I read an article (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=3196762&sportCat=ncb) today that got my blood boiling a little bit. It wasn’t even a major part of the article. It was actually a miniscule factoid that is part of an enormous problem. The NCAA is a sham. They are hypocrites of the highest order. There are 59 new coaches in college basketball. 59! That is nearly 1/6th of all schools in D-I basketball. That's absurd. Most state run universities with big time college football teams pay their coaches significantly more than any other state employee. Bobby Ross, the former coach of the Army football team, was once the highest paid federal employee. These same football and basketball programs are now competing for coaches with the pro ranks. Nick Saban of Alabama and Bobby Petrino of Arkansas both left lucrative multi-year contracts in the pros to come back to college. They were able to come back to college because they weren’t taking a significant pay cut. Since when can an amateur league compete financially with the biggest, baddest sport in America? I’ll tell you. It happened when the NCAA went all Bill Clinton on us with, “it depends on what your definition of amateur is.” Amateur in the sense that the actual participants aren't receiving any income while the institution is raking it in on the player's blood, sweat and tears.
A little over a year ago, the House Ways and Means Committee delivered a letter to Myles Brand, president of the NCAA, asking him about the professed intrinsic academic value of college football and basketball in an effort to understand why they are able to maintain a tax-exempt status. This is big money. CBS pays the NCAA approximately $545 million a year just to show March Madness. BCS Bowl games pay teams upwards of $17 million for their final game. Brand argued that these are student athletes first and that they are very much a fabric of the collegiate life, like the theatre or the choir. Give me a break. I will believe Brand whole heartedly when Fox creates a reality show based around competing college improve groups, shells out millions per year, and the kids are as well known as Kevin Durant or Greg Oden. How can these kids be called amateurs when their lives are so scrutinized by the press and public alike? You can rest safe knowing that if your starting quarterback gets arrested for underage drinking or marijuana possession the whole country will know about it. The only way the water polo captain is making national news is if he does something heroic or truly demonic.
My problem with the system is that the players, and these are reason why the CBS’s and Fedex’s of the world are shelling out big time dollars (You’d have to be a sadist to pay money to watch Jim Boeheim or Bobby Bowden coach), have almost no rights. This is very much a feudal system. Players choose to attend certain colleges because of the coach, the league, the facilities, television exposure, etc. Somewhere way down the list is whether or not the school’s finance department has Hank Paulson on staff. Essentially, these kids are choosing schools for reasons connected to their sport, the top of which is usually the coach. These coaches and institutions, who have gained the trust of these young men, are more often than not more concerned with their own bottom line than the kids that sweat for them. A coach wins 25 games at a mid-major and maybe squeaks into the second round of the tournament. Sorry VCU, its time to go. Bigger dollars and more acclaim await at another school. Whats that? I still have 7 years on a contract extension you gave me last year. Sorry, not going to honor it. If coaches can simply up and leave at the drop of a hat, surely the players should be able to follow if they don’t like the new coach. Wrong. The draconian laws in place at the NCAA require a player to sit out a full year before they can participate again. Coaches and schools sign seven figure endorsement deals for dressing the PLAYERS in certain apparel. Players can’t receive endorsements from other sports they compete in professionally (See: Jeremy Bloom). Why are the coaches and schools allowed to operate like this a big business whilst the players get nothing but an education (stifling laughter)? Because. This. Is. Big. Business. And, the NCAA should stop mocking our intelligence and treat it as such by giving greater freedom to the players, I mean student-athletes.
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4 comments:
What freedoms would you give them?
You can't pay them. Just scholarships. Allowing them to transfer at the drop of a hat with no penalty is a horrible idea. Coaches know what's best for #1, players mostly don't. That rule is certainly for maintaining stability/profit/business (i know), but it's also for their own good. Yes, it's big business. High school sports is (really) small business. What freedoms should those players have? Prep school? But, I think that complicates the comparison beyond what effort I wanted to put in to this response.
"Players choose to attend certain colleges because of the coach, the league, the facilities, television exposure, etc" -and- "more often than not more concerned with their own bottom line than the kids". The players are there for themselves. That's why they leave early. They pick the school that gives them the best shot to go pro. Yes, the coach leaving might hurt. If it does, leave early. Go pro. If you can't... shut up. The kids all have their eye on the big prize, when they can get paid "fair market value" in the pros (which is impossible to do at the collegiate level).
The Jeremy Bloom deal was silly. I'm not against endorsements for collegiate players, but that doesn't really fix the problem.
It's all about the dollar, and that's nobody's fault. Sounds to me like the only thing to do is remove the tax exempt status? I don't think you can responsibly give freedom to the player. You need to take it from the schools.
Wait, why can't we pay the players? So many of the rules the NCAA imposes upon its players are based around the idea that they shouldn't be given advantages that aren't available to regular students. I think we, and by we I mean the NCAA, needs quit the charade that these are regular students or even regular student athletes. The demand placed on them to be available to the press and to represent the school at various functions automatically places them outside the realm of "regular student". I'm not talking about a lot of money. Perhaps as little as $2500. That would make an enormous difference in a lot of these players lives and may allow them to remain in college preparing for the next level. This is obviously a rough estimate.
I'd love to see them remove the tax exempt status and then I'd love to see colleges hold coaches to their contracts. I don't understand how they can up and leave without there being some kind of penalty.
Also, a freedom that might work is that if a coach leaves a school his players may transfer from the school without having to sit out the year.
$2500 to every collegiate athlete? Only D1? Only basketball and football? Only starters? Should all athletes have the opportunity to apply for the money? Submit an application to the NCAA, who approves/denies, and sends a bill to the athletes school?
i agree they aren't just students.
if a coach leaves, players can transfer without penalty. what if a coach retires? what if a coach retires, and then signs somewhere else next year? if a coach leaves, and the players are allowed to leave... isn't that kind of screwing the school?
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