Ralph W. Aigler - Opposition To Athletic Scholarships

Opposition To Athletic Scholarships

For many years, Aigler was an outspoken opponent of athletic scholarships. In 1939, the Michigan Student Senate adopted a resolution favoring tuition scholarships for varsity athletes with at least a "B" average. The resolution was intended to rid college sports of unseemly under-the-table subsidies and to provide a "fair return for services" to the athletes who made possible the "big business" of college sports. Aigler opposed the move, saying: "You can't give athletic scholarships without aspiring to the sigma of professionalism. . . . Other schools have tried it, and if the practice enjoys widespread continuance, it will prove the doom of collegiate sport." Aigler argued that scholarships were a form of payment that undermined the concept of the unpaid student athlete. He said: "Those college teams made up of scholarship holders and the like should be grouped with the Giants, Redskins, Bears, etc., instead of with those teams made up of bona fide college students to whom athletic participation must be secondary." On another occasion, he urged schools granting athletic scholarships, though "ostensibly amateur", to "turn square and associate themselves with the Washington Redskins and Green Bay Packers."

Aigler even proposed that under the monitorship of the NCAA, the non-scholarship colleges and universities should sever athletic relations with institutions refusing to meet the standard. In 1948, Aigler was one of the drafters and advocates of the NCAA's "purity" code prohibiting any form of subsidization of student athletes. Aigler later served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the NCAA from 1955–1956. In that role, Aigler eventually relented and worked on the rule changes permitting universities to grant full-ride scholarships to student athletes.