The Parts About Being An NCAA Athlete No One Ever Tells You
Stop. If you are an NCAA athlete you need to reconsider. Not quit your team or your sport, but you need to stop, look around and speak up about your situation. You think you are there because they are giving you a discount on a great education–or if you are really good, even one for free. But that is not why you are there. And it’s certainly not why they tell you you are there. To echo Richard Sherman’s recent interview: “You are not on scholarship for school. You’re on scholarship to play football.” But this is an already saturated conversation and it is not what this article is about. This article is about the day-to-day experiences of an NCAA athlete, but more importantly, all the things they have to go through that the media never brings to light.
I know these things because I was an athlete. All those stories you hear about ex-players or current professionals–I lived those stories and shared their experiences. Everyone always tells you that college is supposed to be the best time in your life–but, if I am being honest, for me it was the worst. And now looking back, it seems as though those 4 years of my life were spent in complete stagnant. I do not feel as though I learned anything. I did not improve as person nor in my career because I was an athlete. It was just a waste of time, money, and worst of all: emotional stamina. Clearly I sound bitter. And I will admit to that cognitive bias, because not every athlete feels the way I do about my time spent playing college sports. But, the unfortunate thing about playing a college sport is this unequivocal haunting feeling of being inside a cage that lingers over you throughout your entire day.
There is no time to have a normal life and keep up healthy relationships. All your time is spent laboring over the demands of your coach and the athletic department. Coaches and AD’s treat their athletes–especially one’s like me who was given a lot of scholarship money–as though you are indebted to them because of what they are giving you. They wield this power over you when they need you to do something and more often then not, it is something to their benefit–not your’s. If I were to explain what it is like to be a college athlete, or rather, the collegiate system, to someone who is not familiar with it, I would compare it to something like the government. University athletic departments, coaches, staff and the system they build and force players to work under is extremely convoluted. It is complex beyond all reason and is absolutely removed from any sort of pragmatism. Everyone is flakey and disoriented just like the government.
No one knows how to fix it because it’s so complex there’s no clear direction of change to fallow. Being a collegiate athlete means living in one big grey area. And to outline this fact, I’ll take it a step farther by deconstructing something I still have a hard time figuring out: Coaches are incentivized to be disingenuous. I’m not saying all coaches are liars or that they’re bad people–no. But I was lied to. A LOT. From beginning to end. The entire system of recruitment that was used to get me to sign to–not just once, but two different times–was entirely built on a pile of lies. I was promised that we would have access to certain facilities, that we could practice at certain places, and what was generally described as a seemingly liberating and less-strict environment to train under was all one giant lie. When I got to school for the first time in the fall of my freshman year and saw how rigid the structure that was forced upon us was, I felt disheartened, but that was not what upset me most.
My coach promised me after watching me play over the summer that I would have a spot in our first competition that fall and he went back on his word and did not play me. Then when I transferred schools it was more of the same thing. Coaches always try to make you fit into this “system” as if that is the key to winning. But what happens is they rid you of your natural athleticism? Every coach I had tried to change my method of play, my mechanics–everything. And all the while I wondered, “Why’ would you recruit me if you do not like the way I do things?” One of my many questions that went unanswered. But, make no mistake, the deception did not stop there. Near the end of my senior year our head A.D. went with us on a team trip to a tournament and my team–myself included–always hated the hats, shoes, and other pieces of equipment we were forced to play with. They were uncomfortable, inadequate and we generally felt that they made us play worse. We were not allowed to use our own equipment, equipment we felt comfortable playing. I cannot imagine what would have happened if we had! Our coach would have lost it. Anyways, after a conversation with our AD it turned out our coach had been lying to us for years. He had always told us that we were contracted to play that equipment and there was no exceptions. We were bound to honor that contract. That always mitigated our complaining and ended with sulking heads, but what could we do? As it turns out, our AD informed us that there was no contract at all. The only team that was bound to a contract was the basketball team and they let those players break that contract and wear whatever shoes they please. My jaw dropped. I could not believe what I was hearing. All those years of being lied to about a nonexistent contract. I cannot imagine how much better I would have played if I was not forced to wear all the uncomfortable equipment that did not even fit properly.
You might ask, “Why was it so important to our coach that we all wear and play the equipment he gave us? So important that he deliberately lied about it for years?” Well, the answer is almost more disturbing then the lie itself: he wanted us to match. Yup. Our coach wanted us all to wear identical clothes and play identical equipment so we matched. I do not totally disagree with the mindset of trying to look like a well put together team, but I do when it makes your team play worse because of it! What is important to take note of here is that everything that happened to me, happened to my teammates, and happened to my other collegiate friends had nothing to do with us. It was not about us, it was about the coaches or the schools stroking their own egos and trying to represent some reputation or level of superior status when they meet with their colleagues at conference meeting. It’s genuinely that important to these people that they garner the approval of other schools.
Remember that scene from the movie American Psycho where they are all comparing business cards and you get a real feel for just how shallow they are? Well, imagine if you replaced the Wallstreet guys with coaches and university AD’s, and replaced the business cards with the athletes. Welcome to NCAA sports.
By: Casey Olsen (written for blazinsports.com)
