<p>I understand that often recruited football players are getting into colleges that they are not prepared for – through no fault of their own, if their inner city high school was inadequate.</p>
<p>But for all the help and free passes they are given, shouldn’t some of the responsibility lie on these 18-24 yr old players? They get how the world works. They understand they are one injury away from not playing; they understand the odds of getting into the NFL; and many of them know they don’t want to go back to the neighborhoods they came from. Yet shouldn’t THEY be the ones who at least choose an employable major? </p>
<p>And yet I was looking at the bio of a Penn State player who was majoring in Parks, Recreation & Tourism – really!? Even if you want to be in the hospitality industry, isn’t something like business management, finance, or marketing better? Or is it that you can slide by in a Parks major and devote all your time to football and partying, whereas finance may require you to crack a book, work with tutors to catch up etc.</p>
<p>I also understand that they work really hard at their sport and there are a lot of mandatory practices, sessions etc. but what about the off season? While you’re doing spring practices with no games looming, can’t you use that semester to focus on school and make up for the lack of time in the fall?</p>
<p>I feel like a lot of them do a lot of lip service to how blessed they are to go to college and how football was just their ticket in, but once they have that ticket they realize that football, traveling, press conferences etc. are the more “fun” part of college, so they let the academics slide more than necessary. </p>
<p>There was a recent article about an ex NFL player who started a coaching program to work with college football players to “prep” them for the real world – interview prep; resume writing; thinking about internships and long term career goals. He had to fold that business because while universities were willing to pay him to speak, the football players just would not attend the sessions because they had the mindset of – I’ll deal with that when I graduate, right now I’m worrying about the NFL.</p>