My family, too. My oldest is hoping to cover at least some college costs as a middle distance runner and my riding 9th grade daughter is a starter on a top team in a top league and also wants to play collegiately.
We are clear with both of them that sports are not a career and they need skills and experience beyond competition to set them up for a comfortable life. The House deal makes it even harder for all athletes outside of basketball and football (excepting a very select few additional sports at specific schools, like LSU baseball or BYU track & field or UVA swimming, etc).
A competitive athletic program is a huge time sink: practices, weight room, travel, meets, game day. That time spent elsewhere can go a long ways to covering college costs, such as taking extra classes and finishing a semester or quarter earlier or going to a school with a good coop program. Even a low-paying on-campus job can be competitive if the per hour rates are fairly compared.
But even lower-level sports and any number of other activities can be significant time sinks as well. Perhaps less so than being on a top-ranked varsity team but not necessarily insignificant.
Why anyone would think 18 year old adults should subsidize other adults, because earning what they are worth is “morally wrong”, is absurd to me.
We went through decades of travesty to get to the current NIL system because young kids were getting screwed. You don’t need it to be a career, but getting paid well for a few years after sacrificing your childhood is fair - fuck everyone else!
We are clear with both of them that sports are not a career and they need skills and experience beyond competition to set them up for a comfortable life. The House deal makes it even harder for all athletes outside of basketball and football (excepting a very select few additional sports at specific schools, like LSU baseball or BYU track & field or UVA swimming, etc).