- AP Photo / Tony Gutierrez
- Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston isn’t exactly living the life of a typical undergraduate.
The regulars in our Sunday morning breakfast group were talking about Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson, and somebody said NFL players “live in a bubble” and believe they can get away with anything. He meant a bubble of entitlement. I think there’s a bubble, but it’s not exactly how he imagines it.
To learn more about the “student-athlete experience,” three years ago the NCAA surveyed athletes on campuses across the country. Football players at Division I schools reported spending 43.3 hours a week on athletics. They spent 38.0 hours a week on academics. That was in-season. But 70 percent of those football players said they spent just as much or even more time on athletics in the off-season. And one football player in five held down a paying job during the school year. They averaged eight hours a week doing that.
The school they’re at, Ebert told us, “is the last one that still encourages the children at all. The society wants these Donors for one purpose and doesn’t want to waste resources on them for any other. If you can walk through this plot without tripping over parallels to our own society and educational systems, you’re more sure-footed than I.”
