[jackschultz]

This comment is getting downvotes and given my experience playing D1 college, getting a STEM degree, this scenario is in no way possible.

Stanford on its own is one of the top golf programs in the country. Its practice facility is absurdly good (my team was able to use it once when we were out there. The reason we were in the bay area? Because we took our spring breaks to go play fancy courses with rich alumni to get them to donate to the athletic department, which is another part of money you don't see but athletics gets.) You need to be really, really good to play at Stanford.

Second, college golf is a case where, because of the niceties like practice facilities, tournaments, where you don't pay for any of that, it's a feeder to the main tour. In fact, PGA Tour University[0] came out to help get guys who were good in college to the Tour quicker. The quality of guys in lower level tours is crazy, and this is a deserved bumper for the good guys. Guys play in college first because that's where you grow.

I'm very anti-NCAA. Each sport is different in terms of growing to the professional level though, and how engrained the NCAA is in most cases though makes it tough to have an overall solution.

[0] https://www.pgatour.com/university/what-you-need-to-know-faq...

[yupper32]

You're getting bogged down in the details of my example. I know a good amount of people who played D1 sports. One went pro and is competing in the Olympics this year. The others used their degrees to get "normal" jobs when they weren't able to go pro (or had no intention to in the first place). All of them would not have had the opportunity to compete at a high level in their sports without forgoing their higher education.

[cortesoft]

I was friends with quite a few D1 athletes when I was at college. Their sports took up so much of their time that they were only able to put minimum effort into academics. In fact, the coaches and staff would help guid them into known easy classes, so they would be able to maintain their grades while working 40+ hours a week in their sport.

It would make so much more sense for them to just hold off on school, go try to make it as a professional athlete, and then go back to school if it didn’t work.

No other country ties sports and athletics like the US does. Good soccer players in other countries sign contract at 10 years old, and play for the academy while getting paid.