College scholarships: The reality

I've done a lot of stuff with the very worthwhile Lehigh Valley Coalition on Sports Ethics and they have a special forum set up for May 17 that I think a lot of parents should attend.

There's a lot of misinformation out there about college scholarships. People think the athletic money is falling from trees. It's not so.

In fact, more and more colleges are dropping athletic programs -- i.e, DeSales dropping tennis, Moravian dropping lacrosse and on and on it goes.

Here's the information for the May 17 event. If you are a parent of a high school kid about to enter college, I encourage you to attend:

LEHIGH VALLEY COALITION ON SPORTS ETHICS

TO HOST PANEL DISCUSSION ON ATHLETIC SCHOLARSHIPS



Center Valley, Pa., -- (May 4, 2010) –Young athletes and their families dream of the possibility of gaining an athletic scholarship to pay for ever-increasing college tuition. In an effort to help families understand all that is entailed in this dream, the Lehigh Valley Coalition on Sport Ethics will host a panel discussion titled “Athletic Scholarships: The Myths and Realities of Funding a College Education through Sports,” at 7:30 p.m., Monday, May 17 in the Hurd Science Center.

Part of their ongoing series “The Public Scorecard,” this discussion will focus on the possibilities of actually receiving an athletic scholarship, the differences in financial aid for athletics among the NCAA divisions, compliance regulations, and other considerations that come with athletic recruitment.

Expert panelists include: Pat Santoro, the Lawrence E. White head wrestling coach at Lehigh University, and Mike Cerimele, former Penn State and NFL fullback center and now director of the Allentown location of Velocity Sports Performance, a nationwide student athletic training center. Other speakers may include athletic directors from local high school conferences and financial aid personnel from NCAA-member colleges and universities. The panel will be moderated by Father Douglas Burns, director of the Sport & Exercise Science Program and NCAA faculty representative at DeSales University.

For more information about this event, visit the Salesian Center website at www.desales.edu/salesian or call 610-282-1100, ext. 1244.

FROM KEITH GROLLER