Editor's note: The following is the first in a two-part series exploring athletic scholarships.
Ohio University Volleyball coach Ryan Theis said he wishes he could give everyone on his volleyball squad a scholarship.
Wrestling coach Joel Greenlee also wants more money to work with.
But these coaches approach financial difficulty in different ways because they work with different scholarship programs.
Each college sport operates as either a headcount sport or an equivalency sport, which is determined by the NCAA.
Out of 14 athletic programs at Ohio University, only football, volleyball and men's and women's basketball are headcount sports.
In headcount sports, scholarships cover all expenses for the athletes. Equivalency sports programs are allotted a fixed amount of scholarship funding, which can be divided into partial scholarships.
The NCAA sets the maximum number of athletic scholarships for each sport. The schools then decide how many scholarships to award.
The number of scholarships handed out by each sport is decided by a variety of factors, such as which sports will give the best return on the school's investment, said Tricia Turley, associate athletic director for Compliance and Student Services at Ohio University.
One factor that complicates recruitment and scholarships is added expenses of recruiting out-of-state students. It costs more to finance nonresidents' educations because of out-of-state taxes, Turley said.
The scholarships are part of the budget allotted to the athletic department by the university, Turley said.
Student fees and profits from the athletic department generate scholarship funds, Turley said, adding that the department is not eligible for tuition or state funding.
Theis keeps track of all his team's scholarships by listing the players who are under scholarship and how many scholarships he can offer in a particular year.
Because volleyball is a headcount sport, a school can often lose players to other programs because they simply can't offer a scholarship when another program can, Theis said.
There are ways to get around this problem, however, such as offering a player a three-year scholarship if she will agree to walk-on for her freshman year.
Theis said the biggest difference between headcount sports and equivalency sports is the latter allows for smaller, less prestigious programs to compete in the recruiting process.
The biggest difference between (headcount) and equivalence is parity
Theis said.
If a larger, more prominent program only can offer a certain amount of money but a smaller school can offer more money, then that smaller school has an advantage, Theis said.
Greenlee said being an equivalency sport allows him to get more wrestlers on the team. With only 9.9 scholarships available, if he was forced to give out only full scholarships, it would be difficult to have a 28-man roster like he does now.
Many of the equivalency sports are given as many or fewer scholarships than a headcount sport, but have a much larger roster.
Wrestling is just one example. The baseball team is allotted a total of 11.7 scholarships and has a 34-man roster. Meanwhile, women's basketball can have a total of 15 scholarships and has a roster of 15.
Greenlee said he'd like to see the NCAA increase scholarships for wrestling to about 15 but knows that it isn't feasible.
I don't think they can do it Greenlee said. With the way the economy is I don't think they can do it; I don't think it's in the best interest of the school or our sport.
Greenlee said those financial concerns don't just hurt his sport. He said he thinks all sports should become
equivalency sports.
Football gets 85 scholarships
why don't you cut it back to 60 and have them give out halves or partials? Greenlee said. If it's the same for everybody
it's not like it's hurting Ohio University because everybody else has to do it as well.
Greenlee said a change from headcount scholarships in some sports to exclusively equivalency scholarships would solve a lot of problems.
If you look at college athletics across the board
what's the No. 1 problem we have and everyone else has? Greenlee asked.
He rubbed his thumb and index finger together.
It comes down to money, he said.
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Sports
Joe Ragazzo
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