All-Star Fundraising, Tuition And College Scholarships

[SheCheers]

Can someone explain this to me, please?

I've seen several people on here use fundraising money for tuition amongst other things.

Our gym owner doesn't allow it because (i'm going off of my memory of her statement, not quoting) it disqualifies you from getting a college scholarship for cheer if you've previously been "paid to cheer".

Can anyone explain this further? Is it a Texas thing?

 

[icequeen]

If you are fundraising you are not being paid to cheer. Football teams do it all the time to pay for uniforms and equipment.

 

[AScheer]

Can someone explain this to me, please?

I've seen several people on here use fundraising money for tuition amongst other things.

Our gym owner doesn't allow it because (i'm going off of my memory of her statement, not quoting) it disqualifies you from getting a college scholarship for cheer if you've previously been "paid to cheer".

Can anyone explain this further? Is it a Texas thing?

I think there must be some mis-understanding going on. Yes being "paid to play a sport" will disqualify any athlete from being eligible to get a college scholarship in that sport. HOWEVER this means paid as in an endorsement and going pro - not as in fundraising. There is also the small detail that cheerleading isn't considered an official sport (not trying to bring that discussion up) and that the only way to go "pro" in cheerleading is to cheer for NFL - which is hardly the same thing! So baseball players that go pro out of high school and are paid a salary to play cannot go back to play college ball later. Elite gymnasts who go pro and accept endorsement deals cannot get a college scholarship after. Cheerleaders CAN fundraise all they desire with no college effects! Your gym owner just misunderstood or might just not want to deal with organizing fundraisers, which is a big head ache!

 

[SheCheers]

We have a booster club and do tons of fundraisers, we just aren't allowed to use it for tuition. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the reason...

 

[BlueCat]

Getting disqualified from college eligibility is not as simple as "being a pro" or getting endorsements. There are any number of ways that athletes can theoretically lose their college/amateur eligibility. I haven't heard of it being an issue in cheer, but it is potentially one of the downsides of cheer becoming an officially recognized sport.

It could potentially affect athletes ability to participate in all star, attend summer camps, teach classes/privates lessons etc. While I doubt that someone's bake sale or car wash is going to affect whether they get a scholarship, I wouldn't just dismiss the possibility of some of the things we take for granted going away if the "sport" status of cheer changes significantly. Not saying that cheer = sport is necessarily a bad thing, you just need to be aware that not all of the effects are going to be positive.

 

[MissCongeniality]

We have a booster club and do tons of fundraisers, we just aren't allowed to use it for tuition. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the reason...

I am guessing that it has to do with how the booster club is organized. I don't know what all the options are but I do know (having been in the trenches and worked with a lawyer) that if it is a 501c3 there are many guidelines that have to be followed about how and how not the money can be used. Even still... there is a really fine line that is often being crossed by many non profit (501c3) organizations unknowingly when it comes to allowing individuals to fundraise for individual accounts.

But back to your case... I do recall that when we disbursed the funds raised to our athletes, it was called "payment of comp fees" because there was some sort of issue with payment of tuition. (I will also add that we had to take a general fund and divide it "evenly" among the athletes on the team whether they had fundraised or not. We were able to give more to one squad vs another because of additional cost of travel/comps. It wasn't perfectly even, but every single person on each squad got the same amount because that is what we had to do based on how the booster club was organized.)