Revenue sport athletes haven't had an experience that remotely resembles the experience of a normal student at any major school for many decades and most non-revenue scholarshipped students are similarly incomparable to a normal student unless you give that student a 40 hour a week work-study job. This has been the case for decades, pearl-wringing about it is silly and obnoxious.
I think you're overstating it.
There is generally very little intermixing between athletes and other students, especially for football and basketball but in non revenue sports as well. And I say this as someone who had friends who were student athletes in revenue and non revenue sports. I don’t think it’s anything nefarious, just has to do with the group of people you’re around. NU has well-defined cliques. “Athlete” is one.
Of course their are athlete cliques. This is who you spend the majority of your time with. These are people you have a common/experience with. Been this way forever and always will be. People turning in their fan card for this should have done it 50 years ago.
That’s ridiculous. I think it’s fair for people to say they don’t enjoy the new free agency rules of college and the overall sentiment that players are “for hire” for a season at a time. The growth of players on the team over 3-4 years is something many people used to enjoy about college. It’s very rare now.
What’s your point of reference? We’re you a NU athlete? I can tell you that people that weren’t in a college athletics program way underestimate the amount of time you spend with teammates. Basically mandatory practice or game requirement while students are in breaks. Summer’s are all but mandatory. The population of students for My winter breaks consisted of athletes and international students. Everyone else was partying on NYE.
When I went to NU, it was the other way. Our program was so bad that the students looked down at the athletes. Mind you the football team didn’t win a game until my senior year and the basketball team didn’t have a winning record until my senior year. I think only the women’s tennis team was good. But almost all the football players were in one fraternity and people treated those in other sports, if they see them, as having a nice hobby.
My daughter just graduated from NU a few weeks ago. I'm an alum, so we could talk about life at NU pretty easily and I'd know what she was saying.
Yes, this makes perfect sense. Athletes generally integrate into the social fabric as much as they have the time to do so. That’s the key, there isn’t that much time to do so. Sure, party scene every now and then, but you usually aren’t part of many other extracurricular activities.
Fitz getting money is money out of our future NIL program (once the law turns that over to the school) and the coffers of our athletic programs. I hope Fitz gets nothing. I’m thankful for his contributions, while disapproving of his future wearing Hawkeye Black & Gold, but either way at some point I don’t feel sorry for a guy who can buy as many houses and cars as he wants already and would rather that our athletic programs don’t suffer from a big payout.
What you want and what will happen are 2 very different things. Fitz will be getting tens of millions of dollars from the university. That’s is a virtual certainty.
Star male athletes wanting to hang out with sorority girls is evergreen, and I’m sure your daughter is lovely. That isn’t exactly what I meant…
If firing Fitz they way they did violated the terms of his contract, then I hope he gets paid every penny that he's owed. Contracts and oaths and handshakes used to mean something. Are you not a man of honor?
I think most objective observers who have read the contract are expecting Fitzgerald to get paid.
1) It’s definitely true that we hold ourselves to a higher standard… and we live it! Look at the academic awards, the fact we don’t take “minimum qualifiers” (like every other B1G schools including good academic schools overall like Wisconsin and Michigan) and the fact our players almost never get in trouble with the law. Who was the last football player who did? That DT in 2013 who sold coke? And 2) I don’t think it turns anyone off. I think it actually brings people in because they want to root for something “good”/“old school” in the ever-changing semi-pro landscape of college sports. Also, regarding #2, I’m a local, non-alum fan and have always been attracted to NU because of that and I personally know two more local, non-alum who would say the same. Let’s not over analyze this. NU still does it the right way despite how college sports is changing - for the worse in my opinion.
