SITWAP: The Fall of St. John's
Posted by
krusty (aka Krustylu)
Dec 2 '08, 08:05
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Though St. John's is still commonly referred to as a "commuter school," this year more than 3,000 of the 15,000-plus undergraduates are living on campus. The new housing has enabled the university to attract students from all over the world, yet many aficionados of St. John's basketball will tell you that the construction of these dorms has damaged the hoops program in a fundamental way.
Here's why: NCAA rules permit schools to give their scholarship athletes a cash stipend to cover living expenses. If a school doesn't have dormitories, the amount of the stipend is calculated according to the cost of living in that school's neighborhood. Best of all, the NCAA allows schools to dispense the full amount regardless of what an athlete's actual living expenses are. That means a local player attending St. John's could either live at home and pocket the entire amount of the stipend, or he could bunk up with several of his teammates, pay well under the stipend amount in rent, and pocket the difference. For decades, this was St. Johns's dirty little secret -- only it wasn't really dirty because it was fully sanctioned by the NCAA.
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