That's Not Fair! Or Is It?

Do football players have it made at Ole Miss?

That’s a common conception or misconception as some students put it, at Ole Miss. There are preconceived notions that athletes (the focus here will be football players) at Ole Miss have advantages over regular students.

There are some students who could care less about the topic while there are some people who feel like the players are being spoon-fed. There are also some students on campus that are attending on full-paid scholarships who think football players have advantages.

There is the talk among students that football players get cheat sheets for exams and quizzes from the free tutoring that they receive. And being that they have full rides while some students are going to school out of their own pockets or no scholarships at all grinds their gears as well.

Grant Robertson, a sophomore Criminal Justice and Journalism major at Ole Miss believes that the football players have advantages but in a lighter, more positive sense. He believes that they have earned their so-called “advantages” through hard work.

He also adds, “They worked to earn those scholarships through athletics just as another student might have earned a scholarship through academics. The purpose of a scholarship is to reward you for your talents. If their talents lie in athletics, I see not fault in taking full advantage of that.”

Asked about if football players have advantages over regular students, upcoming sophomore offensive lineman Evan Swindall says there aren’t so much advantages as they are responsibilities. “It’s a year-round job for us as athletes”, Swindall said, “While other students can go out on weekends during the (football) season we can’t. We lift weights throughout the year and even lift at times like 5:30 in the morning.”

He also added that players have to attend tutoring sessions weekly at the Fed Ex Student-Athlete Academic Support Center on campus to log in 20 tutoring hours a week as well as attending class everyday. “Coach (Houston) Nutt is very strict with class attendance,” Swindall explained, “If we miss one class we have to run for punishment that afternoon or that very next morning.

Ole Miss Senior Associate Athletics Director for Compliance David Wells agrees with Swindall about football players having responsibilities. He also says that football players along with other athletes are just the same as students except that they play a sport. “The athletes don’t have any dining or residence halls just for them, they share with the regular students. The NCAA issues it illegal to have on-campus institutions just designated for athletes.

All in all, the Ole Miss football players are like regular students, but students with extra responsibilities and who go up against the rough and tough bunch of the South Eastern Conference on Saturdays.