Scholarship limit question

[thf24]

All the discussion about what Bear Wilson is going to do got me wondering about this. We've established that if a player is on scholarship for one NCAA sport, then he's considered on scholarship for all of them; i.e. you can't be on scholarship for football but be counted as a walk-on in basketball or baseball. But, if you do participate in two sports, then stop participating in one of them, at what point are you no longer counted against the dropped sport's scholarship limit? Is the scholarship immediately available again for the next recruiting period, or is there a waiting period? More specifically, if Bear decides not to play basketball at any point, when do we get that basketball scholarship back?

This isn't a dig at those hoping Bear plays basketball by the way; he should get his shot if he wants it, and I'm interested to see if he can find a niche. Just curious about this scenario.

[LeakyD]

If someone plays 2 sports and one is football, the scholarship is counted against football.

[Offshore Dawg]

Bottom line if you play FOOTBALL you have to be on a FOOTBALL scholarship, That was the Johnny Vaught Rule. He had football players on swimming scholarships with no pool.

The 85 scholarships is the Bear Bryant rule, as he gave out them to sit a player on the bench just to keep them from playing against him.

If I am wrong, please correct me, memory is not what it use to be.

[thf24]

Ohhhh ok, so the rule only applies in the context of football. I must have missed that part in the past. Thanks for the clarification.

[bully99]

Offshore, you are exactly right. I used go to games in the 70's at Memorial Stadium in Jackson. Bryant would dress out 150 players lined up endzone to endzone. It used to be said he would sign players to keep them from going to other schools.

[smootness]

Wilson will be a walk-on for basketball if he decides to play it, same as Staley. You can't be a scholarship athlete for 2 sports at the same time, so if you play football at all, you count against the football scholarship limit but are a walk-on for any other sport.

[dawgoneyall]

http://oversigning.com/testing/index.php/2010/02/14/why-did-georgia-tech-leave-the-sec/

http://www.ehow.com/info_8144923_history-sports-scholarships.html