Regarding the RGIII QB Scholarship

Upon hearing that Baylor was going to award a scholarship to an athlete likely receiving one already, I, like many, questioned the logic of such a move. After delving further through a short Waco Trib update on the subject, I'm beginning to understand.

The purpose of endowing this scholarship in Robert Griffin's name is not to give a scholarship to an athlete that wouldn't already have one. NCAA rules wouldn't allow that, anyway, otherwise you might see 250 Bear Bryant Memorial Scholarships for Awesomeness at Alabama. The purpose is to fund one of the football program's scholarships, since, despite the fact that our country seems to operate as if money is no object, scholarships still cost money. If I give something away for free, I still had to pay to get it, and students in classrooms require professors, buildings, material, and everything else. The RGIII scholarship will count as an official football scholarship and against the NCAA limits (still 85), this is just a way for the school to pay for that scholarship and use the money that would otherwise go to that purpose elsewhere. And considering that a fully-endowed scholarship can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more with the rising costs of textbooks and room/board, that is not an insignificant amount.

So when you hear someone say that it's dumb for Baylor to give a scholarship to someone who already has one, it really isn't. The source of the money for these scholarships matters, and this is one less our program will have to bear on the books. Plus some QB gets to tell people (ladies) that he's the "RGIII Scholarship QB," something that might actually sound pretty good in a recruiting pitch, no? Randall Cunningham, wouldn't you like your son to be the Robert Griffin III Scholarship Quarterback at Baylor University?