A Full Ride Doesn’t Put Player on Easy Street : Even With Athletic or Academic Scholarships, USC’s LaMar Struggles

Troy LaMar’s budget took a beating a few months ago when the USC basketball player bought his first car, a 1979 MGB, but he thinks he deserves it.

As a scholarship student, LaMar, a senior, had scrimped along for three years.

Although he got a $13,320 full ride at USC during the 1984-85 school term, most of that--$9,144--went for tuition, fees and books.

He existed for nine months on the other $4,176.

This year, with an academic scholarship that pays $14,516, the same as an athletic scholarship, LaMar was able to borrow money. Students on athletic scholarships are not permitted to borrow.

So LaMar decided to live it up a little. He borrowed the money and bought the small convertible.

As the owner of an automobile, LaMar, 22, will not break even financially this year, what with school costs of $10,134 plus subsistence costs of $4,590 plus $2,700 for car payments and expenses.

That all comes to $17,424, which, in the opinion of a lot of folks, is a lot of money.

On the other hand, some observers think that today’s college athletes are underpaid. The critics say that the NCAA underestimates the cost of going to school in the 1980s.

Who’s right? Is the compensation too high or too low these days for the college students who play varsity football, basketball and other games?

Because living expenses of student/athletes on scholarship have become an issue in the wake of college recruiting violations, The Times sought to find a specific example of an athlete and his costs. La Mar was chosen because he is a senior who has experienced making ends meet, because he attends an expensive university, because he has helped finance his education under both athletic and academic scholarships and because he has spent some time putting together his own budget.

“I’ve come up short every year,” LaMar said the other day. “As a freshman I was on an academic scholarship, then I had an athletic scholarship for two years, and now I’m back on the academic--and I still can’t make it, car or no car.

“And I’m a frugal person. You don’t starve as a scholarship athlete. You just don’t live normally. How do you buy a new pair of jeans?”

LaMar came to USC as a walk-on athlete and an honor student, hence the academic scholarship. He played well enough as a freshman to get athletic scholarships his next two seasons, but with the understanding that he would turn the athletic scholarship back if the school needed it elsewhere. USC had a big recruiting season last spring, so LaMar is back on academic scholarship.

He has been a starter from time to time, but his usual role is that of a defensive specialist. He has played in 12 of USC’s 20 games this season and is averaging 2.4 points a game.

LaMar has been more fortunate than most athletes. His summer jobs as cook, house painter, and medical intern have paid well. He has qualified twice for $2,500 loans, which are denied to athletic scholarship students. And he is bright enough to manage his resources judiciously. On a scale of 4, LaMar has a 3.45 grade-point average as a pre-med major in psychology.

“I try to stay organized,” he said. “My goal is to be a pediatrician or a psychiatrist, and you have to be organized, financially, to get that far.”

Today, financially, he cuts corners.

“I often pack my lunch, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and at noon I have it with a free glass of water,” he said. “My apartment is the cheapest the university rents out. The $5 that I budget monthly for clothes never seems to be there, but with loans and savings, I get by.”

Other students often have it tougher, according to two USC executives, Virgil Lubberden, associate athletic director, and Judy Rhoads, director of student-athletic support services.

They say:

--Student-athletes who live in dormitories never see any of the cash in their seemingly large athletic scholarships, which are valued at $14,516 apiece this year, up $1,195 from last year’s $13,320.

--For an athlete on scholarship, the costs of tuition and fees totaling $9,934, up $990 from last year’s $8,944, are no more than bookkeeping figures shuffled from one university account to another.

--The athlete is assigned a dormitory room and gets a meal card in lieu of $4,382 for board and room.

--If he lives in an off-campus apartment, his board-and-room allowance converts to a $486 monthly stipend during the nine-month school term.

--For athletes taking their evening meal at a training table, the stipend reduces to $416 for football players, and to $377 for basketball players, whose training-table expenses are higher because basketball players are fewer in number.

--Scholarship athletes also get book cards entitling them to buy course-related books worth up to $200 and sometimes more.

--Recipients of athletic scholarships are barred by NCAA rules from getting money for clothing, entertainment, an occasional meal out or even a pizza, and incidentals.

--Under NCAA rules, loans that are available to other students, up to $2,500 annually for such goods and services, are off limits to students with athletic scholarships.

--Nor can athletes hold any kind of job during the school year, except briefly, at Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.

--They can’t even hold summer jobs if they’re in summer school.

--Although athletes are expected to earn their own spending money during the summer recess, only an above-average job pays enough for a student to live on for three months and save up for nine months.

“The built-in expenses for just living squeeze you today,” Lubberden said, citing room, board, withholding taxes and other costs. “If you can find a summer job paying $5 an hour, you might save $1,000. But that leaves only about $100 a month (for school-term spending).”

--Some parents provide cash allowances for their children when they’re in training in some sports. Significant parental financial aid is rare today, however, for those in the major team sports.

Said Rhoads: “Most football and basketball players on scholarship are from inner city schools. So are most track athletes. Their families aren’t able to help at all financially.”

Lubberden added: “Sometimes it works the other way. We have students who economize to the bone and give some of their scholarship money to their mothers.”

In LaMar’s case, he has had no family assistance in 3 1/2 years at USC. And he expects none between now and June, when he will graduate with a degree in psychology.

“My parents were divorced when I was in the seventh grade at Madison, Wis.,” he said. “My mother has two jobs, but she has herself and my sister to support.”

Asked about his father, Troy said: “He’s an unemployed landscape gardener with a drinking problem.”

Four years ago as an honor student at Madison West High School, where he also played basketball, LaMar was finally old enough, he said, to tell the difference between two kinds of weather--Southern California’s and the Big Ten’s.

Opting for Southern California’s, he couldn’t afford to pay his way here. Thus, at the suggestion of one of his counselors, the teachers of Madison West High got together and bought LaMar’s plane ticket to Los Angeles.

He has lived hand to mouth ever since--and has loved every day of it.

Comparing himself with other Americans, LaMar said, genially: “I’m one of the lucky ones. Back in Madison I wanted three things, and I got all three--a university with an outstanding academic program, a big-time basketball team that would take me as a walk-on, and a warm-weather campus.”

A slender 6 feet 7 inches and 210 pounds, wearing a dark mustache on a long, narrow face, LaMar resembles Raider quarterback Marc Wilson.

They are similarly low-keyed, too, but their income levels are far different, so LaMar lives in a small second-floor furnished apartment on Portland street north of the USC campus, a 10-minute walk to school.

There are two small, cluttered bedrooms for LaMar and his roommate, Sheldon Ito, a journalism major from Hawaii.

Unhappily for LaMar, Ito is more expensive than last year’s roommate, basketball player Wayne Carlander.

“I don’t understand Sheldon,” LaMar said. “He wants to stay warm. Last year, Wayne and I went all winter without once turning on the heater.”

As a result, utilities costs are up this year to an average $40 a month, which Ito and LaMar share. They also share the $440 rent, and LaMar pitches in $15 a month on the phone, which Ito uses more often to call home.

LaMar estimates his personal food bill at $175 a month. Other USC athletes say they spend more, but LaMar’s hobby is cooking, and that helps financially.

During high school, cooking was his vocation. He earned his meals in those days as a cook at Madison’s Lantern Inn, a restaurant operated by the parents of school friends.

“Ask Sheldon,” he said. “I can put a hasty, tasty, inexpensive dinner on the table. The kinds of things I might make are rice pilaf, macaroni and cheese, sometimes burritos. When I have chicken, I cut it up myself, and usually put it on the barbecue. For breakfast I have yogurt and cereals with bananas and whole milk. I keep trying to gain weight.”

After years of experience at USC with both academic and athletic scholarships, LaMar enthusiastically prefers the latter.

“Financially, you can’t make it on either one,” he said. “But there’s less pressure on a guy with an athletic scholarship. You don’t have to worry about books--you just buy what you need--and you don’t have to stand in line to register (for classes). Things like that. The whole deal of going to school is simpler when you have an athletic scholarship.”

LaMar thinks of the dinner hour as a particularly meaty example.

“At dinner time, athletes only have to drop by the training table,” he said. “They don’t expend energy planning meals and cooking. When you’re on an academic scholarship, you come home dead on your feet after three hours of (basketball) practice, and now you have to start in and get dinner.”

An alternative is to go out.

“We’d go out often if we could afford it,” LaMar said, referring to himself and his girlfriend, a USC fine arts major who is on an athletic scholarship as a gymnast and whose name he would not reveal. “We’re lucky if we see the inside of a restaurant two or three times a month--and then only for chili or Mexican food.”

He said that they rarely dine out during the week, when schoolwork gets most of his attention. This semester he is taking child psychology, gerontology, behavioral genetics and a journalism course.

On weekends, the price of admission keeps them from overindulging a mutual interest, the movies.

Other hobbies, including long afternoons at the beach, are restricted by the price of gasoline.

“In L.A., though, you’ve got to have a car,” LaMar said. “And my car saves me $100 every semester--the cost of a parking space out back. I park her in the street.”

BALANCING THE BUDGET

USC basketball player Troy LaMar receives a scholarship worth $14,516 a year. He pays his expenses from the money, plus loans and summer jobs. His total cost for the nine-month school year is $17,424, or $1,936 a month. His scholarship covers $1,613 a month. LaMar’s monthly budget:

School Expenses Books . . . $23

Fees . . . 55

Tuition . . . 1,048

Total . . . $1,126 Living Expenses Rent . . . $220

Food . . . 175

Clothing . . . 5

Utilities . . . 20

Telephone . . . 15

Laundry . . . 10

Misc . . . 15

Entertainment . . . 50

Total . . . $510 Car Expenses Payment . . . $100

Gas and oil . . . 25

Insurance . . . 175

Total . . . $300