With the semester – and students' meal plans – coming to a halfway point, some Boston College athletes have expressed concern over the lack of meal stipends for non-scholarships sport programs.
Athletes on full scholarship at the University are granted a meal plan of $41 per day that resets daily at 4:00 p.m., while non-scholarship athletes have the usual student meal plan of about $2,200 per semester.
Nick Sung, A&S '12, has swum for BC's men's team since his freshman year. Men's swimming is a non-scholarship sport, leaving Sung and his teammates the same meal plan, about $2,200 per semester, as any other student. With eight practices a week, five two-hour swims, and three one-hour dry land workouts, plus meets, Sung, who swims the butterfly, goes through his meal plan money much faster than a non-athlete, he said. "I actually just passed $1,000. A $41 per day meal plan would help out a lot, seeing that I usually eat four meals a day plus drinks like Odwalla and Powerade, which are also both really expensive."
Swimming workout schedules usually require a 2,500 calories diet, Sung said. "A good portion of the swim team, especially the men's side, is out of their meal plan well before the semester is over."
Members of the women's tennis team, who receive full scholarships, receive the daily meal plan, and members of the team said it is very helpful.
"I buy two bottles of SmartWater for every practice, and that's $10 used right there," said Brittany Delaney, A&S '10. "Plus, what I don't use for meals, I'll use to buy food for my room, seeing that I don't have a lot of time to grocery shop."
Katherine Atwell, A&S '11, said she also finds creative ways to spend the extra money. "I use most of the money everyday with usual meals, snacks, and waters. It's also helpful to have the money reset to $41 right before dinner, which is the most expensive meal anyways."
Though non-scholarship athletes might benefit from a meal stipend, the discrepancy is not a matter of unfair allocation, athletics officials said.
Eric Ziady, the associate athletic director, said that the awarding of athletes' scholarships is due to NCAA rules and the athletic emphasis of the school.
BC has approximately 750 student-athletes, and only a small portion of those can receive full scholarships. The NCAA limits the number of scholarships allotted per sport and each sport has a maximum number. Each coach of a scholarship sport is given a specific amount of money that he or she can use for recruiting purposes.
"Some coaches choose to attract more athletes with smaller scholarships while others choose to use the full amount. So, not every athlete on a scholarship sport has a full scholarship. Non-scholarship athletes knew making the decision to come to BC that they weren't going to get scholarships in their sport," Ziady said.
NCAA rules dictate that the same amount of scholarship money goes to the men's and women's sports. BC chose to fully fund five out of 13 men's sports and nine out of 13 women's sports. The men's sports are football, basketball, hockey, baseball, and soccer. The women's sports are basketball, field hockey, golf, lacrosse, soccer, softball, tennis, track, and volleyball.
Some students receiving athletics scholarships said that the $41 daily stipend can sometimes be insufficient. "Most of the time, I have to wait until 4 p.m. to wait to eat," said John Wezzel, a member of the football team and A&S '13. "I'm a big guy, and sometimes I'll spend all the money and still end up hungry at the end of the day," he said.
"It is every college's decision of which sports to emphasize, for lack of a better word," Ziady said. "The decision has many factors including conference affiliation, school tradition, and available facilities. The choice of emphasis is not easy and must be made very strategically."
"I would love the meal plan that some schools have, where you swipe your card at the door at a certain time and then can get how much food you want," Sung said. "But I doubt that will happen in the future. When I do run out of money, which will be soon … I'll just ask friends to buy me dinner."
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