I'm old as **** but I think Santana was a walk on or track scholarship player. Ether way I think you're right. The Preferred Walk On term wasn't used in the 90's or the 2000's.
We need to end this myth now. Let's just speak like men. With absolute honesty.
Santana Moss was ALWAYS going to be a scholarship football player, but Butch was definitely trying to game the system. Santana was initially put on a track scholarship but was always going to convert to football once a spot opened up.
We had TWO track scholarship guys, Santana Moss and Aaron Moser. Moser was GOING to get the last scholarship (he was already a year ahead of Santana), but Moser got injured, Santana played, and Santana got the last football scholarship.
Neither Moss nor Moser was ever a "preferred walk-on", they were just scholarship football players who were stashed on the track team so that Butch could evade the scholarship limitations.
WALK-ON MOSS GETS FINAL SCHOLARSHIP
CHRIS PERKINS
Staff Writer
SUN-SENTINEL
Apparently,
University of Miami coach Butch Davis' coy references to freshman receiver Santana Moss playing were well-founded.
In somewhat of a surprise move before Thursday's 21-17 loss, UM announced Moss, a walk-on from Carol City, has been awarded the football scholarship once reserved for fellow walk-on receiver Aaron Moser.
Moss, who debuted midway through the first quarter, now apparently becomes the 15th and final scholarship recipient from UM's 1997 probation-reduced class.
Moss was attending UM on a track scholarship and it was thought Moss' participation in football would put UM over its limit of 15 scholarships for 1997.
NCAA rules state once a scholarship athlete plays a down of football he automatically becomes a "football counter," meaning his presence counts toward the school's limit of annual football scholarships.
That rule is in place to keep schools from recruiting football players and hiding them with scholarships in other sports, thereby getting around the limit of 85 football scholarships.
In past conversations, Davis hinted there was a chance Moss might be able to play this year, but Davis also said in those conversations UM had awarded all 15 of its 1997 scholarships.
Now it seems that wasn't true.
Both Moser, a redshirt freshman, and Moss, a true freshman, were attending UM on track scholarships.
In the spring, Davis announced Moser, a decathlete and pole vaulter, would receive a football scholarship. Moser was to have counted among the 15 scholarships UM had to give in 1997.
But Moser apparently never got the football scholarship. And last week, when he aggravated the hamstring injury that dogged him throughout the spring, Davis apparently decided not to give Moser a football scholarship at all.
Presumably Moser, who is from Bonne Terre, Mo., is still attending UM on a track scholarship. Moser didn't make the trip to
Pittsburgh and his name is no longer on the UM roster.
So, now Moss, a player that can help UM immediately, gets the scholarship.
Moss won the long jump and 400 and 800 meters at the Class 6A state track meet.
