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How and where do these kids get the money to go to IMG or any of the

walleye38

Well-Known Member
Jul 29, 2003
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other High School Football factories? Someone is paying for all of this , who?
 
IMG offers financial aid (except for students that are residents of Florida - some sort of agreement they have with the Florida HS Athletic Association).

They aren't overly transparent about the specific details of such.

IMG is for-profit --- which does make them different vs. your typical faith-based private high school that has a powerhouse football program.
 
Some day they'll find that college boosters are funding endowments to allow certain recruits to attend for free. Pretty creative racket actually.
 
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The 'school' has plenty of big time donors like colleges. Just like the Sills kid whose dad started the Academy in Delaware and then eventually moved it to MD. Also, I believe Under Armour dumps a bunch of money in to them
 
other High School Football factories? Someone is paying for all of this , who?
Although I am sure that some kids parent actually flip the bill, I would be shocked if the majority of the money isn't provided by the top recruiting colleges from the major conferences. I don't know which colleges, but I could take some guesses. You can't spell Scandal without AL in it :)
 
other High School Football factories? Someone is paying for all of this , who?
Most have endowments and donation from alumni and churches to help pay for tuition for needy (good athletes) students. What is not covered by those funds is made up from those parents who can pay. Tuition is never equal to the cost to educate one student. They always add in a little extra to get more out of the one who can afford to pay more.

For example if a school needs $100,000 to educate 5 students they do not set tuition at $20,000. They will set it at $25,000. That way 2 students can pay $25k, two can pay $20k and get $5k in "scholarship money" and one will pay $10k with $15k "scholarship". So in the end they get the $100k they need yet students from different backgrounds can still attend.
 
Yeah, private schools bring athletes in on scholarship, but if and how much varies with each school.
 
IMG has a vested interest in these kids. IMG was founded to represent athletes and has branched out into owning tennis and figure skating tours. A while back they bought the Nick Bollitierri Tennis Academy and have since developed the football academy. This gives them the inside track to represent the alumni if pro careers are ever in the offing for them.
 
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Has anyone (Charles Robinson, Don Van Natta) written the deep feature about IMG yet, asking all the good questions about such an institution?
 
look at all the "football" private schools here in Va. You have Woodberry Forrest, Hargrave Military, and Fork Union..or Oak Hill Academy (Basketball). They all have paying non-athlete students to flip the bill for a lot of the athlete's on scholarship..plus they have a crap ton of pro-athletes providing endowments. It's not much different than how college's work.
 
I talked to a friend of a friend, who works for IMG, but not the school, the other day, and asked this very question. He said the school does give scholarships for football only, which surprised me, as I thought the golfers and tennis player would be on scholarship, but he said not, just football. This guy knows a guy whose kid was the long snapper, and said, he was paying $10,000 to send this kid there, but that was it ($10,000 for a boarding school is almost a steal). He also said, schools in the state of Ga could not schedule IMG for football, he thought about 20 other states had the same rule. He also noted they did not do a lot of NFL player representation any more, they were too sensitive to their IMG marketing arm of colleges, and didn't want to cross any NCAA lines.
 
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