“I was treated like a god,” the former Nebraska quarterback says. “I had pretty much everything given to me out there from the start. | “I never thought I had to work for anything. It was pretty much understood, ‘Hey this kid is going to take over the program.’ I don’t like things given to me. I like to work.” —NU football program fell short, Dukes says (Omaha.com)
A Nebraska quarterback transferred to Duke, where he still plays football, but feels better about the pre-med education he’s receiving.
I subscribe to a Google News alert, which sends me an e-mail every time the words “Seton Hill University” appear in a news story. I’m getting a steady trickle of announcements that so and so from such and such a hometown will be attending Seton Hill. It’s funny that these are almost all being published in the sports pages.
Are we as a society that disinterested in the future careers of the budding writers, artists, philosophers, entrepreneurs, teachers, and scientists? Of course, athletic scholarships can help to produce any one of these professions.
Neha, I think you’re probably right. That’s why I blogged this story about a football quarterback who gave up divinity in favor of his studies. It’s reassuring to know that someone from the athletics elite is capable of looking at things from this perspective. It also reminds me not to look at the athletics/academics issue as binary opposites.
As a society, we might aggressively promote and support athletes, but do you really feel that the “thinkers” will go away? Every generation worries about the competence and interest of the next with “unconventional” careers (politics, teaching, writing, arts e.t.c), but the gaps always do get filled in. Unpaved (or slightly beaten) paths call to those who are sometimes driven by passion. Who knew I’d ever want to write and teach Literature?
Millions of students in thousands of schools all over the world – there are no guarantees, but I think we’ll do fine.