Add in the fact that by tying athletics to universities many children are pressured into at the very least dedicating enough to compete on a university level in order to get scholarships.

Hell, in some cases that's one of the concerns people have with trans athletes, and while I do have that concern in the atypical direction (there's a large category of scholarships young trans people are increasingly being barred from, and some young trans people are being given a particularly harsh manifestation of the financial disadvantages associated with transition), but there's also intense ablism and a strong absurdity to all of it.

The fact that its just normal in America that some teenagers will lose a scholarship because they get injured and that that will have a drastic change to their long-term finances is both on brand and fucking insane.