The Great Debate

Should college athletes get paid? After watching Real Sports tonight with my used to be man Bryant Gumble, I have put an exclamation point on my NO when it comes to college athletes getting paid. Why?

First off, all SEC football players and every big conference basketball players get paid enough under the table anyway. Secondly, there would be absolutely zero parity in sports. The teams that win and have the highest profit margin in sports would be able to pay the most, leaving the smaller teams literally hung out to dry. The only plausible way to make it work fairly would be to have profit sharing amongst every division 1 team in America in each sport, then divvy up that evenly amongst all players. Wow. That would be awful. No chance.

College athletes that are on full scholarship get a free education, free food, clothes if needed, travel if needed for holidays, books (which they sell back for cash), per diem on the road (which football players pocket because all team meals are paid for), and free housing. Most players end up with money in their pockets for food and housing. This is getting to be a joke.

College basketball is the worst. Are we really contemplating paying kids that go to college for one year, never step foot in a classroom, and leave to get paid the next year?

I'm sick of all the bs of the stories of people who never made it but come back and bitch. So now in retrospect you want to be paid when you're out on the street without a job, but during that time your education was paid for that would land you a job now you never thought about those consequences did you? Here's a plan: go to school, get your degree, so if sports don't workout for you you can actually get a job.

To add on, yeah the NCAA makes money; yes each college makes a ton of money off of sports, but most of that money goes back to the university or college to make that a better place for the students and prospective students who pay for your "education".

It's about time some of this responsibility comes down on coaches. Take Auburn for example: Do you think those coaches preach going to class every day? Is that why they have a 47 % graduation rate? Now take for example a BC, Northwestern, Stanford, Duke: above 95% graduation rate and they still compete. I don't care what type of kid you are, or what your background was, when you go to college to play a sport you know what you signed up for and that's to be a "STUDENT ATHLETE", and the coaches are supposed to preach that. Obviously that doesn't happen so they need to take some of that responsibility. You hear that John Calipari? You hear that Les Miles and Nick Saban? The NCAA should set a rule of loss of scholarships if graduation rate slips under a certain percent. Maybe that will force these coaches to actually do their jobs.