Every year, the Lobo Club raises money to fund more than $3.5 million to fund athletic scholarships at the University of New Mexico says the Lobo Athletics website. That is an awesome endeavor and achievement, but are the scholarships divided between teams fairly?
Per NCAA compliance, different sports within a school’s athletic program are designated a certain amount of scholarships. There are two categories that a sport goes under. There are head count sports and equivalency sports. Head count sports include football and both men’s and women’s basketball. All Division I football programs are given eighty-five scholarships while basketball teams are given thirteen full scholarships for almost all of their players. Sports with the equivalency scholarships are given a certain number of scholarships that may be split up among the team as coaches see fit. These sports include baseball, bowling, fencing, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, lacrosse, rifle, skiing, soccer, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field, volleyball, water polo and wrestling.
The debate of fairness is up to discussion. While football teams have 85 scholarships for their team, sports like soccer have 9.9 scholarships to allocate to players on a roster of thirty. Baseball also splits 11.7 scholarships between players on a roster of twenty-five. There are reasons the NCAA established these numbers and were intended to be fair and realistic for all student-athletes. The University of New Mexico is not in charge of how many scholarships each team receives but rather makes sure it is in compliance with NCAA rules involving scholarships.
At this point the NCAA has way bigger fish to fry than changing scholarship allocation to different sports team. With all the controversy surrounding pay for play and the endorsement of collegiate athletes, there really is no room or controversy about this aspect of NCAA compliance.
“The system is fair here,” says Janice Ruggiero the Senior Associate Athletic Director at UNM. “The only exception may be football… there are obvious reasons why.”
She’s right as most schools make most of their money from athletics through football programs. That is not the case here at UNM though.
“This past year there were only 25 athletic departments in the nation that broke even in athletic revenue,” added Ruggiero.
I guess the reality about the system in place is that it centers around the sports that generate the most money for schools. It makes sense then that football and basketball teams would have the most scholarships for their players. It just may not be fair here at UNM where the football team is struggling. Even with the success of the Men’s Soccer Team, they still could not even raise enough money at their gates to fund travel expenses.
“Of course I would want me and my teammates to receive more scholarships,” sophomore soccer player Lucas Seligman said. “But it isn’t something we think about.”
As far as I can see, there won’t be any changes to the NCAA’s scholarship allowance. The resolution is really to enjoy the successes of UNM student-athletes and support all of our teams.
lucerocory 