Meeting Terrelle Pryor’s modest transportation needs.
If you haven’t already, take a moment to read this post by ESPN’s venerable Pac-12 Football reporter, Ted Miller. Of the major issues being debated in College Football, compensation for players is right up there with a playoff system. The argument is that College Football and to a lesser extent, basketball create enormous revenues that are lavished on coaches and athletic directors, but are not shared with the men who put in most of the hard work to make those revenues possible… the players. For the flip side of that argument, Miller quotes Jay Paterno (Joe’s son) extensively about the ample compensation these athletes already receive and then goes on to stake his own position that any proposal to pay players is dead on arrival because of Title IX. Title IX, of course, is the regulation that dictates there must be equal opportunities for both men and women in college sports. Ever wonder what happened to the WSU wrestling team? Since Football offers 85 scholarships, quite a few more than any other sport, this usually results in schools fielding more women’s sports than men’s in order to balance out the scholarships allotted to each sex. Fair enough, so what does this mean for paying players? Ted Miller says it means you would have to pay ALL scholarship athletes, not just those from the revenue generating sports. Kinda hard to imagine, isn’t it?
Well, Ted may be right and this may be one issue that just doesn’t have legs, but I am not so sure. This matter has gained a lot of momentum lately. This off season proposals have been floated in both the Big 10 and the SEC to provide extra money to players ostensibly to offset the costs associated with travel and enabling their families to afford to watch them play. The Big 10 has discussed using funds from its conference television deal to help players out with what it estimates as a $2000 gap between what they are already compensated for, and what the expenses of being a student athlete are. Meanwhile, in the SEC, Steve Spurrier has garnered the support of six other coaches in the conference for a proposal to provide a similar stipend out of the coaches’ own pockets. Clearly this issue has evolved from a debate over the hypothetical, to real concrete proposals from the powers that be. Neither of these proposals is likely to go anywhere, not least of all because they completely ignore the implications of Title IX. But I guarantee these won’t be the last ideas proposed and sooner or later something will stick. Read on for more…
At least, that’s what I fear. I am not as confident as Ted Miller that Title IX will be a bulletproof defense against efforts to pay players. As you may have guessed, I happen to come down firmly on the NO side of the paying players debate. While I feel that Jay Paterno underestimates the amount of time athletes dedicate to their sport in order to underscore his point, (the 20 hours/week is especially laughable) I still do not believe that college athletes are unfairly compensated. Further, I do not believe this is an issue of charity for needy student athletes, but rather one of greed and entitlement. While coaches like Spurrier and the officials of the Big 10 conference may have the best interests of their athletes in mind when proposing modest stipends for them, there are two other forces driving this debate who are not nearly as benevolent.
1. Boosters. Let’s face it, corruption is rampant in college football and the major programs, by and large, are offering benefits outside of NCAA regulations to secure the services of top players. Programs recently or currently being investigated for violating NCAA rules regarding compensating athletes, or those acting as agents on behalf of athletes include, USC, Oregon, Auburn, Ohio State and Alabama. That could very easily be the top 5 teams in the rankings in any given year. Supporters of these programs have a vested interest in seeing the tactics they use legitimized in order to stop the endless cycle they find themselves in that usually goes something like this, Championships, sanctions, championships, sanctions, and so on. These people will parrot all the arguments about these poor student athletes and how they just want their basic needs met, but the truth is they just want to entice them to their school with things that fall far outside the bounds of a college student’s “needs”.
2. Student athletes themselves, aka, the BMOC’s who want to cruise the campus in the type of cars, clothes, jewelry and whatever else they feel fits their “celebrity status”. Terrel Pryor and his buddies weren’t content to drive the kinds of beaters many of us drove in college, if we drove anything at all. Rather, they felt entitled to new cars on a regular basis provided by a dealership via deals that just are not available to the average college student. Often, the families of these athletes are just as bad. Im talking to you, Mr. Newton.
The Newton Family, lauging all the way to the bank.
Of course the justification for these athletes and their families is an easy one… just look at all the millions of dollars their sons are generating and they have their answer. The coach is arriving at practice in his helicopter and the AD is wearing solid gold underpants, so why shouldn’t my son get to have a tattoo and some diamond earrings? Sadly, I feel this is the crux of the whole issue. Lost in all of this talk is any discussion of the true “value” of a college education. The monetary value of tuition is tossed around and usually in the context of how it is a pittance compared to what these athletes are “owed”. But the money alone is not a fair representation of the “value” of a college education. As Ted Miller says:
“…the fact that many so easily wipe away the value of a free college education speaks more about their dubious values than of the imperfect system of college sports.”
Bingo. I believe that the vast majority of student athletes, including Division I football players, do more than enough to earn the gift of the free education (plus room, board, food, travel and other benefits) they receive for their talent and hard work. They graduate at high rates and most of them do spend their college years bumming rides on the back of their friends’ mopeds, cruising yard sales for $5 furniture and scrounging the couch cushions for beer money; all while putting in an additional 20-40 hours a week (or more) outside the classroom training for their sport. They are exceptional, and they should be applauded and respected for it. They are not, however, victims (some proponents of paying college athletes have gone so far as to compare them to slaves. I kid you not). They are fortunate individuals who have been given a rare and extraordinary opportunity. Some of them squander it, most of them seize it and make the most of it, and others take it for granted and do it a disservice.
They are also vulnerable. Young adults aren’t the world’s greatest decision makers and many student athletes come from socioeconomic and family backgrounds that make them especially vulnerable to the pressures those with means can apply to them. Integrity is an easy thing to maintain when all is well on the home front, but when your family has a medical problem, or legal trouble, or job loss that puts a strain on them financially, you will be much more receptive to those whispers in your ear. Sadly, universities and athletic departments spend more effort soliciting the support of boosters and private supporters then they do monitoring their interactions with the student athletes. You cannot tell me that nobody at Ohio State knew about a local dealership offering “loaner cars” to its athletes. These types of transgressions are conducted with impunity, out in the open, and the schools in questions are complicit at best.
Pete Carrol keeping a close eye on alleged “street agent” Will Lyles.
This is a sticky issue and not just for college athletics, but for our society at large. While I am steadfast in my opinion that college athletes are compensated generously enough by the current system, I also cannot defend a system that makes Greg Peterson the highest paid employee of the state of Idaho, or pays John Embree more than several Nobel Prize winners at the University of Colorado. We are about to enter a new era of never before seen revenue for major college football programs, our Cougs included, and it is time we take a long hard look at just where our priorities lie. Instead of discussing how we can pay players, we should be moving in the opposite direction, and asking ourselves how do we maintain the integrity of a faltering system that is now going to be subject to more pressure than ever before to stretch the rules. This is a soul searching moment. As fans of College Football and alumni of the univeristies that field teams, just what are we willing to accept? From the reactions I’ve read from fan bases in Auburn and Columbus and Eugene, to the firing of coaches like Randy Shannon, and finally the proposals to sanction pay for student athletes; I fear we have chosen winning over integrity, and it is a choice that is bad for the sports and the universities we love.
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