[sammyg2]

Here's an interesting story about someone I know who got a full ride scholarship to a big-name sports school and it hurt him more than helped him.

He had a part time job he got paid to not do.
He had paid "tutors" attend classes for him even took tests for him.
He got As and Bs for classes he didn't even know he was enrolled in.
He was enrolled in the most ridiculous classes that would make a liberal arts major smirk.

BUT, certain professors wouldn't allow that crap and made him take his own tests and by that time his head was so big and he was so spoiled he blew off those classes.
That got him in academic trouble and he wasn't going to be eligible to play his senior year, even though he was the ace on the top team in the nation that year.

Word got out that he had to draft out that year and it drove his stock down big-time. He still went reasonably high in the draft but the signing bonus and salary offers were a fraction of what they would have been after his senior year. He had a cloud over his head for years because of that, and when injury eventually ended that career he had nothing to fall back on.
He would have been better off without all that sports $$$$$

Now this guy was from a reasonable middle to upper middle class area and family, so he at least had a support system and a potential opportunity to start and develop a career. Imagine if he was from a poor setting and didn't have anything to fall back on?
He's have ended up in prison inside a year.

The idea that full ride sports scholarships are a good thing for the students is a bunch of crap, just like every single other "well intentioned" hand-out program.