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This is RetroSports Radio. Visit RetroSeasons.com for more sports history.

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I guess one of the hottest issues in college circles these days is the question of athletic

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scholarships. I'd like to give you my views of this controversial topic right after we

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have this important message. I promise my opinion on athletic scholarships. Now how

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about them? Are they good or are they bad? Should they be abolished or should they be

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applauded? Let me tell you what Dr. A. Whitney Griswold, the President of Yale University,

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said recently. He called college athletic scholarships a racket and an educational

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swindle. The good doctor is entitled to his opinion, but I happen to disagree with him.

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It's true that a few schools allow an athlete to graduate with a BS that marks him as a

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basketball scorer rather than a bachelor of science. But with the good doctor denying

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a boy the chance of an athletic scholarship if the youngster couldn't pay his way through

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college. I, for instance, could never have attended college were it not for an athletic

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scholarship. I've heard arguments that point up the fact that colleges are overcrowded and

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a good athlete has a better chance to get into school than a non-athlete. This argument

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would make sense except for the fact that it presupposes that the athlete is an inferior

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student. But the vast majority of our institutions of higher learning insist that all students,

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athletes or not, maintain a certain academic level. I think that when people treat the

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phrase college athletic scholarships as something that should not be said in the presence of

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children, they're not talking about scholarships but recruiting. Recruiting, of course, is

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something else. Some of the colleges make no bones about the fact that they employ a

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recruiting system for athletes. Other schools deny recruiting at all. Yet, year after year,

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the same schools never fail to come out with a crackerjack athletic team whether it be

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in football, basketball, baseball or track. And who are they kidding? Wouldn't it make

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more sense if the various athletic conferences established a code covering recruiting? Wouldn't

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it be better if this were brought out into the open? This way, competition would be fairer

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and the lopsided score is rarer. I'm for recruiting just as I'm for the awarding of

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athletic scholarships to deserving students, providing, and this is the key, providing

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each athlete keep up his scholastic standing. After all, it's more important to get an education

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than to play three years of varsity football. I hope you agree. Well, it's happened again.

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We're out of time. And that just about does it for now. And I'll see you soon.