+3,000 student athletes in The A-Team. And yes it went horribly wrong. Some students started unionizing immediately.
“Then you go out in the field, and the first ray of sun comes over the horizon. The first ray. Everyone looked at each other, and said, ‘What did we do?’ The thermometer went up like in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. By 9 a.m., it was 110 degrees.”
Garden gloves that the farmers gave the students to help them harvest lasted only four hours, because the cantaloupe’s fine hairs made grabbing them feel like “picking up sandpaper.”
The farmers sheltered them in “any kind of defunct housing,” according to Carter — old Army barracks, rooms made from discarded wood, and even buildings used to intern Japanese-Americans during World War II.
Its actually been done before and most teens quitted or were fired within weeks because of the inhuman working conditions. The quality of the work they would do is completely irrelevant.