By Dallin Lykins
Nigerian athlete Henry Emenalo?s search to play professional soccer in the U.S. took him to BYU, but the seven-time national club soccer champions cannot afford to offer scholarships to him or any of their athletes.
?There is a real problem here with scholarship funding,? said Chris Wat-kins, BYU men?s soccer head coach. ?We sort of have to discriminate on the basis of what sport you play.?
According to Watkins, BYU only offers scholarships to certain sports, preventing many athletes in other sports from coming to BYU.
?A lot of guys want to play here,? he said. ?But we can?t offer them scholarships like other teams can.?
Many BYU athletic teams cannot offer scholarships because of BYU budget restrictions. The programs not given a scholarship budget, like men?s soccer, are forced to raise most of their own money.
?We raise three times the money that BYU gives us,? Watkins said. ?But we still cannot raise enough to actually offer scholarship money to athletes.?
BYU senior Aaron Gabbart, 23, from Reno, Nev., chose to come join the BYU soccer program, but he knows not having scholarship money is tough for college athletes.
?Without a doubt, everyone on the team works very hard ? off the field to be able to support themselves, and the guys with families have to work even harder,? he said.
According to Watkins, BYU could make the money available to the men?s soccer team and other pro-grams, but they choose to give it to other sports.
?BYU decides what sports are NCAA sanctioned, but the NCAA tells us how many scholarships each team gets,? said BYU Athletics Fi-nancial Secretary Pat Connroy.
BYU is forced to comply with NCAA regulations, she said.
However, BYU does not need NCAA permission to give money to the soccer program, Watkins said. Because of their semi-professional status, the team is eligible for as much scholarship money as BYU is willing to provide.
Currently, the men?s soccer pro-gram is not on the athletic depart-ment?s list of budget-eligible teams. That list will not change anytime soon, Connroy said.
Watkins said BYU needs to con-sider making changes. The university could find ways to re-allocate funds to help the successful soccer program fund its players.
?They need to think out-side the box,? he said. ?There are more soccer players in the world that are LDS than any other sport.?
Watkins said he receives e-mails from athletes every day wanting to join the team. It is difficult to refuse so many willing and qualified ath-letes, he said.
What does this mean for Emenalo and athletes like him? The LDS pro and others will have to try and find their place on some other professional team.
?It is very frustrating to have to tell someone we could have had a place for you ? but we are sorry,? Watkins said.