College Gridirons
Scott Stadium
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From the founding of intercollegiate athletics, there have been questions about what players could receive for playing. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was founded in 1910, and began organizing all college athletics. It would take them until 1948, 38 years later to finally begin this process by approving the Sanity Code. The Sanity Code banned all forms of athletic based scholarship, allowing only scholarship for academic or financial reasons. The NCAA lacked an enforcement arm so they sent a survey to all member institutions. Wherein seven reported
violations. These seven, Villanova, Maryland, Boston College, Virginia, Virginia Tech, The Citadel and VMI, were threatened with expulsion pending a hearing. At the hearing Virginia's president spoke for all of them, fully admitting violation of the code and refusing to reconsider. All of seven were recommended to be expelled however in the final vote among all members the supermajority required for expulsion was not reached. Thus, the code held no power and was repealed just three years later in 1951. Today players do receive scholarships just to play sports, as well as some spending money, but they are still not allowed any money beyond that, and the NCAA has an actual investigative arm to determine if schools are not in compliance. |
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