Good Question: Who Gets A Sports Scholarship?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- If you've got kids who play sports, you've probably had that thought: I bet they can get a college scholarship. And a full ride would be so sweet. So what are the chances of getting a sports scholarship?
From the Washburn High Football Field to the track or the swimming pool, every athlete dreams of competing at the next level. Having college paid for would make it all the sweeter.
J.T. Bruett makes sure the University of Minnesota sports scholarships are in compliance with NCAA rules.
"The chances of getting a full scholarship are really, really slim. The chances of getting any kind of scholarship are slim," said Bruett.
"I think people think it's either a full scholarship or it's nothing, and that's only the case in a very small number of sports," he added.
There are six "head count" sports. In those, every scholarship is a full ride.
"Head count sports are football, men's and women's basketball, women's gymnastics, volleyball and women's tennis," explained Bruett.
The rest are equivalency sports, meaning the scholarships can be divided up.
"In baseball for instance, there's 11.7 to give, but there's 30 or so students on the roster. So they split up their scholarships with just tuition, or just books, or just room and board, something of that nature," said Bruett.
Football has the most scholarships: Every Division 1 team has 85. The total is somewhere around 32,000. But there are more than 1 million high school players. That's a 3 percent chance.
Women's swimming has 3,168 scholarships. Men's has just 1,836.
"There's more scholarships available in the women's sports than there are to the men. That's a general statement. It's becoming more and more difficult though in the women's sports because they're such good athletes now and the scholarships are more coveted," continued Bruett.
Obscure sports may be the way to go. Bruett said women's rowing has 20 scholarships to give.
If you go to a Division 3 school, likes Augsburg or St. Thomas, there are no athletic scholarships.
The bottom line is that out of every 100 high school athletes, just one gets a scholarship. In total, more than 126,000 students get some form of scholarship for playing college sports.
