The Shame of College Sports
 

A litany of scandals in recent years have made the corruption of college sports constant front-page news. We profess outrage each time we learn that yet another student-athlete has been taking money under the table. But the real scandal is the very structure of college sports, wherein student-athletes generate billions of dollars for universities and private companies while earning nothing for themselves. Here, a leading civil-rights historian makes the case for paying college athletes—and reveals how a spate of lawsuits working their way through the courts could destroy the NCAA.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...e-sports/8643/

Interesting article, but this isn't surprising to me, because it isn't new news. It's just recently being talked about, but when I was at Ohio State, they spoon fed athletes there, especially the football team.

I understand and agree with you-as even the article points out, IIRC, this has been going on for years. But now there are court case that are moving forward and those are causing matter to come up.

True, but I think it all depends on the outcome of those cases. Some people are able to get with things that others can't. I'm not saying that they won't, but there's always that possibility.

Interesting follow-up from The Week:
Why college athletes deserve six-figure salaries

While an award-winning journalist makes the case for paying student athletes, a new study calculates exactly how much they're worth

http://theweek.com/article/index/219...igure-salaries

Saying athletes earn "nothing" in exchange for their services is silly hyperbole, to the point of being borderline retarded behavior.

Athletes may not receive cash value equal to what they earn for their teams (then again, obviously neither do Pro athletes, or the teams would be bankrupt), they certainly do get compensated - free tuition, room, board, books, stipend, plus additional benefits not available to student body at large.

Now, whether athletes take advantage of these things (or are put in the best situation to do so) is a different conversation - but when the value of a college degree over the course of a lifetime is estimated to be worth six figures or more ... well, we've reached your compensation figure from the last article already.

Football and basketball players at major programs are earning TONS of money for their schools, and likely not getting commensurate compensation, but it's irresponsible and stupid to claim they're getting "nothing" in return.

Exxxxxxxactamundo.

Add to that the networks and resources that student-athletes gain from excited students and alum. Having attended and been employed at universities that take athletics very seriously, I have grown to be very annoyed with the average student athlete in terms of academic performance and the ability to use resources wisely. Many student-athletes make the average college student seem like more than a lazy C student. I was pleased by the relatively few student-athletes over the years who weren't pretending they were going to the pros, and weren't pretending that people will give a shit that they played for (insert team) for the rest of their life, and therefore used this tuition-free education to prepare for graduate school or occupations.

I have to agree. Playing college football for LSU is a ticket to do whatever you want in life in the state of Louisiana. You want to go to a professional school...which one? Yes, you have to have decent grades, but your competitiveness level is boosted 1000-fold by adding LSU Football to your CV. A small percentage of players go on to play for NFL teams, but that's not the only benefit.

Ditto to this.

Well, we all know there are programs who push the athletes through academically and when they graduate, NWIH do they have the knowledge that you should have that goes w/ a college degree. If they get hurt and their career ends, they're toast. I guess that's the different conversation you're referring to. And really, as far as that goes, it doesn't begin and end with athletes.

I was rewatching "The U" on ESPN and the guys said that in the early 90s their weekend stipend for meals was $30. As one of the very large dudes pointed out $30 wasn't enough to feed him for a day let alone two.

So the bit about how universities specifically class students as "student-athletes" rather than as employees of the university to avoid workers comp issues is probably the part that gets me the most.

Not that athletes necessarily are employees, but if they're injured, they're screwed thrice over, they can't play, aren't guaranteed medical care* and can lose their chance at a degree too.


*ongoing medical care, not emergency/short term care.

I agree that although schools aren't required to provide long term medical care for injured athletes or continue their scholarships-they should. I do want to note, however, that some schools do choose to provide some long term medical care (St. Mary's, for instance, which is a small school provides up to a year of care).

More (not all) will honor scholarships after a player is injured. Failure to do so usually results in bad PR for the school.

I looked around a bit because I was curious about what the NCAA rules said regarding scholarships and injured athletes. It seemed to me, at least if I understand it correctly, that one of their rules would actually give schools an incentive to drop an injured athlete's scholarship. It states that as long as the student-athlete is on an athletic scholarship, the school must count that student toward the total number of scholarships allowed in that sport even if he/she can't play or participate.

I would think, though, that many schools would get around this by simply finding some other type of scholarship to provide for that student if they felt the student would not be able to compete again at the collegiate level.

Also, I'm not sure most student athletes realize or are told by their schools that due to a lawsuit the NCAA has had to establish a $218 million relief fund for injured athletes.