He’s taking one example of him greyshirting and trying to compare it the whole situation. When you have players riding around in $40,000 trucks, getting school paid for, receiving $5,000 stipends, you are living the good life. So please continue “swede39” to be naive on this subject. There’s nothing you can say that tells me they aren’t living an easier life in college and thereafter due to the advantages given to them while playing.
I think you're letting a preconceived notion cloud your ability to listen to reason from someone who has been on both sides. Because of that, I'll address your argument piece by piece.
-As stated previously, I stated up front that my greyshirt semester wasn't a perfect example however I did experience a normal student life to some degree for a semester. That's a fact.
-The majority of my teammates did not have nice cars. Some did not have cars at all. You're choosing to base your entire opinion off of a representation of maybe 2% of the sample size and disregarding the rest. The ones that did have nice cars either had help from their parents or had help elsewhere. But that didn't apply to every single player. Thinking back through my 5 years of being there I can count about 10-15 that had nice cars out of the 200 guys(probably more than that) I played with give or take.
-You are correct that the scholarship guys had school paid for. So to some extent I would agree, that part is a luxury. However, you could make the same argument for students that had a full academic scholarship or students with parents that paid for everything would be the same luxury in this category. So this "good" and "easy" life in this category isn't stricken to just football players or college athletes.
-The stipend number you reference is a little high. When I was there, players that qualified for it (not everyone did, including me) got around 1k to maybe 2k in total per year. That's probably gone up a little bit since I was there but that's ballpark. So sure, you could consider that a luxury. But if you take the time to do some math, it's not all hunky dory as you think it is. Let's just say it's $2,500 per year to be fair. If you break it down by month, it comes out to $208.34. So if getting an extra $208 a month is your version of living the "easy" or "good" life I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one.
-Your follow up argument to the stipend is going to be something along the lines of "but football players get money for rent and on-campus food. That plus stipend is living the 'good' life". So I'll break that down for you. When I was there and lived off campus, I got around $400 per month at the start and around $600 per month by my senior year. The increase was due to cost of living. Not sure what rent prices are now but after rent and utilities, most of that was used up. I was fortunate enough to have parents to help me out if I wanted to go have a social life outside of football. You start to add in groceries and the occasional eating out or bar scene, things get tight quick. Yes we could eat on campus but to be honest, that got old quick. Some nights you just wanted to go to the Bin and have a pizza. Not every single night but it was nice to get away from that every now and then.
-You're completely wrong on athletes living an "easy" life. I'll break down just how "easy" a typical year is for a football player.
January through March are winter workouts. The weight room sessions last about 2 hours. Oh and you work out in the weight room 4-5 times a week. 2-3 nights a week are team agility workouts outdoors that usually last about 2 hours. Throw in a Wednesday stadium run and an extra early morning workout(due to your sub-team losing the competition events that week) here and there and you're up to around 20 hours week. If you're hurt and need treatment, throw another 5 hours a week in there. In between those 20-25 hours a week, you go to class which the typical course load is heavier to offset a lighter fall load. So usually 15 hours of courses. Depending on your GPA and seniority, throw in an extra 3-7 hours a week in mandatory study hall. I had one day where I woke up at 3:30 am for a 4 am workout because my sub-team lost that week. Worked out until 5:30 am. THEN I started my normal morning weight room workout at 5:45 am. Finished at 7:45 am to barely make my 8 am class. BTW they check your attendance in each class. Classes went from 8 am to 2 pm (throw in a little down time here in there). Afternoon agility workout started at 5pm and ended at 7pm. Eat dinner and go to study hall at 7:30 for an hour and half. Ended the day and got home at 9:30 pm. Then get up the next morning and do pretty much the same thing over again. Almost forgot, don't forget about a midnight workout thrown in here and there too.
Late March and most of April is spring practice. Less strenuous but a similar schedule. Workouts at 5:30 am. Class. Practice from 3 pm to 6 pm. Dinner. Study hall. Rinse and repeat. Saturday scrimmages. Sunday "off".
We had most of May off.
June and July were summer workouts. Workouts 4-5 times a week. 30 minutes for sprints followed immediately by an hour and a half weight room. It's usually hot outside when running sprints believe it or not. Couple that with running on the turf which increases the heat to around 120 (we had our team doctor take the temp). I could literally feel my cleats burn. My white kid stature could barely make the times to begin with. 3-4 team workouts per week in the afternoons. Throw in some more stadium runs. We typically ran the stadium twice in one session during the summer. Meaning the lower section, high section, run over to the other side same thing. Then do it all over again. Then you'd have "optional" position specific workouts that were usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays that last about an hour each. Usually have 2 extreme workouts in the summer where they'd bring in some ex-military dude and he'd torture us for a good 2 hours. I can't remember specifics on all runs but it'd typically be 16 half gassers at 17 seconds with about 45 seconds rest in between each. Our test we had to complete at the end of July were 300's. Goal line to 50, back to goal line, back to 50, back to goal line, back to 50, back to goal line in 52 seconds. 2 of those with about 1 minute and a half rest. Oh and don't forget going to summer classes. 1 to 2 classes per month. I did 2 per month to get my undergrad faster.
August is fall camp which is just straight up miserable. Not even going to lie or sugarcoat it. Of course when I finished, they decided to do away with two a days. Starting late July early August you report to camp and check in to the hotel. From early August to when school starts (around the 18th or 20th) it was football all day, everyday. Sure you'd have an "off" day here and there but you weren't really off. A typical fall camp day is 5 am wake up for breakfast. Head to the facility, watch film of yesterday's practice. Then watch film of what you're going to install in today's practice. Practice starts at 9 am. Ends around 11 am. Lunch. An hour nap. Film starts around 1:30 pm until practice starts again (if it was a two a day). Afternoon practice starts at 4 and ends at 6. Film from 6:30 to 7:30 or 8 (you'd eat supper during film). Get back to the hotel around 9 and go to bed and do it all over again the next day. A regular one practice day was similar except instead of the second practice, you worked out in the weight room and did a team walk through that night. Still got back to the hotel around 9 at night.
September - December/January. Season starts. You'd get one day off per week. All the other days are football football football. And of course class right? A normal day is 6 am workouts. Class until lunch. Come to facility at 1 if you're hurt and need treatment. If not arrive at facility at around 2 or 2:30. Film. Practice starts at 3. Ends around 5 or 6. Dinner. Study hall if you had it. Rinse and repeat. Labor day or school holiday? Refer back to the fall camp one a day schedule.
Bowl prep - unless we were playing in a big time bowl, bowl prep was not the most enjoyable. Looking back I think it was more of Mullen making it miserable. Which is why there were some bowls that we just flat out got slapped. The second gator bowl comes to mind. I wasn't playing anymore but my teammates told me he was even worse about the Orange bowl. We could've easily won that game but Mullen made it where all the players looked at that game as the only thing standing in between them and a break. Anywho while the students got to go home after finals, we were there prepping for whoever we were playing. Similar schedule to fall camp but not as strenuous. 4 days off for Christmas. We usually had to leave on Christmas day or the day after Christmas to go to the bowl sight.
That's it in a nutshell. Times 4 or 5 depending on how long you played.
So to quote you - "
There’s nothing you can say that tells me they aren’t living an easier life in college and thereafter due to the advantages given to them while playing.", I would venture to guess you're the naive one in this case.