Did you enjoy the marvelous .. maybe miraculous victory .. of the UW Huskies over the UC Bears? 31 to 7!!!!
At the same time you might think about the student athletes who played this game for you. According to NJ Senator Corey Booker, high level collegiate athletes work for their teams 70 hours a week!
Today at THE-Ave.US, a former UW Husky, Anthony Washington, has written a powerful letter to Dr. Young suggesting that the UW follow the lead of the Big 10 schools. These schools, along with most private top tier schools, reward these amazing students by offering them real scholarships, overseen by the faculty rather than by the Athletic Department, and for a long enough time so they have a better chance of graduating with a degree that we can all be proud of.
Let’s be real. None of us could carry a full academic load while working as a Husky athlete and graduate in 4 years! Holding their academic scholarships over the students as athletes is at best extortion and at worst an abuse of US labor law. Worse, most of these student athletes will never come close to pro jobs. They will, hopefully succeed as the rest of our students do … building on their years at the UW!
If the Big 10 can join Princeton and Harvard in offering athletes a full academic scholarship, shouldn’t the UW do the same?
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Stephen M. Schwartz
Pathology