NO PAYIE, NO PLAYIE

NO PAYIE, NO PLAYIE

(USATODAY, Brian Spurlock, Jonathan Mahler)

(Bloomberg Businessweek, SI.COM, Seth Davis, Click 2 Houston)

(Parade, Karl Heintzelman, Bruce Heggie, Michael Williams, Frazer Chronicle)

 

“Pay for play,” I’ll bet you can’t figure out the problems that today’s blog is highlighting, so I’ll come right out and tell you, whether to pay college athletes for playing college sports. I’m not in touch with college campuses, or college athletic programs and departments. It’s been more than 30 years since I coached College baseball, so I had to bone up on information a bit.

 

Pay for playing a college program, like basketball, football, or the lesser income wise sports like baseball, track and field, and all of the women’s athletic programs. Let’s forget about the spirit of college athletics, that’s been a bunch of bunk for years and years. Coaches come, and coaches go, it’s become the nature of the beast, and to a lesser degree some of the college athletes are following the coaches example.

 

There seems to be a growing debate regarding the question of whether to pay the student athlete, and there’s a growing number of people that favor paying the college players, I suppose in every sport. There’s an argument that college players earn their schools millions of dollars in the major sports, football and basketball, and that they are responsible for the fabulous salaries that head coaches are paid in today’s college ranks.

 

Some say that college athletes are exploited by their respective schools who earn an estimated $775 million dollars annually.  This income comes from television and radio contracts, advertising in printed material and stadium and arenas. Of course the biggest of the income contributors are game day and season tickets.

 

Some of the purist’s fans of college sports say that college athletes are being paid…..unless you figure that a college education isn’t worth thousands of dollars, and can set a young person for life if he/she chooses his educational pathway wisely. The benefits can be incalculable, and to say that a college athlete is being exploited is to diminish what these young people legally receive.

 

Student athletes on what is called a full-ride scholarship, receive tuition, fees, room and board, books, and study table (extra help with classes if needed,) and in 2011, the N.C.A.A. agreed to let college conferences decide whether to pay student athletes an addition $2,000 annual stipend to more closely match the total cost to personal expenses. This stipend can be used for incidental college costs to personal expenses.

 

Cost for this type of scholarship has an annual value of between $30,000 and $50,000 yearly, carrying an overall value of $120,000 to $200,000…..depending of which major is chosen. It is estimated that the value of tuition, fees, room and board, books and addition tutelage would be worth about $75 an hour for the time that a college athlete devote to practice and games…..not a bad gig for part time work.

 

CAREER COUNCILORS AND STUDENT ATHLETE’S DECISIONS

Guiding a young person through the maze that college initially is, needs to be done with care, and a preparedness that is uppermost in a student counselors mind. All too often the future of an 18 or 19 year old is the furthest thing from a student counselors mind…..and it shows in where the young person is steered. Oft times certain classes and career choices are secondary to keeping an athlete eligible for games.

It seems at some institutions of higher learning, that when a particular season is over, usually football or basketball…..players are left to fend for themselves until the next training period or season is opened. It’s during this time of unsupervised living that student athletes are most venerable to all sorts of trouble…..from class failure to trouble with campus police, or local law-enforcement for all sorts of violations like rape, alcohol and controlled substance abuse.

 

In some cases going to a university is the first time that a kid has been away from home, and the usual guidance that is received by parents and family. From idle time, to school homework to diet, and moral character, it all comes from the home support system.

 

From recruiters, to Athletic Directors and coaches and their staffs, an inner city black kid can be overwhelmed with temptations, and the adulation at a mid-major to a major sports program can be unbelievable and plastic (fake) at the same time.

 

The exact same reaction can be expected by a rural white kid with regards to all of the above, there is nothing in a young person’s life that can prepare him/her for all the different ways that he’ll have to resist, or comprehend, and choose what is best for him.

 

A FAIR AND EQUTABLE PIECE OF THE PIE

The National Collegiate Athletic Association, (NCAA) was formed in 1906 as the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, (IAAUS.) Inter-collegiate sports began in 1852 when crews from Harvard and Yale met in a challenge race in the sport of rowing. Other sports emerged, notably football and basketball, and they adopted many of the rules that rowing had established, eligibility, purpose. The rules and regulations were settled through associations and organizations.

 

In 1910 the (IAAUS) association name was changed to the NCAA which has remained to this day, 103 years later. The NCAA is made up of 1,281 schools, conferences and associations, and is presided over by the President, Mark Emmert and an Executive Committee.

 

Currently there are 89 sponsored sports recognized by the NCAA including baseball, gymnastics, swimming and diving, ice hockey, tennis, basketball, bowling, lacrosse, track and field, boxing, rifle, volleyball, cross country, rowing, water polo, field hockey, soccer, wrestling, football, softball and golf.

 

Not every college sports program is successful enough to even consider a pay for play attitude, and only 24 of the top division 1 schools made a profit in 2012. Like those players in the profession ranks, active players have absolutely no interest in either paying a team’s bills, or taking a pay cut when a team loses money.

 

To establish the size of the piece of pie that a collegiate athlete would receive for his play would be next to impossible to determine. Is a quarterback worth more than a defensive lineman; is a place kicker more valuable than a punter? There would have to be a complete alteration of the make-up of college sports…..and should high school seniors be allowed to hire agents?

 

There also is the free market approach in recruiting high school seniors within a framework of a salary cap that would have minimum salaries, and could there be projected underclassmen listed, and be the property the following season.

THE DRAW-BACKS

Drawback…..well let me count the ways, number one, the haves will have more while the have-nots will drop further into the abyss of unequal play, and in fact probably wouldn’t play against the top tier  of schools in the high echelon of collegian sports conferences.

 

The entire system of how the National Collegiate Athletic Association operates would change, or be completely dropped as the representative organization and spokesman for amateur sports in the United States.

 

There wouldn’t be any more Jack the Giant Killers, at tournament time in basketball, and actually there might not be any need for the National Basketball Association, or the National Hockey League, the National Football League, or Major League Baseball…..college sports would completely take over.

 

So there you have it, a jumbled up mess of all kinds of college sports that full-time college student athletes compete in, and it’s done because colleges have a never ending supply of fresh eyed 19 year olds that’ll be ready, willing, and able to compete,

 

The loser here, still the college athlete, he’ll still get exploited by his agent, his high school coach, his college coach, and the school that he’ll attend to chase that diploma that just got harder to gain.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!