Arne Duncan Quotes

College athletics are so entrenched and enjoyed by so many people that they will never be discontinued or substantially changed. I know that. I just pity the people caught in that tender trap. And most of all, I pity those kids.

When I was at UCLA, the Harlem Globetrotters offered me a million dollars to come play for them. I turned it down because my education was just as important as playing ball.

I have long been one of those tedious people who rails against the coronation of 'student-athletes.' I have heard the argument that big-time athletics bring in loads of money to universities. I don't believe the money goes anywhere other than back into the sports teams, but that's another story.

I played football, honestly, to get a scholarship.

I'm not a fan of the NCAA. I don't think they make decisions for the kids. They make decisions for bureaucracy and for their structure.

I don't think college athletes are given enough time to really take advantage of the free education that they're given, and it's frustrating because a lot of people get upset with student-athletes and say, 'They're not focused on school and they're not taking advantage of the opportunity they're given.'

We didn't have lawyers and accountants. No one was watching out for our money. We'd go to the office and get money and go on our way. I was 19-20 years old then. I was stupid. I didn't know any better. We weren't getting our fair share of the money. That happens to young musicians all the time. It makes me mad when I think how stupid we were.

People see me as a person who can make them some money, which makes it hard to make real friends. I'm asked to do a lot of stuff for free - to wear certain clothes, turn up to events - people use you to make money. I think that's why I tend to jump into relationships.

I was the youngest of seven kids and I would not have been able to go to college without an athletic scholarship.

You're not on scholarship for school, and it sounds crazy when a student-athlete says that, but that's - those are the things coaches tell them every day: 'You're not on scholarship for school.'

When you're on a football scholarship, you get a stipend that's supposed to cover your rent and a few incidentals. It was $360 a month. This was the late 1980s, and the NCAA has an interesting rule where you're not allowed to supplement your income with a part-time job.

I doing casual labor by the day. They wouldn't pay you until the next morning. There was a bar that would cash your check if you bought a beer first. A lot of guys never left until they'd drunk up all their money.

Whenever people with money have power over people with less money, you have the potential for exploitation.

We did not get any money from the early records. It was all taken by crooked managers. It is just a gangster's paradise.

College atheletes used to get a degree in bringing your pencil.

We have stricken the shackles from 4,000,000 human beings and brought all laborers to a common level, but not so much by the elevation of former slaves as by reducing the whole working population, white and black, to a condition of serfdom. While boasting of our noble deeds, we are careful to conceal the ugly fact that by our iniquitous money system we have manipulated a system of oppression which, though more refined, is no less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery.

The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process which currency was meant to serve. Their common characteristic is obviously their sordid avarice.

To Serve and Collect

We had people who obviously didn’t have, necessarily, my best interest in mind… A lot of money was made, and a lot of advantage was taken.

Athletes are still exploited. If they blow out their knee, if they somehow don't meet the mandates of a coach, they lose their scholarship. They don't get their degree.

If I got a football scholarship, I was going to be a football player.

The NCAA makes so much money off of their kids, and they put ridiculous - absolutely ridiculous - restrictions on everything that they can do.

I played soccer in college, at this little school in North Carolina called Campbell. It was the only place in the world where they would offer to pay for everything.

I was going from Furman to the University of Georgia. I transferred to play football.

If a guy is not serious about being a student-athlete then why force him into the college system. He's not serious about getting education.