quote:
The NCAA manual says “The Student Assistance Fund is intended to provide direct benefits to student-athletes or their families as determined by conference offices.
As a guiding principal the fund shall be used to assist student-athletes in meeting financial needs that arise in conjunction with participation in intercollegiate athletics.

Given that lots of athletes -- far higher than the general student body, I'd wager -- come from desperately poor circumstances, I wonder how much of this sort of stuff flies beneath the press radar. I have heard about discretionary funds used to help athletes return home for family emergencies (deaths, hospitalizations, etc) but those stories were more about the emergencies than the money. It seems likely that severe restrictions are placed on that money -- with as many poor families as we're looking at in college athletics, helping families with their utilities and rent would turn into one helluva rabbit hole if not handled judiciously.

(If LT had been talking about his own rent, incidentally, rather than his mom's, I'd just assume the school would tell him to move back into the nice dorms they provide exclusively for athletes. At least I assume OM, like most major programs, provides straight-up athletic dorms. Housing and food are two things no scholarship athlete has to worry about.)