I just read Pete Fiutak’s proposal on how to compensate college football players.
Allow the players to have agents and be allowed to take money from boosters, advertisers, and anyone else who wants to give it to them. The NCAA rules should then be in place to say that a school or university can’t give a player any money, therefore taking the pressure off a university to bid for a player. If T. Boone Pickens wants to build Oklahoma State into a superpower by putting the top players on a salary, whatever.
Sure, that’ll fix things. I guess Okie State just has to hope that T. Boone is as good a judge of high school football talent as he is with investments. Or does Gundy give T. Boone a shopping list and say “go get ’em, guy”?
Technically, players wouldn’t be paid by the schools. In reality, schools would recruit boosters and advertisers just as hard as they recruit the kids. And who would the athletes’ ultimate loyalties lie with – the schools or the folks signing the checks?
There would be one good development from this. You’d certainly cut down on the incentive for a kid to leave to go to the pros early. In some cases, he’d be taking a pay cut.
Strange idea, to say the least…
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It’s funny he omits Georgia in the 2nd paragraph of his response when he says ” who’s going to be good next year? LSU, Florida, Ohio St., Oklahoma & USC”. If I’m not mistaken haven’t the Dawgs been ranked above the majority of these teams in the (way too early) pre-season polls? He then goes on to list the same teams as the teams that were good last year. Didn’t the Dawgs finish ahead of all of those teams except LSU? Then again he fails to mention the Dawgs in the “who will be good 10 years from now.” Isn’t Georgia one of the top 3 or 4 teams in the country in terms of winning percentage since 2000 or 2001? But I digress.
Maybe I’m just an old “fuddy-duddy” but I don’t agree with paying college athletes. You can’t just pay football players. I understand at most schools football is the money maker but that’s not the case at all schools. Duke & North Carolina come to mind. Furthermore there’s no way you could just pay male athletes either.
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“And who would the athletes’ ultimate loyalties lie with – the schools or the folks signing the checks?”
Good question. I would expect to see a new golden age of point shaving. Not exactly what I would call an improvement.
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