Man, this may be the longest exposition on why college athletes shouldn’t be paid I’ve ever read. For all its faux anguish, it boils down to little more than Colin Cowherd’s much more succinct “Listen, 90 percent of these college guys are gonna spend it on tats, weed, kicks, Xbox’s, beer and swag.”
Again, if you’re a regular college student (or, for that matter, a former professional athlete with a bank account playing a different sport as an amateur in college), there’s nothing stopping you from doing the same thing with your hard-earned money. And if the problem is, in the author’s words, that, “… if a player receives significant compensation for an ad campaign, he wouldn’t have much incentive to try very hard in the classroom”, isn’t that a reason not to let any college student make good money while attending school?
If you buy into this bullshit, either no college kid should be entrusted with the use of their own funds, or there’s a problem specific to student-athletes. If it’s the latter, isn’t that a good reason not to give special consideration to admitting them into school in the first place?
There’s something sketchy about this concern and I don’t have a hard time putting my finger on what that is. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about that.
Get The Picture 
Disappointed in Cowherd on this. I know his whole shtick is to drum up controversy with his contarian opinions, but he’s just wrong on this.
Heck, maybe pro athletes shouldn’t be paid; after all, they are well known for their reckless spending habits, in which 60%+ are broke within 5 years of retiring. Perhaps that money should go to the owners and coaches instead, while Russell Wilson and Kevin Durant are housed in dormatories and fed three squares daily at team cafaterias.
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Cowherd is such an asshat, a perfect example of the blowhard superficial media that people complain about in this country ad nauseum. Nothing he does or says has any depth of knowledge, and you are right, he just pretty much tries to be the foil to the likes of Tony Barnhart, as loudly as possible, to make his green.
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You’re totally right, Cowherd is an asshat but yet here we are, talking about his outrageous opinion. The people may complain about the presence of his ilk in the media but we sure are giving them the attention they want. Stop tuning in to his or any blowhard’s show for that matter and we’ll see how long they stay on air.
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Yes. I listened for a few months about 5 years ago. That was enough.
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Put it in trust, then.
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Using that logic, the University of Texas should have put the fruits of Michael Dell’s labors building computers from his dorm room into a trust and told him, “You can’t have this (even though it’s yours) until you leave.”
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You can always count on somebody to throw out the paternalistic and prejudiced response of “they’d blow it anyways.” It’s the last resort in defense of the crumbling concept of the “student-athlete”
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It’s a defense used in other places, too, I’m afraid, but paternalistic attitudes reign widely and, in sports, no exception. It’s pathetic, as you say, and when the same people talk about “freedom” and the like, violent regurgitation is often induced.
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College administrators, coaches, athletic directors etc. Shouldn’t be paid because they receive training, free meals, housing, access to a gym and they get to put the university’s name on their resume. Not to mention they’re not the ones people are buying tickets and watching on tv to see like you know actually play. Plus if we paid them they’d spend the money on stupid shit like waterfalls, mistresses, and motorcycles. Oh wait……
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For those who cling to the romanticism of amateurism in college sports (I once was in your camp), just come out and say that admissions standards for student-athletes should be the same as for the remainder of the student body. If the P5 moved in that direction, I would at least respect the people that run college sports for standing on principle. At this point, the people that run college sports are the biggest hypocrites especially those in Indianapolis that roll in the money of March Madness while they tell the student-athlete they should be happy with the scholarship they received.
I still don’t understand why the NCAA won’t allow student-athletes to do the things that any other student on campus can do … get a job or trade on their name and likeness.
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I think your last paragraph is the part that I really don’t understand, namely: why does the NCAA prohibit student athletes from making money on the side? If anything I’d argue endorsement deals etc. Would enhance a university and the NCAA’s brand. Or on a more practical matter if a student athlete wants to work part time somewhere why should he or she not be allowed to do so?
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I agree … I do not get it. Allowing these things would take the pressure off the NCAA to do more. Coaches probably wouldn’t like the part-time job part of it because they think those guys belong in the athletic facility if they aren’t in class (and some may even say going to class goes too far if you injected them with truth serum). I see no problem with the endorsement deals. If Athens BMW asks Jacob Eason to appear in a commercial in exchange for the use of a vehicle, why should anyone care? If Nick Chubb and Sony Michel get asked to do a joint appearance at a sports memorabilia store and get paid for their autograph, who cares? If a booster decides to stroke a check for a “make work” type of job, why should anyone care?
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Student athletes weren’t always prohibited from having jobs. But a few too many were found being paid $30,000 to $50,000 a year for ‘part-time jobs’ they often didn’t even bother showing up for. Tree Rollins famously said the reason he did not leave college early was that he was making more money there. A statement he continued to stand behind for many years. So the question is whether or not this is actually a problem. If you’re not a student athlete it’s perfectly legal. Even students on full academic scholarship are allowed to make as much money as they want. Only athletes are singled out this way.
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Exactly – good comment
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I’m all for people getting paid based off what they produce. If we paid athletes would they still attend school tuition free? I know I had a job in college to pay bills and i think players should be allowed to as well. I didn’t have an athletic scholarship and I lost the Hope after my sophomore year. I worked to pay for life and school. Assuming athletes were paid to play, should universities adopt a purely academic scholarship model and do away with athletic scholarships?
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CVegas, all of that would need to be determined, and it could be negotiated on a deal by deal basis. A woman on the equestrian team may not get a full scholarship but still be adequately compensated. A 5-star football or basketball recruit still could get the full cost of attendance scholarship plus a negotiated stipend. A basketball player who plans to be a “1 and done” may negotiate for a higher stipend and then pay for school out of his/her own pocket. It’s the beauty of the free market … one size doesn’t fit all.
Regardless anything beyond the scholarship is taxable income to the student-athlete just like the jobs we all had to help cover college expenses.
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scholarship and likeness rights are separate. One is given by the school and the other isnt.
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This is a very American concept. The only people who are supposed to have money are those who have money. Those without money are not supposed to have money. Why change a good thing? Currently, the richest 1% hold about 38% of all privately held wealth in the United States. while the bottom 90% held 73% of all debt. The richest 1 percent in the United States now own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.
Can we cut Medicaid for the “takers” and get those “job creators” a tax cut for God’s sake?
There’s a name for folks who think that wealth shouldn’t be concentrated in the hands of a few: communists.
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You could distribute all the US wealth to all citizens, and in 25 years or so, the same 1%’er folks would have majority of the money again…
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I’m sure that trust fund kids have tremendous wealth creating capacities. Most children of rich folks I know have little appreciation for, or any drive to make, money. Why? They live on handouts which apparently, in conservative thought, has a different effect among wealthy Caucasians than handouts do for other types of poor folks.
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Right. All the wealth in America was inherited. That’s why we’re still living off the railroads and cotton gins.
Envy is a dangerous thing, Derek. It tends to make idiots of people.
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Believe me I’m not envious. I’m much closer to the top 1% then the bottom 90%. However I didn’t start there and I know the wisdom in the words that “the world is beset on all sides by the inequities of the rich and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and good will shepards his brother through the valley of darkness because he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children.”
Most of the time I try real hard to be the Shepard. You should too.
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You worked your way up to the top and yet you argue that the top is closed off to newcomers? Curious.
Charity and good will? At the point of a gun, right? I don’t think those words mean what you think they mean. BTW, Jules didn’t say the inequities of the rich. He said the inequities of the selfish. It’s easy to see how you equate the two, but there is a difference. That’s just one of the troubles with basing your morality upon quotes from a slasher flick.
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Closed? Perhaps not, but I’m not sure that the example of frederick Douglass meant that any African American could make it in America in the 19th century.
Slasher flicks or Jesus. Either one:
When Jesus heard this, He said to him, “One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when he had heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. And Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
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Neither could any woman, in Douglass’s time. I don’t think I am going out on a lib to say that the opportunities afforded in this day and time are far more equal among the populous than ever before, no matter what the gender or race.
I think the glass ceiling is, if not a thing of the past, rapidly disappearing and the victim mentality that exists in our culture should go with it.
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I don’t think: “our kids should have better public schools so that they can be productive citizens” is a victim mentality.
If the government is of, for and by the people that government should be looking to give every child, regardless of any factor including the wealth of their parents, an opportunity to succeed.
I made it because I was raised at a time that was understood to be the American way, not in spite of it. Even then, we could have done better and now I fear we’re doing worse.
I’m a non-ideological. I simply want your kids to compete equally with the Bush kids the Romney kids and the Trump kids and I think GOP policies benefit those folks to other kid’s detriment.
As I said above if handouts and easy living breeds laziness why the fuck so we enact policies that enable intergenerational wealth for as far as the eye can see while 1/5 of the kids in the country live in poverty?
Why are we trying to deprive those kids of Medicare?
Why do we constantly make public schools the product of scorn as if public education is a failed experiment?
There is a rich man’s conspriracy to make people so fucking stupid that they’re giving the wealth of the country to a few. Trump won in large measure because people see that problem. What that can’t see is that it’s trumps party’s policies that caused the problems.
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So making kids into productive citizens should be federally mandated and funded therefore the responsibility of the public school system?
And all Americans should be a product of said system so we can all be equal?
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Trying to make kids productive should be mandated. Alabama and Mississippi shouldn’t be allowed to not give a fuck when their lack of giving a fuck makes their states take far more from the government than they send in. Those states are “takers” to borrow a phrase and they are takers because no one requires results from them.
Private schools are fine options for those who want it.
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Forgive a dumb question, why is there no “reply” option on the last two comments from D and I?
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Of course it’s a victim mentality. Who is responsible for us? Not us, but government. If the government taking away 50% of the highest earners’ income doesn’t result in a good enough result for us, well we can just take away 60%, or 80%, or 100%. It’s not our money, after all. Screw those other guys that we’re jealous of.
Freedom means the freedom to do what you want, even if Hillary Clinton doesn’t approve. If someone earn millions of dollars and want to leave that money to his children or his grandchildren, well it’s none of my business and it’s none of Hillary’s business. But NO! Derek demands that we all get our cut of that money that isn’t ours. It’s a tricky thing to reconcile Christianity with theft, but you’ve done an admirable job with the cognitive dissonance. If someone isn’t sufficiently cooperative with our theft, well there’s always the gulag or the firing squad. Because Jesus, or Tarantino, or something.
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As usual you’re a fucking moron with an insect’s understanding of the world around you.
You’re Randian construction is false. You were not born into a natural state. You presumably were either born, or chose to become, an American.
As such you are subject to the rules, the values and the priorities (socio, economic, security, etc…) that the people have chosen through their elected leaders. Overreach by the popular electorate or unpopular governmental agencies are checked by the judiciary or the people respectively. The constitution sets the rules.
If a product of that process is, for example, Medicaid. Shut the fuck you and pay your fucking money OR elect politicians to dismantle it OR convince a court that the constitution prohibits the program.
The 4th choice is to fuck off.
The idea that your fellow citizens have designed a government that is stealing from you ought to be sufficient for you to run off to that faraway utopian ideal land where you have everything you want and no responsibility to your fellow citizens at all. Once you realize that such a place only exists within your brain, a modest suggestion is to forceaby remove that brain via an appropriate tool like a shotgun. Once removed the rest of you can fall into your fantasy land forever.
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Ah, the old social contract argument. Tell me, if the mafia overran your neighborhood and started demanding tribute, would you simply pay up as part of your “implied social contract”, would you move to an area with no mafia (assuming such a place existed), or would you believe that the mafia has no moral authority to your property? Just curious. Your arguments so far indicate that you would choose to pay up like a good little sheep.
Government overreach is checked by the government? Sounds like a Derek argument. I would expect no less. Tell me, where is Medicaid authorized in the Constitution?
Run away to a land of voluntary exchange? But there are too many statists such as yourself in the world who argue that voluntaryism is evil. And you’ve already established that a community of people trying to withdraw their consent to be governed is a capital offense.
Yes, I understand that you have violent tendencies. Especially when people want to live their own lives in a way you don’t approve of. But those of us who still have souls and a modicum of intelligence understand that aspiring to a life of liberty doesn’t deserve a death penalty.
When’s summer over? You belong back in school.
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Mafia = the United States of America? Same thing? Forget the blowing your brains out idea for I fear it will be ineffective.
I wonder where your bullshit stops. My guess is that it has little to do with principle and more to do with taste.
In your utopia does:
Abortion on demand exist?
Polygamy?
Legalized drugs?
Driving drunk so long as you don’t hit anyone or thing?
Ownership of personal nuclear weapons?
Conscription avoidance without consequence?
The right to physician assisted suicide?
Public roads?
Public schools?
Police departments?
Fire departments?
Public hospitals?
Denial of emergency medical care upon failure to establish an ability to pay?
Public universities?
Courts?
The FDIC?
The SEC?
Contracts permitting a debtor to collateralize his organs upon default?
Traffic laws prohibiting unsafe operation not leading to injury?
Flag burning?
Interference with military funerals via excessive and annoying noise?
Consent as a defense to murder?
Shooting weapons indiscriminately in populated areas without the intent to hit anyone?
Hunting over a baited field?
Fishing without a license?
Catching every fucking red snapper in the ocean in a day and throwing them in a landfill and saying “fuck you, red snappers are commie fish! Says it right in the name!”
The problem with libertarians is that they are idiots masked as intellectuals. They have almost nothing to add to the public discourse but act as if they have the answers. Their “free society” is an anarchic hellscape and they simply can’t admit it.
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I thought you probably wouldn’t understand the analogy. Let’s say that, instead of the mafia, it’s just a group of guys who declare themselves the rulers of your neighborhood. Since they’re the rulers, they declare themselves to have moral authority over your life, liberty, and property. Do you accept, or do you object?
The utopia of a voluntary society? OK. I’ll play.
Since abortion is violence against another person, it would be prohibited. Polygamy amongst consenting adults would be allowed. Drugs would be allowed. Driving with a BAC level above an arbitrary number in an effort to raise revenue wouldn’t be punished. Ownership of most weapons would be legal. I very much doubt that an individual would be willing to spend the tens, or hundreds, of billions of dollars to create a nuclear weapons program and build a bomb. But, a nuclear bomb would be a constant threat to others, and so not be allowed.
Conscription is forced servitude. Avoidance of it would be encouraged. Suicide would be allowed. All projects funded by theft (government roads, schools, post offices, etc.) would not be allowed. Those same projects would certainly exist, just through private, voluntary, investment.
Denial of emergency medical care to those unable to pay would be an individual decision left up to medical providers. As I’m against theft, that includes theft of labor. I have no authority to tell a doctor or nurse that he must work for free in this situation or that situation. If the doctors choose to work for free, as many have always chosen to do, I will applaud their charity.
Allowing an individual to sell, or collateralize, organs would be allowed, assuming it would be nonfatal. If a homeless man could use $100,000 more than he could use one of his kidneys, I fail to see how a third party has the right to stop him from a voluntary exchange.
Flag burning and other controversial speech is allowed as it doesn’t aggress against anyone. Protesters disrupting services are currently allowed because they do so on government owned land. If most land were private, then protestors would be trespassing, and thus unable to upset others.
Aggression would only be allowed in defense of self or others. So consent wouldn’t be a defense of murder.
Fishing without a license? Are you fucking kidding me? Private ownership of hunting and fishing lands have led to some significant gains in conservation. Fishing areas owned and maintained by other people would not be allowed.
The problem with statists is that they are idiots but believe themselves to be intellectuals. They smugly insist that all the problems governments have caused are simply the result of not enough government. Too much violence in the world? Surely more violence can fix that. Sure, it’s a stupid idea. But they’re all in and, as Keynes said, they’re dead in the long run anyway. The dystopia they aspire to will be someone else’s problem.
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So who buys the ocean? Who owns it now?
Who buys the existing roads? Do they have to be destroyed and start over? Do the children of the taxpayers who paid for them get a cut? Why would anybody buy a road? Will every road be a toll road? Tolls as every corner? Great idea.
Wouldn’t some asshole buy all of them and charge the shit out of us for riding on roads we’ve already paid for?
We’re dropped on your head as a child? So you have a brain tumor? Have they done any studies on whether a person without a functioning brain can type what he read in Fountainhead?
I see why your undemocratic. You know there’s no way anyone will ever agree with you on anything.
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Homesteading practices have existed since the beginning of time. Just because you can’t conceive of how to do something without violent coercion doesn’t mean it can’t be done peacefully.
There are currently private roads and parking lots. Does Kroger and Home Depot charge tolls to access their lots and the private access roads leading to them? Don’t you think those same economic principles could apply on a larger scale?
Some roads would be toll roads. That just means you pay a fee up front, rather than a hidden fee that people aren’t aware of. See, the “free” roads, schools, and healthcare you so believe in isn’t really free. It’s paid for with taxes. And taxes are collected in subtle ways so that taxpayers aren’t really aware of what they pay. If it cost $2 to drive on a road, that would be an easy way for consumers to track their costs and plan accordingly. Florida has toll roads and society hasn’t collapsed the last time I checked.
Anyway, you should probably try to study some rudimentary economics when you get to high school. Voluntary exchange is a great thing. It’s really only the stupid or the ignorant who believe that some ideas are so wonderful and perfect that they have to be mandatory and enforced with violence.
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Right. And then Jesus said, “If they don’t want to sell all they own, you can just steal it from them for their own good. Think of it as forced charity. It’s not like we should follow ALL of the 10 commandments.”
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Taxation is to theft what you are to intelligence.
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Wrap yourself up in that public middle school education, Derek. It will keep you warm at night when you don’t have to think so hard. Your wise and benevolent overlords appreciate your submission. Stay away from thoughtcrime. Good boy.
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As an American I understand that we have a government of, for and by the people, for better or worse. There are no “overlords” that the people can’t rid themselves of. Hence they are not that. The fact that the other people disagree with you does not make it otherwise. Your choice is to try and change it or leave.
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Which is it, Derek? Have the Romneys, Bushes, Clintons and Kennedys co-opted the government for their own benefit and that of their cronies? Or are they simply altruistic public servants using theft and violence for the benefit of the downtrodden and protected classes? It can’t be both.
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An informed electorate can make very unwise choices, but at least they are choices. “Victim mentality” is suggesting that we get anything but the government we deserve. The GOP tells you they are going to fuck the shit out of the middle class and many of them vote for them anyway. However, that is much better than the autocratic government Putin wants for us by undermining the credibility of democracy.
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Adorable. Yes, your 1/320,000,000th of a say in the governance of the country is a great privilege. Why, that’s a lot more than zero, right? And if the government acts against the will of the electorate, well there’s always another 1/320,000,000th of a choice in four years. Wow. What a country.
And yes, the Democrats just want to give free puppies and rainbow kisses to everyone. And if they end up bombing the Middle East, spiking an economic recovery, or punishing the poor, well those rascally ole Republicans must have made them do it, eh?
And we can’t forget that the Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! Why, the Russians might have leaked internal DNC emails allowing the electorate to see that the Democrats were trying to rig the primaries. And that’s dirty pool. Because, an informed electorate can make unwise choices. So the Democrats should try to keep them uninformed.
Keep arguing, Derek. Eventually, something coherent is bound to come across. It’s the law of large numbers.
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Sounds to me like you’d rather be a Russian. You certainly have more sympathy for them than America and you share Putin’s interests and values, specifically, American democracy is a fraud and ought not be trusted.
If we’re up to me, and I know it’s not, you’d be given the same treatment any traitor to his country ought to be given. A blindfold and a volley.
Why don’t you take your dumb ass to Arlington national and get reacquainted with the sacrifice people have made that allows you to be a traitorous moron or hop on the next flight to Moscow.
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The logical fallacy you’re using here is called a false dilemma. Either I believe that ‘Murica is a great and wonderful country with a great and wonderful electoral system, or I’m siding with the Rooskies.
But that’s obviously bullshit. Russia is an oligarchy, which is exactly what you sometimes accuse the USA of being. In reality, Russians have no political voice and Americans have very little political voice. If you want to get all patriotic over your 1/320,000,000th of a voice, be my guest. But I choose not to join your celebration. Most well adjusted people can accept that.
Now, I know you’re not too bright. But do you actually think soldiers died so that we wouldn’t have the right to criticize our government? What the hell are they teaching you in that middle school you go to?
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How much of a vote do you want? Does democracy have a capacity or are you special? Or others less special than you?
There’s a fine line between having a political position and promoting the overthrow of the government we have. You have the right to do it. I think you should try. Maybe someone will care. I know you’ll be killed hence the encouragement.
So either have the courage of your convictions and revolt or admit that you can’t simply say America sucks and be patriotic and that sitting around on you ass doing nothing about it is simply cowardly.
Be this generation’s george Washington. Risk your life and your fortune so that you matter more than 1/320 million. Please. Do it today.
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I simply want to live my life as I choose. And when my voice is statistically insignificant to affecting the policies others force me to live under, I choose to voice my opposition to my oppressors.
You really don’t have to keep proving your uneasiness with others living in freedom. We get it. People espousing liberty should be killed. Gulag, firing squad, yada, yada, yada. Give it a rest.
I’m following in the footsteps of the patriots of the 18th century. Before they took up arms against their king, they made speeches, wrote pamphlets, and petitioned for redress of their grievances. Fortunately for them, there were enough people without your predisposition for violence and subjugation that they survived their attempt to improve their conditions.
But, unlike you, I have intelligence and a moral compass. I recognize the fact that some people oppress me doesn’t give me the right to murder others, as you advocate. So, while you’re one of Lenin’s useful idiots, as a Christian, I simply believe in publicly arguing against your genocidal beliefs, rather than murder you in cold blood, as you wish others to do to me. I have no particular animosity against you, I simply pity you as I would pity a retarded child trying to grapple with calculus. You’re just in over your head.
Have a great 8th grade year, buddy!
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You do realize that the continental army executed traitors right? They didn’t decide that you could just disagree and support the brits because freedom.
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Good Lord. You’re just bound, damned, and determined that people should be subjugated by a ruling class, eh? Again, I get it. I just disagree. I support liberty and voluntary action. The fact that you wish me murdered for my heresy simply proves how morally repugnant you are. And now that you’ve proven it, again, you can give it a rest.
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You are correct and the first thing I would do with my share is load up on stocks driven by consumer spending! (big screen TVs, luxury vehicles, jewelry, cruises, etc) However, I don’t think it would take most people 25 years to piss away their new found wealth. I think things would be back like they were in less than 3 years.
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They would but there would be different people in the chairs. That’s what those who have wealth now most fear. That thier dandy, spoiled sons and daughters would be subject to the jungle. They know they would fail and their fortunes would be lost. What to do?
Buy the government so that it serves your interests to the detriment of the rest of the population and call it “trickle down.”
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And what is the solution to government bought and paid for by the rich? More government!!! Classic Derek. 😉
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An informed citizenry acting in their own economic interests. Something that scares the shit out if the owners of this country.
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And who should we trust to educate us on what our economic interests are? The government!
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The government is us you fucking moron.
Yes we should teach ourselves you blithering idiot.
Who wants to belong to a society which takes no interest in the welfare of its members? Other than you?
Please start your own anarcho-syndicalist commune of one immediately.
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The government is us you fucking moron.
Yes we should teach ourselves you blithering idiot.
Who wants to belong to a society which takes no interest in the welfare of its members? Other than you?
Please start your own anarcho-syndicalist commune of one immediately.
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Wow. We are the government. Your teachers/indoctrinators would be proud. You get an A+ for rote memorization and repetition with no understanding of what it means.
And only and idiot (that would be you) believes that the only way to promote the welfare of society is through theft and violence. No, allowing people to voluntarily care for others is just too awful to contemplate. We’d best get back to Jesus’s teaching of violently oppressing our brothers so that we can force them to do what we want.
Actually, you may want to add Sunday school to your educational to do list.
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Yep because there are so many countries whose borders were established through peace and global assent. You’re a fucking idiot.
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Again, you confuse force with intelligence and morality. The fact that Mussolini made the trains run on time doesn’t mean we should model our government on his. Only idiots think that way. Hint, hint.
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This argument always polarizes. I still feel that the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of educational hours, training, food, housing, etc. is enough. Many disagree, thus the stipend. Some disagree with the stipend, thus the salary. How much is enough? No one knows, but when we value money over education and character, the answer is usually “a little more than I have.”
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As another poster stated, voluntary exchange doesn’t result in equal results. If we allowed kids to negotiate wages, Nick Chubb would obviously be paid more than a kid like Aaron Davis. Is that fair? Absolutely. He puts more butts in seats than anybody else.
And voluntary exchange could obviously include non-monetary compensation, like education. That’s also fair.
What’s not fair is for third parties to intrude and demand that voluntary exchange be forbidden in favor of what other people think. If a block of people believe in amateurism so badly, they should band together and start an intramural football league broadcast on the internet. Maybe it would be a smash success.
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Colin Cowherd graciously approves of this post.
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I love this blog and it’s comments section specifically for posts like this. We can take an article about compensation for student-athletes and go from “Colin Cowherd is an Ass-hat” to debating socialism in 22 posts.
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Do I think scchools should be cutting individual students a check for athletic participation and/or performance? No.
What I think needs to happen and would solve a lot of problems are 2 things:
Make a meaningful effort to graduate student athletes at an 80% or higher rate across the board. Tutoring and academic resource centers can’t do that alone. This means either raising entrance standards or reducing time spent on the field to allow more time as an actual student. But all that room and board and scholarship is worthless long term if it doesn’t terminate in a degree; not many are going hire the guy that went to college for 3 years and never finished over the guy that got his degree.
Cut the amateurism shit and allow players to engage in the free market as the market allows them. If turkey wants to bank a few thousand on his autographs, great. If Nike wants to sign individual players to shoe deals while they’re in school, awesome. If EA Sports wants to cut a giant check to all college football players to create a video game, god bless em. Half your problems of players needing to get paid go away simply by letting them make moneyed their own. Hell, do em one better and offer free legal counsel for contract negotiation purposes. This could apply to football, golf, basketball, etc. so it’s not even favoring one team over another.
You don’t have to cut players a check to solve a lot of the issues at hand. Just friggin evolve with the market and reduce restrictions on individuals to participate in that market. Provide some legal counsel and it could actually be more of a meaningful learning experience for student athletes than what is currently available. Imagine the long term benefits to a guy going to a pro league having already experienced a contract negotiation and having already had to learn how to manage money to an extent.
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White bosses making millions off of the unpaid labor of black men – what could possibly be wrong with that?
I also wonder if the arguments would be the same if 85% of the athletes were white instead of the other way around.
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Wow. Why does it always come back to color? I think that behavior, not skin color, is defining for Americans today. Hard work and integrity generally lead to good things, while bad choices lead to bad things. Why look for victims in every situation? People are responsible agents, even athletes, and their choices are what matter most. A free education, room, board, etc. could be a great springboard toward the good life, independent of the NFL. Imagine that. These young men could one day become “bosses” of their own.
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This argument gives rise to the oldest question regarding Student Athletes, should a University have any intercollegiate athletics at all. Why, if a University’s purpose is education should athlete’s exist beyond the PE classes and intermural fields. The University of Chicago had a great history of football until they decided they shouldn’t and dropped the sport. If it was not for the money there would be no college intercollegiate sports.
The comments about making the athletes have to meet the regular entry standards is a joke. Schools already have widely different admission standards and if not for the NCAA rules on minimum standards we would go back to the time when a college football player could play for four years and be illiterate.
Remember the good ole days when freshmen were not eligible to play varsity sports because the powers that be felt they needed at least a year to get acclimated to college. While that ended for a verity of reasons the chief one was there was no money in freshman football. The schools did not want to spend money on scholarships for players that weren’t contributing to the bottom line. It’s all about the money. The schools will not let the players make any money off of their images and they will not pay them unless it is under court order.
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Division 3 schools would beg to differ with you.
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You are correct, they are the pure at heart and do it as student athletes. They also are lucky if the alumni show up. There would be radical change to get the NCAA/FBS money machine to go back to Div III basics.
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I see way too many really bright kids who don’t go to college because their families can’t afford it to be so dismissive of the value of a scholarship. And I see a ton of families turning the chase for an athletic scholarship into a family business from 6th grade forward. Supply vastly exceeds demand, which, from that narrow point of view, makes the case for adding compensation to the package curious.
On the other hand, there is a ton of abuse of athletes, especially as you move away from the bright spotlight programs. And the bright spotlight programs produce enough OMG stories all on their own, so you can imagine some of the horror stories at smaller schools.
As a father with a kid with an outside shot at a scholarship at a smaller school (Wofford, Furman, something along those lines), I’d be less interested in seeing him paid more than I would be structural changes to the student-athlete protections. #1 would be the university committing to educating him for 4 years even if he’s injured or removed from the roster for non-behavioral reasons. New coach wants to go in a new direction and cuts him? School still has to house, feed, etc.
That single change would be the single largest benefit to the largest number of athletes. But no one, and I mean no one, advocates it. Just more money more the Chubbs and Greens of the world, which is an entirely worthy position on its own – just an extremely narrow one.
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ASEF, I agree with you. It’s a both/and proposition. I’m a proponent of the 5-year scholarship (with 5 years of eligibility) as opposed to this garbage that Little Nicky takes advantage of today. I don’t have a problem with lifting the caps on the number of student-athletes that can be put on scholarship. If Saban wants to sign 120 guys to 5-year scholarships commitments, good for Alabama. I have a friend whose son is going to be playing men’s golf at one of the traditional power programs in the fall. They can’t offer full scholarships due to artificial NCAA caps on the number of players on scholarship. He fortunately can pay the difference without additional financial aid. If that program wanted to have fully funded scholarships for the 8-10 guys on the team, why should the NCAA care?
I only think the market should be fully opened, so the school and the SA can get the best value. What is value for student-athlete A may be very different than for student-athlete B.
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I agree with eethomas. Open up the market. Without NCAA restrictions, he would perhaps be able to choose between a 4-year scholarship at Furman, the current 1-year scholarship (subject to renewal) at East Carolina, or preferred walkon status at UGA. His choice. And if he goes to a school that isn’t a good fit, he can transfer for the next season. With only four years of eligibility, I very much doubt we would see many instances of journeyman players.
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“Listen, 90 percent of these college guys are gonna spend it on tats, weed, kicks, Xbox’s, beer and swag.”
So like NFL players
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