Athletic Eligibility Quotes

I was in school to play basketball; I wasn't trying to be a doctor. It's hard to talk about the NCAA rules and everything that happened in the past because I've just been focused on practicing and getting ready... I was trying to reach my dreams, and that's to play in the NBA.

I'm not a fan of the NCAA. I don't think they make decisions for the kids. They make decisions for bureaucracy and for their structure.

The NCAA is probably the most reprehensible organization God ever created.

College athletics are so entrenched and enjoyed by so many people that they will never be discontinued or substantially changed. I know that. I just pity the people caught in that tender trap. And most of all, I pity those kids.

You're not on scholarship for school, and it sounds crazy when a student-athlete says that, but that's - those are the things coaches tell them every day: 'You're not on scholarship for school.'

I didn't play JV because I went straight to varsity and started as a 10th grader - that was back in the day when you could not play varsity as a ninth grader. I went right from playing junior high football to varsity.

I have long been one of those tedious people who rails against the coronation of 'student-athletes.' I have heard the argument that big-time athletics bring in loads of money to universities. I don't believe the money goes anywhere other than back into the sports teams, but that's another story.

At some point, universities have to do more to prepare players for university life and help them succeed beyond football. There's so much money being made in this sport. It's a crime to not do everything you can to help the people who are making it for those who are spending it.

If you are a player and you don't really retire by yourself there should still be an opportunity to qualify for the national team.

My overall point is that 'one and dones' are not healthy for college basketball. I should not have made it personal to Kentucky and its players and I apologize.

If every university president said, 'The revenue producing sports: basketball, football - potentially revenue producing at most universities - maybe in a few cases women's basketball, if every one of them had a monitor that reported directly to the university president and no 'student-athlete' ever gets into this college or university who could not plausibly be admitted if we did not have a football or basketball team, end of problem. It won't happen because it's like unilaterally disarming. You know your opponent won't do it and then you'll get crushed in every game, but it's a simple thing.

For me, sports is a big part of my life. It helped me through high school. It helped me get better grades, because if you don't have good grades, you can't play sports.

If a guy is not serious about being a student-athlete then why force him into the college system. He's not serious about getting education.

I don't think there's been anything in the game of football in my lifetime that has changed college football more than redshirting.

Stop the nonsense about 'student-athlete.'

When I was in college, I was a landscaper. Other than that, coaching has been my life and my job. A lot of people like coaching college, but I would never do it again. There are too many NCAA bylaws, rules and politics.

My parents didn't know anything about collegiate scholarships, so they had accepted the national team training stipend, the monthly stipend that I received after making the national team, so I was ineligible for NCAA eligibility anyway.

Michael, if you can't pass, you can't play.

Matt Mitrione went well beyond disagreeing with the medical experts who say I should be able to compete as a woman, and personally attacked me as a fighter, as a woman, and as a human being.

Once you start worrying about a national football championship, then you begin to worry about getting the quality of athlete, and the numbers needed, to win a national championship. And that worry leads to pressure to compromise academic standards to admit those athletes.

I was tempted my junior year to go out of college and forgo my eligibility. I had broken several world records. I did have a lot of people telling me that I should go pro.

There is a rule that says there is no age limit in college football. You could be 45 years old, and if you've never been in college and are good enough to play, you can play.

I never thought the NCAA violations for the phone call would ever rise to the level it did.