Dexter Manley wants to know how he was able to stay eligible to play for 4 seasons of college football, without knowing how to read-- Answer: He was put in all kinds of BS classes that did not meet most of the requirements for graduating with a degree, he was given athletic department-paid "tutors" who did his class assignments for him, even in those ridiculous classes (in blatant violation of NCAA rules), and he was the beneficiary of professors who wanted to see him stay academically eligible (to perform for the school's football team) or who were pressured by the school's athletic department to give him passing grades, whether he earned them or not-- BUT, at the end of 4 years, he was NOWHERE CLOSE to earning a degree... Dexter is part of that group of literally tens of thousands of other unqualified and/or disinterested college "student"-athletes who never came close to earning their degree, despite spending four, five, or even six years on a college campus.
Those NCAA academic eligibility rules you mention (with which I am intimately familiar, as I was an NCAA Division I athlete) have all kinds of ways of being circumvented-- including many of the ones I mentioned above (that were used with Dexter Manley). Just because you have met those NCAA academic credit-hour guidelines does NOT mean that you will be on track to graduate on time, at the end of four or five years-- or ever! And the problem is not confined to people who leave college early for the NFL (never mind how fast most of those guys are drummed out of the league, and broke: the average NFL career is ~2 years-- and the average NFL athlete is broke within 2 years of leaving the league)-- it is a HUGE issue with athletes who spend 4-5 years in college, and never even sniff the NFL (or NBA).
But I think you ought to stop saying that "a degree is worthless in today's time"-- you could NOT BE more wrong! You are just setting up any kids who listen to you, for financial failure in life. Just as an example-- and it is topical, because there was a discussion about HS football coaches--and who wants to be one (or not)-- earlier in this very thread: You can NOT be a HS football head coach at most every Ohio high school, unless you have earned your college degree-- the schools simply will NOT hire you without it.