Does a recruit’s family making bank ruin college sports for some of you as much as the possibility of the recruit himself getting paid?
Asking for a friend…
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UPDATE: I should have mentioned this in yesterday’s post about Katie Ledecky, but just remembered this NCAA rule exists.
12.1.2.1.4.1.2 Operation Gold Grant. An individual (prospective student-athlete or student-athlete) may accept funds that are administered by the U.S. Olympic Committee pursuant to its Operation Gold program. (Adopted: 4/26/01 effective 8/1/01)
Those amounts are as follows: $25000 for a gold medal; $15000 for a silver and $10000 for a bronze.
All acceptable under the NCAA’s amateurism rules. So, again, explain to me what we’re arguing about?
Get The Picture 
Faux Dawgs better watch out. The NCAA will be so upset about Jackson at Kansas and Bagley at Duke that they will declare another Mississippi State player ineligible. h/t Tark the Shark
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So, at the high school level if a family benefits that’s considered ethical and legal. Once they get to college those sorts of payments are considered a problem (Reggie Bush). But, as we all know, if a student or family has a pre-existing relationship that involves financial support, that relationship may continue under NCAA rules. Does this sort of arrangement qualify? Have these companies simply found the loophole that makes it legal for them to continue to support these kids while they’re in college without affecting their ‘amateur’ status?
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hard to believe you are advocating for college football to go the way of college basketball…
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Hard to believe you didn’t get my point.
Actually, not so much.
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Why resort to that? I get your point, i just don’t agree.
You…
– Believe college students should be paid whatever the market will handle to play sports, or endorse products, etc.
– Don’t think that this will hurt the sport or the institutions
– Think the system will just figure it out on the rule making
– Have done a credible job of explaining why the points above are important
I…
– Understand that widespread cheating happens and that allowing players to be paid would change some of that
– Don’t believe it would be the end of civilization if players got paid
– Do believe it would ultimately be bad for the sport and for UGA
– Understand that I’m probably in the minority here
But i do promise not to take the bait anymore…
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“– Believe college students should be paid whatever the market will handle to play sports, or endorse products, etc.”
College Students already can be paid whatever “the market will handle” to play sports, or endorse products, or “whatever”.
It’s specifically the Student-Athletes who cannot.
“But i do promise not to take the bait anymore…”
You posted this gem:
“hard to believe you are advocating for college football to go the way of college basketball…”
A statement which is a deliberate and blatant mis-representation of Senator’s position. That’s bait, as a bard once pointed out.
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You’re right, i meant student athletes, good catch
Thanks!
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Hang on, let me re-fill my coffee before it gets crunk up in here.
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Wow – going from bankrupt/foreclosure at 40K yearly household income to living in well-heeled, 1m+ homes in Porter Ranch a few years later is quite the rags to riches story. I’m just glad that someone in his family was able to take advantage of Bagley’s talents as his bides his time until he’s eligible for the NBA.
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This is one of the many reasons the one/done rule needs to go away.
It won’t, though, until and unless the NBA decides to change the rule. Currently, it has no financial motivation to do so.
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No one said they are ok with it and current rules are designed to stop this sort of thing. It’s a real stretch to use the fact that Nike has dubious relationships with high school basketball players to advocate for direct player pay from NCAA member institutions in football. I’m gonna need some instructions on how to connect those dots.
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The point is it’s happening and we all know it’s happening. Have you stopped watching March Madness because you know it’s happening?
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Got it, but my point is that shady side-deals between apparel companies and families are not close to the same thing as direct payment from the member institutions.
The fact that the players would benefit does not bother me. What does is the massive structural, financial, and legal changes that would have to take place in order to make your desired model happen. There is no way to predict all of the unintended consequences that will result. I have no idea what the future of the sport would look like, and neither does anyone else. So why advocate so obsessively to change what is already the best sport in the world. It is hard to imagine a scenario where this makes college football better.
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Other than seeing the players not being screwed, I don’t have a “desired model”.
If I understand you correctly, you don’t have a problem with these kids being paid by third parties for their NLIs. If that’s the case, we’re both singing from the same page.
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I can predict what the future of the sport will look like if college football players get revenue.
Teams will play 11 on each side, and have 4 plays to move the ball at least 10 yards. If a team crosses a goal line with a ball the team gets 6 points and an opportunity to get an extra point or point. If a team kicks a ball through uprights and over a cross bar the team gets 3 points.
The future will be the same game that existed in the 1920s and 1930s and first half of the 1940s when players got paid benefits other students did not get paid. Remember that Harold Keatron, a Georgia alum and a Cocoa Cola Bottler in Pennsylvania paid Charlie Trippi to work for his company at a salary that exceeded Tripp’s Father’s yearly income? He hired and paid Trippi because Trippi was a star football player. It was legal under the existing rules. Did those UGA fans who traveled to the 1943 Rose Bowl like football a little less because Keatron paid Trippi probably more than a lot of fans got paid?
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The dead horse is back and still being beaten. Enjoy yourselves.
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I never fail to be amused by the drive-by whiners on this topic. Nobody’s making you read this, brother. And you’re certainly not going to stop the discussion here.
Have a nice day.
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Drive-by? Yep. This is sorta like coming up on a I-20 car wreck at 11:00 PM Senator. You know it will be bad, but you slow down and crane your neck anyway.
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There’s a green mile between paying players and players getting paid. If a shoe, apparel, chewing gum company wants to pay a kid, that shouldn’t void someone’s eligibility.
To my thinking, paying athletes falls apart on many levels. Senator, your “market based” argument to set income levels would most assuredly include termination of contract if a player doesn’t perform as expected. Just like the real world. The market based, earn your keep or move on, real world. And what about when a player (they are no longer student/athletes) wants to move to a better situation (playing time). Does his contract prevent working for a competitor? Sure, of course. Players are going to need agents to guide them through the land mines of contract law. Who pays the agent? So Jimmy Sexton ties up the top ten players and his fees are so high, the player/employee can’t afford him and needs more money, cause, you know, babies, so he holds out for more.
I don’t much care for your real world, market based college football…
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I couldn’t agree more.
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I totally agree with players being able to accept payments from third parties while enrolled.
I don’t think memeber institutions need pay these kids. The market is in their favor, they already have thousands of applications per scholarship, why increase the value of the scholarship when literally hundreds of thousands of kids are lining up to accept them at their current value?
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“…termination of contract if a player doesn’t perform as expected”
That’s different from the current scholarship agreement in what way??
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Exactly.
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I didn’t say there was a difference. But there is one difference and that is they aren’t paid to play as of now.
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At least if you don’t count the COA stipend, or the scholarship, or room and board…
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. sniffer wrote,
“Senator, your “market based” argument to set income levels would most assuredly include termination of contract if a player doesn’t perform as expected. Just like the real world. The market based, earn your keep or move on, real world. And what about when a player (they are no longer student/athletes) wants to move to a better situation (playing time). Does his contract prevent working for a competitor? Sure, of course.”
Sniffer, you just described circumstances that can exist now. If a player doesn’t cut the mustard at Alabama Saban can elect to not to renew his scholarship, and the NCAA rules prohibit the kid from playing immediately at Tennessee. Why that Alabama kid is better off not being paid is beyond me.
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I believe the exception for the Olympic medals is literally the value of each medal so the NCAA is kind enough to let an athlete accept a medal without losing eligibility.
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I kind of doubt a bronze medal is worth $10k, but I’m not a metallurgy expert.
Also, from reading this, they appear to be in fact cash bonuses.
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And Uncle Sam expects a share of those bonuses by taxing them as income to the athlete. A pat on the back & a hand in the wallet all at the same time.
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Player A gets bonus of $10,000.00 and pays taxes of $3,000.00. Player has $7,000.00.
Player B who gets $0.00 saves on taxes but winds up with $0.00 dollars.
Player A is better off having to pay taxes than is Player B.
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Has anyone considered the family aspect of this? You see the same type of obsessive parental behavior in youth baseball. I’m not talking about Dad yelling at the coach. I’m talking about families whose entire world rotates around Little Johnny’s success on the field.
Can kids not just play something because it’s fun?
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Many do. Many also see it as a way to support their family. Not everyone grows up with the privilege of being able to just do things for fun.
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Well usually they call those unfun “things” work…a job….not a sport. You can usually get one around age 15 or so. If life is literally that hard, maybe it’s time to get the priorities straight rather than go all-in on a statistical improbability (which is being generous).
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You’re serious about that? Give up on your dreams and get that minimum wage job! How inspirational.
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Yes and no. Look, the stereotype in all of this is the African-American kid in grinding poverty. My mental image from Cowdog’s post above is the middle class family living in the burbs who loses all perspective on life and goes OCD on baseball or dance competitions.
For the kid in grinding poverty, I would say do an assessment of where you are and by about age 16 it should be pretty clear whether you have even a remote chance of being a pro athlete. The smart move would then be to learn a skill or trade and get very good at it or, if you enjoy school, continue to study your butt off and get as much education as you can.
Frankly, I think more kids should go to trade school. You can make as much or more money running a blue collar small business than many of the schmucks that get shuffled into white collar jobs. There is a real dearth in my personal hands-on skill set because I was raised by white collar parents in an era where the societal value placed on those skill sets was at an all time low. Shop class was out and “every kid to college” was the rallying cry. Totally disastrous way of thinking. As a result, I’m left self-educating in weird and suspect ways (youtube) because the time and opportunity for hands-on mentoring has long since passed.
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You were a little more than reckless in your phrasing. There’s no question but that there is a lot of bullshit in how we frame success in this country. TV imagery and advertising has created ridiculous goals for lots of people whether your a kid trying to be the next MJ or a young girl who thinks she has to be 115 lbs to be attractive.
A smart kid who will work hard and stay away from debt and drugs can go very far in this country with no college education. No doubt about that. There is a labor shortfall there and lots of opportunities for being your own boss.
We could all use a lot more reality, maturity, perspective and wisdom. It’s all in short fucking supply. It’s why we have a fucking clown in the White House. Idiocracy is here. Mike Judge was right on everything but the timing.
The truth is that a lot of kids can only dream of getting an education at UGA IF they have athletic skills. My complaint is that we lose the academic side of the equation with the NFL-lite approach. We need to have college football played with college students. Let the NBA and the NFL and the shoe companies catch their talent by other means.
As far as parents who think their untalented kid is the next big thing, I think we’ll populate Neptune before that bs goes away.
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Were you born an asshole, or did you just decide to be one?
Putting aside your cynicism and and lack of empathy for people with harder life situations than you – you do realize that earning a scholarship and getting a college degree makes one’s prospects for supporting their family better than taking a minimum wage job at McDonald’s at age 15, right? They might not get a chance to play professionally – but for many of those kids an athletic scholarship is their only chance at higher education.
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Tony’s Country Club wisdom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiRGRvE_Wqg
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Schmails is funny but nowadays if the kid who starts digging ditches uses a little saavy and eventually owns the ditch digging company he’s likely to make more $$ than a dime-a-dozen pencil pushing lawyer like me.
Good day, sir.
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I think your post above was just side-stepping a real response to a dumb comment. I merely pointed out not every kid who goes to play collegiate sports is doing it “just for fun” and that privileged white suburbanites like yourself would do well to remember that. Some have more serious motivations. I never said sports is the answer for every kid from a poor home. You are the one who tried to shoehorn all of them into the same role.
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Privileged and white, yes, but never a suburbanite. Newest “burb” I have ever lived in was a 1940s development. Of course, this is all moot if you’re one of those people who uses code words like “inner city” when really you just mean black. In that case, who needs to check their privilege ?
($10 says you grew up in the Atlanta burbs)
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This reminds me of the post from the other day where someone (maybe it was you) pointed out that the whole concept of amateurism was devised to keep the poors out of the rich people’s games to begin with.
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I think my post above answers your questions. But thanks for the personal attack.
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Kinda like this; “Customers could browse three floors with tables featuring all manner of cannabis: edible candies, smokable flowers, wax, oils and more. All were available only after a suitable “donation” was given for a sticker, or a football card, for which the cannabis was billed as simply an added “gift.” The top floor featured a full-service bar, and music thumped throughout as a steady flow of customers entered the restaurant and nightclub.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/in-the-murky-world-of-dc-marijuana-law-pop-up-markets-thrive/2018/03/26/84b9b2c6-2967-11e8-b79d-f3d931db7f68_story.html?utm_term=.84793c20ae99
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I had an interesting discussion the other day. Can Jake Fromm promote his family’s pool business? I mean can he make scheduled appearances, sign autographs, or even appear in local commercials? My friend claims she heard from someone that knows the family that he can’t even go in the store during business hours or he would be declared ineligible by the NCAA. I know that’s far fetched but you can’t argue logically with someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Anyhow, does anyone know where the line is here?
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The NCAA has already said no to getting paid for autographs and appearances; however, if they don’t get paid then it’s OK. Now you bring one up that is not cut and dried, but when it comes to the NCAA, it’s best to remember that what they lack in common sense they make up for in egotism.
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It’s really not the money that’s the problem. High school kids who are on high school/youth teams, and who play against other high school kids, no matter how much they profit through playing are still amateur players. Maybe very skilled ones but still amateur. If somebody wants to sponsor them that’s their business.
I would say the same thing for college players competing on college teams.
Where I think it changes is when they start to compete against “professionals” in the same sport. Defining “professionals” is a job for another day. My point is this: being an amateur shouldn’t turn strictly on whether or not you bring in money from playing. That could be one of the factors but it should not be the only one.
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So the 3rd party payer makes this legal? I really have no issue with it myself. Keeps the schools pretty much out of it…
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Students can be students and earn money in the their field of study or outside of it why do we only prohibit athletes from earning money. A kid lost his eligibility because he did YouTube videos and profited. The arguments about not changing because we don’t know how it will affect the game ignores the fact that it is not good for the athlete now.
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“All acceptable under the NCAA’s amateurism rules. So, again, explain to me what we’re arguing about?”
I think the “argument” (more aptly the “problem”) is how to pay or allow payments to college athletes – especially P5 football players – without turning the sport into an unmitigated professional endeavor. It’s a slippery slope. Once an athlete is allowed to make money from endorsements, they are allowed to be paid from boosters to play. Then you allow free transfers; now you are just talking about the NFL but with less restrictive trade features.
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But the thing is colleges wouldn’t HAVE to pay. The problem is right now they are FORBIDDEN.
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If it gets Auburn in trouble, then yes.
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Don’t care for Auburn, do you?
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I just find it funny that everybody talks about Kentucky & Calipari with the 1 & done rule but Duke somehow never gets mentioned. Maggette, Deng, Irving, Rivers, Parker, Okafor, Winslow, Jones, Ingram, Tatum, Jackson & Giles with the last 8 coming since 2014. Bagley, Carter, Trent & Duval could all leave for draft this year too. I get Calipari’s history & why everybody thinks he cheats but why does Krzyzewski get a pass?
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Does a recruit’s family making bank ruin college sports for some of you as much as the possibility of the recruit himself getting paid?
You sure made a deal about it when Cam Newton’s dad got paid. I am hoping the NCAA lets Brian Bowen play even though his family got $100k.
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Does “made a deal” = ruin college sports in your mind? Because it doesn’t in mine.
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I am just happy for Cam and his family. He should be a hero and an inspiration to this blog.
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Bully for you.
FWIW, my interest in Cecil wasn’t about player compensation. It was about how inconsistent the NCAA was in enforcing payment rules, along with the feeble way McGarity dealt with the NCAA compared with Auburn’s brazen approach.
Which, come to think of it, is another good reason why the status quo needs to be changed.
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Cam inspires me too…we both love capri pants and goofy hats.
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What about this model?
Id say Tiger Woods made about 100 million a year based on lousy google search. Only 10 million actually came from playing golf. The rest from advertising.
Say a schools payment pretty much ends right here right now. A scholly and some gas money. Let the nikes in the world pay the players. They will decide who to sponsor. If a school needs to pay a person more let them, but don’t dictate that they have to much if any other than the scholarship.
Is the leader of the NCAA or some of these presidents worthy of their payscale? No, but what makes Tiger such a valuable commodity that playing golf paid him a Billion? Hes just a golfer. Bill Gates created something.
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