Two-Way Street When It Comes to Scholarships

By SELENA ROBERTS

SOME years, no amount of staring could coax rain from clouds that were as white as lab coats as they drifted across the southern Ohio sky. Other years, the wheat fields would all but gurgle as the hurried ditch-digging began to combat the floodwaters on a 4,500-acre spread.

So, Ben Hartsock grew up near Chillicothe with a shovel in his hand and a rain dance in his thoughts, understanding how hopelessly fickle farming could be for his hard-working family.

"Every year, you could tell how well the farm was doing by how well Christmas went," Hartsock said. "Some years, we had big Christmases, some years kind of small ones."

College would require a dependable income. An unknown football player from an invisible county high school, Hartsock decided to market himself to Ohio State. If there was a Buckeye camp, he was under the coaches' chins. To create name recognition, he sent letters to the athletic director's mail basket.

One day, Hartsock received the call; the athletic scholarship was his. To Hartsock, it was an amazing gift, a dream preserver on the way to becoming a small-town doctor. Without the free ride, there would have been hefty college loans and part-time jobs in between organic chemistry classes.

He knows the alternate reality. His little sister, Abby - the 2001 Ross County Fair Queen, he notes with pride - is working her way through Ohio State as a clerk in the Sears hardware department.

"She's an amazing person," Hartsock, a junior tight end for Ohio State, said. "She never complains."

It seems like a simple formula: scholarship equals gratitude. But in the prelude to the national title game at the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 3, with dollars tumbling in for Miami and Ohio State, some are convinced that a scholarship is a bad value for athletes.

Extra pocket money, that's the popular suggestion.

What separates a needy athlete from another student who has a chemistry lab, band practice and a ramen noodle budget?

Exploitation, that's the common argument.

But the stage works both ways. For all the profits a university gleans from the talent, for all the jerseys sold, for all the tickets purchased, players receive television exposure, reap the benefits of a university's public relations machine and get to mingle with the mighty.

"It can be thin livin', but there are so many students who would give anything to be on the football team and have school paid for," Hartsock said. "You hear a lot of players complain, but I don't necessarily agree because of the opportunity that we get, not just in free education, but in networking. It's amazing the people you meet. Those contacts can be helpful after football."

After all, how many car dealerships carry a player's name? The usefulness of football fame can be endless even for those with no N.F.L. in their future.

In some ways, the athletic scholarship is the gift that keeps on giving. And for some of the athletes who will be sweating it out at the Fiesta Bowl, it's not what you get out of an athletic scholarship, it's what you give back.

As a biomedical engineer, journeying through a curriculum that would leave the right-brained folks queasy, Miami defensive lineman Jim Wilson is already applying his meticulous mind to motion analysis.

He has an Erector set for a brain - thankfully. Last spring, a group of professors with Ph.D. power to spare asked Wilson to join an effort to refine some technology so amputee athletes could feel normal.

Want a spring in your step? For months, Wilson has worked with Dan Andrews, a Hurricanes middle-distance phenom who is a below-the-knee amputee with Paralympic records.

"Dan will wear pants and walk around like you and me, and no one will notice," said Wilson, who celebrated his graduation just days ago. "Sometimes, he'll carry the prosthesis with him because he wears a different foot when he's sprinting. He told me about a guy who said, `Hey, how're you doing?' Dan said, `Well, I'm fine.' And the guy said, `I guess you're doing better than that guy' as he pointed to the prosthesis. And Dan said, `I am that guy, but I'm doing fine.'

"That's the amazing thing. Twenty years ago, people were hoping an amputee would just be able to walk again. Now, you've got guys who are making the able-bodied athletes go, `Man, I'd better not get beat by this guy.' What a great problem to have. It's tremendously fulfilling."

At times, Wilson is in joyful disbelief. Although his voice races when describing the charge that a Miami-area native like him gets from barging down the tunnel and out through the smoke for a Hurricanes home game, he also gets a rush out of applying physics to blood flow.

"Do I sound like a nerd?" Wilson said. "It's true."

The truth is, as a middle-class kid, Wilson could have managed tuition at a state public college, but not at a private institute like Miami. "It's about $30,000-plus a year at Miami," Wilson said.

The gas money for the Buick he drives - still rolling after 100,000 miles - comes from his parents and his savings as a high school lifeguard.

Some of his Miami teammates, as well as a number of Ohio State players, may not have any financial support system at all. "It's a tough situation for some guys," Wilson said. "Maybe the N.C.A.A. should explore it, but there are issues, like if you do pay a player, will he waste the money?"

Does the dough go toward new car rims? Does a monthly wage prevent a star from taking $2,000 from a "friend of the program"?

Never mind the answers. An athletic scholarship alone is a valuable possession, no stocking stuffers required.

Neither Hartsock nor Wilson feels used. And these are two guys who may not have the N.F.L. looming as a college bonus. For the sure bets, how profitable is playing for a contender? If a national title game lifts the draft position of a player one notch, if it means more digits in the signing bonus, does the athlete owe the college?

No one owes anyone. At worst, the profits are shared. At best, the gift of an education is returned to the community. No doubt Wilson has made someone step a little lighter. No doubt Hartsock will make house calls.

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company