Do athletes have to sign these to get a scholarship? It seems with the Ed O'Bannon lawsuit winding its ways through the court system that athletes of today would say "coach, I want to come to "school" but I don't want to give away my rights in perpetuity to companies that might use my likeness on video games, or jerseys, or whatever, that I won't receive any revenue from in the future". So why sign a LOI if a coach is offering you a scholarship?
If a 18 year old kid can afford to pay for his own school without outside help I would have no problem with them collecting proceeds from video games, jersey sales and anything else that they can make money on. but its not going to happen as long as a school and the NCAA are paying for these kids schooling, housing, books, and food I just dont think that can work.
Interesting question! I have not read anywhere that an LOI must be signed. The LOI is "a written offer of athletically related financial aid" per the NCAA Manual. I suspect that you will get no financial aid if you do not sign the LOI and you will have no "promise" of a scholarship when you enroll. I do not know what happens with a Walk-On who is granted financial aid after joining the team. Nor do I know what happens if an athlete walks on and refuses financial aid. Does that individual retain marketing rights to his activities? Has anyone here on HornFans seen a real LOI? It would be interesting to see what it actually says. Maybe someone in HornFans has some experience with this.
I would think it a moot question, because if the player did not want to participate in amateur athletics, which includes abiding by NCAA rules to ensure some equality in competition, he would be dismissed from the team anyhow. It doesn't matter if the player is a walk-on or scholarship athlete, you have to abide by the rules of competition. If you want to be a professional in some field, go and become one. Leave amateur athletics to those who want to participate, and quit trying to turn them into pro leagues.
I believe the LOI only legally ties the kid to a specific school. The Aid Grants (scholarships) require their own documentation and execution.
No, you do not have to sign a LOI, but once you do sign the school is obligated to give you that scholarship your first year. So, if you know where you want to go you should sign.
Let's say Jonathan Gray wants to come to Texas, but he tells Mack Brown that he doesn't want to sign a LOI because he feels like in 4 years he will be drafted by an NFL team. He wants to play at Texas and wants the scholarship money, he just doesn't want the NCAA to be able to use his likeness in perpetuity and him not receive anything from it while they profit. That's the point. I think if I had a son that was a stud like him, I would point this out to Mack Brown and say we want to play for you, but we don't want to sign a LOI because of the unfairness of the long term. I think the NCAA needs to change this, and I hope the O'Bannon lawsuit forces them to.
Like almost everything in our society today, this comes down to a matter of contract law. UT is in a contractual relationship with the NC2A, and the various rules regarding athletic scholarships for play are covered under that. LOI seems to deal with those from the standpoint of obligating the school to honor the scholarship for whatever period, and the recruit to play for only that school, although I think I recall seeing somewhere that obligation is only within the specific "division" - e.g. you could sign an LOI to Texas, but decide you like Wichita Falls better than Austin and accept a scholly to Midwestern instead. No doubt there's a shitload of fine print as well as all the arguable ambiguities inherent in contractual documents. LOI or no, I have no doubt that a player - even a walk-on - who accepts a scholarship is required to sign a document with all the same bindings. Maybe the LOI does not include the bindings, but I'd not be surprised if it does. All that babbling done, I think the answer to your question is: no, you don't need to sign an LOI to get a scholarship; but, you are going to have to sign a contract that gives up your rights, in order to get an athletic scholarship, LOI or no. You may not be aware that you're signing a contract, but I believe that's exactly what you're doing. Dunno about NC2A, but I'll bet all of us who played in HS had to sign something, at least - probably represented as being about health and injuries, et cetera. I'll also bet that anything you sign in order to be "allowed" to play on a college team carries the NC2A contract binding with it, and again, whether you know it or not. Anybody know how many non-scholarship athletes played in D-1 football last year (or any recent year)?
A quick search revealed no statistics on non-scholarship players but I think we would be surprised at how many there are considering the number of kickers, punters and special teams players there are. I realize these are not the guys that you were probably referring to but ....Just for grins, I looked at participation in two of the 2011 games and found 10 non-scholarship players. Also, there may be some others that are significant contributors and are pros in other sports that have there way paid by someone else. IIRC, Ricky Williams was such a case with pro baseball paying his way at least one year.
