to get top grades (yes some do I know but it is much harder).

Meanwhile, many non athletes sleep til 10, take 2 classes, then a nap, study for an hour or two, go out drinking, get back at 2am, go to sleep.

Weekends off.

Then b*tch about the team.

Are you describing the kids who make up the women's sports and all men's sports at SLU except for basketball?

[hsmith19]

Great, another excuse to rip on a former player. Just what this fan base needed.

[Pistol]

Food, clothes, room/board etc.

You're counting the meal plan and team-issued gear as "food and clothes," and then pretending "board" and "food" are two different things?

The thing people aren't keeping in mind is that they're not getting paid in money; the cost of tuition, room, board, etc. (by the way, the cost for an undergraduate student all-in for 2015-2016 is $49,198 for students living in Grand Forest) is something that the school is neither receiving nor paying out. This is an entirely intangible transaction from the student-athlete's perspective. The whole "50 grand to play sports" is incredibly misleading. It's not a salary by any means.

So while student-athletes are "clothed" (in limited team-issued gear only) and "fed" (on campus only) and "paid" (in education credits only), they can't work for actual money because they're working more than a 40-hour week between their sport and classes and everything they do is restricted by the NCAA rule book.

So yes, someone who plays a sport and graduates on time can still be completely broke and justifiably frustrated (particularly if he or she were to reflect upon his economic impact).

[The Pelican]

I'm surprised such a stupid tweet is getting so much attention. GG is gone

[Pistol]

You'd think a guy with a 4 year degree from a school the level of SLU would be able to present himself better.

You'd think so, but people are who they are. I've known and encountered plenty of people from SLU who aren't particularly articulate in expressing their ideas. (Some even post on this board!)

[Cowboy]

You're counting the meal plan and team-issued gear as "food and clothes," and then pretending "board" and "food" are two different things?

The thing people aren't keeping in mind is that they're not getting paid in money; the cost of tuition, room, board, etc. (by the way, the cost for an undergraduate student all-in for 2015-2016 is $49,198 for students living in Grand Forest) is something that the school is neither receiving nor paying out. This is an entirely intangible transaction from the student-athlete's perspective. The whole "50 grand to play sports" is incredibly misleading. It's not a salary by any means.

So while student-athletes are "clothed" (in limited team-issued gear only) and "fed" (on campus only) and "paid" (in education credits only), they can't work for actual money because they're working more than a 40-hour week between their sport and classes and everything they do is restricted by the NCAA rule book.

So yes, someone who plays a sport and graduates on time can still be completely broke and justifiably frustrated (particularly if he or she were to reflect upon his economic impact).

-you say ...(particularly if he or she were to reflect upon his economic impact)...isn't the alternative to go play whatever sport professionally and skip the ncaa?

-you are correct that student athletes "are not getting paid in money", but they are also not paying taxes on the scholarship benefits, i think it is a pretty good deal for the kids

[Pistol]

-you say ...(particularly if he or she were to reflect upon his economic impact)...isn't the alternative to go play whatever sport professionally and skip the ncaa?

-you are correct that student athletes "are not getting paid in money", but they are also not paying taxes on the scholarship benefits, i think it is a pretty good deal for the kid

These things can be true, but also the fact that he's broke. My point is that the payment of a full college scholarship with room and board still isn't actual money, and that a person can enter and leave college with nothing, even if he or she doesn't take on debt. Regardless of how one's college expenses were paid, I can empathize with the feeling of reaching graduation and having absolutely nothing but uncertainty.

Things can be both a good deal (free college!) and bad deal (not paid according to your economic impact, as is intended to be the case in a capitalistic society) at the same time.

Harry Shearer just announced he's leaving The Simpsons after two and a half decades and had an interesting point (before this announcement) when he was discussing on the podcast WTF with Marc Maron his role in salary negotiations with FOX. He said that he's both ridiculously overpaid (for doing something he loves for a $300,000 an episode) and ridiculously underpaid (given how much more FOX makes on the show, the actors are grossly underpaid when compared to other shows).

Two seemingly contradictory things can be true at once in a complex economic arrangement such as an NCAA athletic scholarship.

[JMM28]

You're counting the meal plan and team-issued gear as "food and clothes," and then pretending "board" and "food" are two different things?

The thing people aren't keeping in mind is that they're not getting paid in money; the cost of tuition, room, board, etc. (by the way, the cost for an undergraduate student all-in for 2015-2016 is $49,198 for students living in Grand Forest) is something that the school is neither receiving nor paying out. This is an entirely intangible transaction from the student-athlete's perspective. The whole "50 grand to play sports" is incredibly misleading. It's not a salary by any means.

So while student-athletes are "clothed" (in limited team-issued gear only) and "fed" (on campus only) and "paid" (in education credits only), they can't work for actual money because they're working more than a 40-hour week between their sport and classes and everything they do is restricted by the NCAA rule book.

So yes, someone who plays a sport and graduates on time can still be completely broke and justifiably frustrated (particularly if he or she were to reflect upon his economic impact).

The athletes that come from a lesser background qualify for pell grants as well though. That is around $5,000 a year that is given to them in their bank account in 1 lump sum. I don't think Grandy would qualify since he is from Canada though.

I agree with the notion of giving athletes in the revenue sports a cut of the pie, but I am a lot more likely to support someone like Jahlil Okafor in that gripe than Grandy Glaze.

[DoctorB]

what pie is that? if by "pie" you imagine some huge pile of profit waiting to be sliced up, dream on. it would be a mistake to equate athletics at a place like SLU, let alone smaller places, with the likes of Texas, Ohio State, the SEC and Big 12 programs or UND, who are in fact raking it in. I don't have time to run down lots of figures but here are some numbers for a couple years ago:

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/college/story/2012-05-15/texas-athletics-spending-revenue/54960210/1

But my point is this; the "pie" is relevant for only about 20 schools. as soon as a new rule comes in "paying" students, there goes amateur athletics in a big hurry, IMHO. this is a very complicated topic but I think the reason so much is being made of a silly and ungracious tweet is because it is a much bigger can of worms. 95% of schools, including SLU, just can not afford that, and college enrollments are already going down, down, down over the next 5-10 years. Lots of schools will not survive that, and more $$ for athletes will only hurt athletics.

I agree with the notion of giving athletes in the revenue sports a cut of the pie, but I am a lot more likely to support someone like Jahlil Okafor in that gripe than Grandy Glaze.

[JMM28]

what pie is that? if by "pie" you imagine some huge pile of profit waiting to be sliced up, dream on. it would be a mistake to equate athletics at a place like SLU, let alone smaller places, with the likes of Texas, Ohio State, the SEC and Big 12 programs or UND, who are in fact raking it in. I don't have time to run down lots of figures but here are some numbers for a couple years ago:

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/college/story/2012-05-15/texas-athletics-spending-revenue/54960210/1

But my point is this; the "pie" is relevant for only about 20 schools. as soon as a new rule comes in "paying" students, there goes amateur athletics in a big hurry, IMHO. this is a very complicated topic but I think the reason so much is being made of a silly and ungracious tweet is because it is a much bigger can of worms. 95% of schools, including SLU, just can not afford that, and college enrollments are already going down, down, down over the next 5-10 years. Lots of schools will not survive that, and more $$ for athletes will only hurt athletics.

Doc - I understand what you're saying, but the revenue numbers are fudged quite a bit on all sides. I don't know what the correct answer is. Would the NCAA tournament be as successful as it is without the top 25 players each year, assuming they were heading overseas or NBDL/NBA? There is value in the brands of the top teams, but A10 and below teams have little in terms of moving the needle. Is the right move to just push off the big 5 conferences, settle the rest into a D1AA setup, and let the big boys pay the top talent?

I do know that the college enrollments declining is a byproduct of crazy outrageous costs to attend. I went to SLU from 02-06 and spent probably half of what it costs today, less than 10 years later. Obviously that isn't sustainable. How does that get fixed? Do costs come back down to earth or does the 'everyone goes to college' goal stop? I hate to say this but a SLU education is not worth $200,000 if you're paying full freight.

[bonwich]

I do know that the college enrollments declining is a byproduct of crazy outrageous costs to attend.

That's not true. The most recent declines, somewhat ironically, have been primarily because of the improving economy, which has driven overall declines in community college enrollment. Declining high school graduation populations have also played into it.

Very, very few people pay "full freight" -- a couple of the main reasons tuition increases have been sustainable for so long are more and more sophisticated use of funny money (fudging the sticker price with "grants") and the outrageous availability of student loans.

(As an aside: The last of my five kids graduated last weekend. I only had to put three of them through four-year schools and one through a series of part-time enrollments, but I just compared notes with one of my contemporaries and in doing so estimated that the cumulative sticker price for my kids exceeded $500,000. Luckily, I believe their cumulative loan balance is only about $60K.)