Imagine being a young college football player, getting a scholarship, and then finding out you’ll have to donate $50 to be able to play for the team.

That’s the case for the Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns under second-year head coach Billy Napier. According to The Advocate, all of UL’s scholarship players will be required to donate $50 to the school’s athletic fund, beginning this fall. Napier explained that the donation was about “gratitude” more than anything else.

Napier sees the donation as a way to help grow his players’ appreciation for everything that goes into making the athletic department work. The UL head coach wants his team to appreciate all the behind-the-scenes work that allows the football program to go forward.

“That’s probably a little bit unheard of and a little bit unique, but I think this is a place where that would be appreciated,” Napier said. “I think it’s part of the type of program that we want to have. We want our players to be educated and understand the benefits that come with being a student-athlete and that is not something that should be taken lightly — the effort and time and investment that the people that support athletes at UL have put in into this program.”

While this is an unconventional policy, Napier hopes that it will encourage the player to remain involved with the program after they leave. He thinks his team will understand what this new donation policy is all about.

“We’re trying to create a scenario where five or 10 years from now these are guys who will give back and continue to be a part of the program and realize what this place did for them,” Napier said. “ I think we got that message across this morning and certainly that was a good thing.”

While scholarship players will be required to chip in $50, but the policy is optional for walk-ons, who must pay their own way to attend school and play football. Still, $50 is a decent chunk of change for a college student who may not have a lot of money to spare while on campus.

It’s also probably fair to assume that this new policy could hurt the Ragin’ Cajuns in recruiting. Players may not like the idea of having to shell out money as a scholarship player, and opposing coaches will make them aware of the rule. UL’s 2019 signing class finished 76th nationally in the 247Sports Composite Team Rankings, and Napier’s new rule likely won’t help him improve on that ranking.

In Napier’s first season as the head coach of the Ragin’ Cajuns, the team went 7-7 with a loss to Tulane in the AutoNation Cure Bowl.