NCAA: Get pregnant, lose scholarship? (Now with more P&R!)

[Stroker Ace]

http://media.www.cw.ua.edu/media/sto...-3061182.shtml

While some NCAA schools allow the athlete to keep her athletic scholarship if she becomes pregnant, other schools revoke all scholarship privileges, forcing athletes into painful situations. Such instances have led NCAA officials to review their guidelines amid reports of scholarship loss.

In April, Cassandra Harding, a member of the University of Memphis track team, told The Associated Press she lost her scholarship after becoming pregnant. In May, a Clemson athlete told ESPN she had an abortion to stay in school.

...

Harding and other female students at the University of Memphis and Clemson contend they had to sign documents acknowledging scholarships could be lost because of pregnancy.

But the Clemson athlete who aborted her pregnancy is not alone, and pregnancy among athletes occurs more often than people may realize. Riggins said she has met several other athletes who aborted their pregnancies for fear of losing their scholarships.

Wow. This is an issue I'd never thought about. Apparently 17-8 year old girls are signing "releases" saying they are OK with losing scholarships if they ever get pregnant.

[Hawkeye Fierce]

Nah, it should go in Everything Else. Go start a new thread there.

[Stroker Ace]

Uh I don't see the problem here.

How about don't get pregnant. I wouldn't expect the girls that had this happen to them were trying to get pregnant.

The idea that people are electing to have abortions to satisfy these contracts is pretty messy. Can we accuse the NCAA of pushing abortion on hapless teens?

[Dirt]

Well, they're getting scholarships to play. If they can't play, they shouldn't get the scholarship.

[Raife]

Nah, it should go in Everything Else. Go start a new thread there.

It's really more a hardware issue.

[Morkilus]

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-t...ad.php?t=39574

Can we get an abortion forum?

[tromik]

Uh I don't see the problem here.

How about don't get pregnant. I wouldn't expect the girls that had this happen to them were trying to get pregnant.

How do you find out if they were trying to get pregnant or not? Go around lifting skirts asking if they're ovulating?

[Marcus]

What are you talking about?

I am talking about accidential pregnancies not planned ones.

[tromik]

What are you talking about?

I am talking about accidential pregnancies not planned ones.

How can you tell the difference?

"Ma'am, was your son an accident?"

[Greatatlantic]

How do you find out if they were trying to get pregnant or not? Go around lifting skirts asking if they're ovulating?

Somebody needs a biology lesson.

A human pregnancy lasts for about nine months. This is accompianed with a huge stomach bulge on the part of the women. Furthermore, playing sports while pregnant can endanger the developing fetal tissue (other factors considered).

I suppose if the girls got pregnant at the tail end of the season, she'd be able to pull it off.

[Hetzer]

What are you talking about?

I am talking about accidential pregnancies not planned ones.

You do know that there are some means out there to avoid pregnancies? It should be even, i dont know, be healthy to use them...

[Nick Walter]

I'm not seeing the issue here. The scholarships are for atheletes who keep themselves ready to play. It's pretty straightforward.

Yeah an accidental pregnancy for a female athlete can torpedo the scholarship but so can a motorcycle accident for a male player. It's not like there's some special gender bias here, both sexes are getting treated equally.

[Stroker Ace]

Human reproduction is not motorcycle accidents. Is "Not Our Problem" an acceptable official policy?

I guess my underlying discomfort with this is the way athletic scholarships work in general. People are ostensibly getting a free college education based on non-academic achievements. If they don't play along, the college education disappears. Doesn't sit well with me.

[Aeon221]

Except that one of the genders is being forced to kill a baby if it wants to stay in school.

[Dirt]

Everybody has the ability to prevent a pregnancy.

[Marcus]

You do know that there are some means out there to avoid pregnancies? It should be even, i dont know, be healthy to use them...

Uh yeah you dont have to tell me that. Thats pretty much the point I was making in the first place. If you have a scholorship and want to have sex use birthcontrol. Its pretty simple.

Yes yes its not 100% but combining Condoms and some form of medicaded birth control is the best choice.

Anyways I am changing my stance on the issue. I am now outraged at the NCAA for this!

[Nick Walter]

Human reproduction is not motorcycle accidents. Is "Not Our Problem" an acceptable official policy?

Unplanned pregnancy is an accidental health condition that comes from risky behavior. From the perspective of the school giving the scholarship, it is too just like a motorcycle accident. Both are cases of risky behavior leading to an athlete being physically unable to perform.

Or were you referring to planned pregnancy? I think it's fairly obvious why an athlete who accepts a scholarship and then makes plans that leave them unable to perform shouldn't get a free ride at school.

I guess my underlying discomfort with this is the way athletic scholarships work in general. People are ostensibly getting a free college education based on non-academic achievements. If they don't play along, the college education disappears. Doesn't sit well with me.

Well in a larger sense I can agree with that. It's all part of the tapestry of lies by which colleges try to deny that athletics are big business and one in which the colleges get basically free labor no less.

[AaronSofaer]

Except that one of the genders is being forced to kill a baby if it wants to stay in school.

Wrong. One of the genders is being forced to remain able to play in order to get a scholarship based on playing.

There's more than one way to not be pregnant. The easiest would be, I dunno, using birth control. Which I bet most of the ones who get pregnant don't do.

[Marcus]

Except that one of the genders is being forced to kill a baby if it wants to stay in school.

Uh I don't think that they are being kicked out of school as it may be they are just losing the free ride they had. So there's always that.

[Dirt]

The easiest would be to refrain from sex.

[Raife]

Hawkeye had it in the other thread. It's about maintaining themselves pursuant to the scholarship.

Why would you expect to keep your athletic scholarship if you can't play because of something that wasn't sport or school related? That article is ridiculously sappy:

Sharetta Riggins sat alone on the bathroom floor outside her college coliseum. The only sound was her heart pounding through her chest.

This was the moment of truth. Her future, her hopes, her dreams and everything she had worked her entire life for were on the line.

Once the two blue lines appeared on the white stick, it was over. This was real life now.

Many women wait their entire lives for that instant of utter bliss when they know they are about to bring a life into the world, but this was a mistake. This was the 18-year-old record-setting volleyball star. The only thoughts on her mind throbbed dully over and over, "Why me? Why now?"

Ok Sharetta, it's time to take responsibility for your actions. You got pregnant, deal with it. Don't expect the school to be happy about it when you can't fulfill the reason you are going there for free. Look into student loans... I hear lots of kids are getting them.

[Elton]

I guess my underlying discomfort with this is the way athletic scholarships work in general. People are ostensibly getting a free college education based on non-academic achievements. If they don't play along, the college education disappears. Doesn't sit well with me.

That's also my take on it. Even if they are net revenue generators for the universities, athletic scholarships are a major perversion of what the universities are supposed to be about. College basketball and football are awesome and exciting and it's fun to root for my alma maters, but the right thing to do is to stop giving athletic scholarships and use that money to support people who'll actually benefit from the chance at a degree. Maybe start an under-22 league for the major sports to fill the void. But tying scholarships to the medical ability to play is essentially treating the players as employees who get some nice benefits but no salary and no labor protection, and you end up getting seamy side effects like revoking scholarships from pregnant teenagers.

[tromik]

Somebody needs a biology lesson.

A human pregnancy lasts for about nine months. This is accompianed with a huge stomach bulge on the part of the women. Furthermore, playing sports while pregnant can endanger the developing fetal tissue (other factors considered).

I suppose if the girls got pregnant at the tail end of the season, she'd be able to pull it off.

Which means you can't purposefully get pregnant for most of the year? I know people try to plan pregnancies, but it usually isn't accurate to the month, never mind the day.

[Jason McCullough]

Maybe this is one of those gender oddities where the NCAA should just continue paying for the pregnancy period, and then determine eligibility again for the next season when they can play? The Army doesn't kick you out or take away your money for getting pregnant.

I agree the entire system needs to be blown up, but barring that it seems rather churlish.

[Marcus]

For chrissakes, the Army doesn't kick you out for getting pregnant.

You are right they don't but in most cases you can not continue doing the job that you were doing.

[Machfive]

I don't see what's so unreasonable about expecting a female athelete to take measures to avoid getting pregnant. If it's too much effort to take some Lowestra and make sure the sleazy dude you're banging wears a jimmy hat, then fuck, you shouldn't be having sex. Hell, those are measures most college-attending women SHOULD be doing anyways. Who the hell wants an accidental pregnancy in the fucking dorms?

[Nick Walter]

Maybe this is one of those cases where they should just eat it for the pregnancy period? For chrissakes, the Army doesn't kick you out for getting pregnant.

I think if they could a lot them would, but they can't. And that applies both to pregnancies and other medical incidents that knock an athlete out for multiple seasons.

The NCAA puts hard limits on how many scholarship athletes can be on a team. So if they keep paying for someone who can't play, they can't go hire . . .er . . . recruit someone else who can play.

[Enidigm]

It's worth considering if, for example, they had come stoned or drunk to a game and completely useless at a major athletic event. Getting pregnant because you get trashed at a party and were screwing around is the same issue. For some reason though there seems to be a greater stigma around censoring women for their reckless behavior than men. It's not a good situation but that doesn't mean pregnancy is a random, unexplainable, unavoidable event either.

[Raife]

You are right they don't but in most cases you can not continue doing the job that you were doing.

I hope you meant "can continue", Because I knew several women in the Army who worked fine in their jobs right up until they gave birth. If you aren't going to try, well that's called malingering.

[Anders Hallin]

Pregnancy is perfectly normal. It will happen to a certain extent for a young population engaging in perfectly normal behaviour. So since I believe athletic scholarships shouldn't be cut for injuries resulting from normal behaviour, nor do I believe pregnancy is valid reason to revoke it.