Paying College Players

I've been reading a lot lately on the sports blogs about the idea of paying collegiate athletes for their 'contributions' to the school. It's certainly a hot-topic debate, because it crosses the line between amateur and professional.

It makes all logical sense that athletes should make money in programs that generate revenue. Those programs are really limited to football and basketball for the top schools. Most every other sport loses money, for one reason or another. So it's wrong to just pay the students who make money for the university and not those who contribute in other ways. That's not fair. Which is why it can't work.

The students are already being given a free ride to "go" to school (I use go very cautiously, because I believe the jocks at the top programs don't really go to school, they just play. That isn't to say that every college athlete doesn't go to school - far from it.) That's somewhere around a $200,000 paycheck right there. I'm sure there's more than that when factoring in the training and "tutoring" and things like that. So in that sense, the players already are getting paid.

There's a ton of things we don't know about collegiate athletics. How much benefits they receive from those notorious boosters. How they all pass their classes, because we know some of them still struggle speaking English. How any of their lives happen. I firmly believe situations like USC and Ohio State happen at every major program. It just comes with the territory. Players are treated like they are larger than life and afforded opportunities they wouldn't get anywhere else. The NCAA expects everyone to turn a blind eye to all the trouble going on, until someone uncovers it one way or another.

Regardless of if these students go to class or not, they still are committing a huge amount of time to their sport. In that sense, it's not crazy to pay them. We're not talking about a full-time salary with 401k and stock options. I'm saying a couple hundred bucks a game for each player. Even if these players have a free ride, there's still everyday "cost of living" expenses that college doesn't cover. These players can't have a part time job because all of their time is spent with their sport. So in that sense, they may really need money - which begets all of the corruption in the first place - to get by or whatever.

Schools facilitiate part time jobs for normal students - doing administrative tasks or cafeteria or whatever the case may be. So it seems stupid that collegiate athletes can't be paid the same way these students are. They're sacrificing their time to make some extra money. But we say no. And the reality is, not every athlete on every team (I'm thinking the smaller teams - tennis, volleyball, etc.) is on a scholarship, so they're paying to sacrifice their time.

It makes sense. It really does. BUT - always but - you can't just pay players in top programs, otherwise that presents a huge unfair advantage. And you can't just pay players in profitable programs - it's everyone or nothing. With that in mind, it won't work. It can't work. The schools will just lose more money. The corruption will just grow into more extravagant examples of gratuitous lifestyles for 'amateur' athletes.

The NCAA is a sham. Anytime I hear about their latest plan it all just seems like a maneuver to generate more money - which is what capitalism is all about. However, when you promote yourself as providing a quality experience to youth in helping them grow into better people, making more money just seems like greed. The NCAA says they put that money back into colleges, but who knows. I do know that the President of the NCAA made 1.14 million in 2009. That speaks for itself. Money Money Money.

NCAA is Moronic

Weird how a few hours after I posted my Weiner post he came out and admitted everything. He must of read my post.

Anyway, immediately following the outing of the Weiner, I learned that USC had been stripped of its 2004 BCS National Championship

I don't get the point of this. Stripping a school of it's title after 7 years. What difference does it really make if Reggie Bush got privileges that not everyone else got? It's also - we only know what Reggie Bush got, but you better believe other players received benefits. It ultimately does not affect their playing, so it shouldn't affect the outcome. It's not steroids. A car isn't the same.

In the early 2000s I loved USC. I still do (sometimes I wish I went there). But that team from that 5-6 year stretch was truly dominant. I had the benefit of seeing them live at Notre Dame (the infamous "push" game). I don't think we'll ever see a player like Reggie Bush. The way he made a highlight reel out of seemingly every run was fantastic. He was never going to be able to do that in the NFL because the league is bigger/stronger/faster.

By NCAA taking away the title, it makes the league look like a fraud. What's the point of playing these games if they're not going to honor the games? After every year we all complain about the BCS and weather it was legitimate or not and how at least 1 team got snubbed from the National Championship game. But now we can't go back to 2004 and see if the number 3 could of beat 2 (Auburn vs. Oklahoma)

This really does no good. In my mind, that USC team was the best we may ever see from an all-encompassing perspective. Taking it away doesn't change anything in public opinion. In 100 years (pending 2012/rapture) it will be talked about. Reggie Bush lost the Heisman from that year, but you cannot argue that there was truly a better player that year (or in the past couple years that were as dominate as him really)

I hope if the NCAA plans on coming down on this now, they do a FULL investigation of all teams. I truly believe every big time program is "corrupt". I have no proof, but we're hearing more and more of it. I put corrupt in quotations because I believe these students are being exploited for financial gain by the NCAA and the schools. They bring in the money, they old men benefit from it. Seems like total bullshit. Truth is : if the NCAA does investigate, then everyone is losing their title. So I would leave it alone. This is so irrelevant and makes the NCAA look like a joke. Just keep enjoying taking advantage of poor teenagers.