Maybe it is heresy to say so, the latest scandal involving the football program at the University of Miami is the opportunity for college sports to completely re-evaluate its positions: require compliance with academic standards but legalize payment. Why not? The public isn't demanding more meetings between university presidents with NCAA compliance staff and powerpoint presentations, just to come up with ethics programs that are routinely violated.
Yesterday in a Sports Illustrated report, NCAA president Mark Emmert said, "If the assertions are true, the alleged conduct at the University of Miami is an illustration of the need for serious and fundamental change in many critical aspects of college sports." Yes, change. But no, to the charade of big-time college sports.
What would that change be, except more rules that will be violated. If a NCAA Division I school like the University of Miami can't police its players behavior, even after the near-death of the football program scarcely more than a decade ago, what more can be done? Put this in the category of marijuana and prostitution: activities that laws cannot stop. We have much more pressing problems and limited resources to solve them. Who is hurt, if the NCAA regulates paid college athletes?
8 comments:
They already get paid in the way of scholarships.
Some of the players are bright and can get academic scholarships, but we all know that most of the football corps are recruited for their athletic skills and were either marginal or terrible students.
So they get a huge payout to go to a prestigious school as their reward. Since football careers are short if they're lucky enough to get recruited at the end of four to six years at the U, the college degree will be their ticket to a better financial future.
Now if you want to start recruiting kids from poor communities with iffy math and reading skills who aren't physically gifted, and those athletes are no longer offered a free ride but can earn an income from playing college ball, then you might be onto something.
I agree 100% with gimleteye, but another serious way to think about it is "amateurism" is the same wasy as Olympians. They can receive outside endorsements, have agents, etc. So ti doesn't have to be we pay the kids $30,000 a piece per year, but pay them something and allow them to market themselves, or get a cut of the jersey sales, etc.
The talk about "scholarships" is a joke because for the free education, these kids put themselves in harms way, face major injury, and the schools reap windfall profits through television deals, merchandising, etc. Plus the NFL has a free minor league system, which no other sport has.
Where can I get in on some of this free-flowing marijuana and prostitution?
M
To the second anon, I think of some injuries these players have endured. Most recently I remember, I think it was the Rose Bowl, when Clinton Portis (a star running back) had his knee dislocated by I think it was Nebraska 2002 or something like that. I was in pain just watching him bend over in pain.
What he had to go through in surgery and rehabilitation so he could play in the NFL, which he had already been drafted.
Give these kids freebies because they may or may not make it into the NFL due to injuries or whatever.
Probably, google them.
Hey M I'm starting a petition drive o legalize ganja and rent a ho's in Florida, Maybe you can help me convince Rick Scott it will be a boost to the economy and create more jobs.
Excuse me? These colleges recruit young men and women who then are far from home and placed in big city circumstances without money to participate in events and other campus activities.
As a mom to boys.... I have seen many of their friends be brought home from college because of their behavior.
So, the college needs to support these kids better. Be the adults in their lives. So that those outsiders don't step in and become the family and bank account they don't have.
Don't these colleges have social work and psychology schools? Maybe the coaches, the presidents and the athletic directors need to go to school and figure out how to work with the kids they recruit.
There has to be a healthy and productive way to affect these kids during their college years.
Last anon,
Here's an idea: Be a better parent and teach your kid right from wrong. Maybe that means if they fail out, or get arrested, they're going to have to straighten out their lives themselves, get a job, and pay their own way through college.
Stop coddling these kids and making excuses for them.
Plenty of poor families find a way to get their kids through college.
These young men were getting an education worth $56,000 per year, for free.
Learn right from wrong, or get off the ride.
M
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