[lbo-talk] Katha Pollit

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sat Nov 26 20:06:10 PST 2011


I don't know if I've written on this before.

About 20 years or so ago I had in freshman comp at Illinois State a young black man who had been the first black quarterback at the University of Iowa. (The Iowa fans booed him.) His second year there he injured himself and for awhile was confined to a wheel chair. He lost his scholarship; but worse: they wanted him to pay back some fees of some sort -- I forget the details. And until he paid them they would not send his records to any other school. When he finally got into Illinois State, they tried to pressure him into going out for football here; he refused -- he just wanted to get his degree and get away from any campus.

Carrol

-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Miles Jackson Sent: Saturday, November 26, 2011 1:02 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Katha Pollit

123hop at comcast.net wrote:


>
>I was horrified to find out, after reading the Atlantic article on college
sports, that "student atheletes" are not covered by workman's comp if they get injured. They're not covered by anything. It's little better than slavery.
>
>Joanna
>

Yeah, my father was on a full ride football scholarship at the U of W, blew out his knee as a freshman, lost his scholarship in his sophomore year. He had to drop out. This was back in the fifties; I hear the big schools are a bit more generous with the scholarships for injured athletes now, but it's still a bizarre racket.

Miles ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk



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