College football player = full-time job

Not saying it should, but I wonder if anyone will change their mind on whether college athletes should be paid. Average college fb player spends 44.8 hours per week on the sport ...

http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/uga/stories/2008/01/12/ncaaburst_0113.html

 

I've had a differing opinion on this since college, when a wrestler at Mizzou broke down what he gets paid compared to what he got for scholarship/housing.
It essentially worked out to where he could work at McDonald's for 25 hours a week and make more money than he received for wrestling (he was close to full ride).

 

Dan Hawkins gives his players three weeks off a year.

 

yeah, but that's the Big 12 brothah ... ;D

I know that when I was in school, playing baseball (no scholarship), there wasn't much time left over for anyting once I got done with baseball. It's debatable whether they can be considered pro, but it takes a pro commitment to play a college sport.

 

Payment is in the form of a $50,000-$100,000 college degree and an offer of learned preparedness for the real world.
(Perks include TV face time for those who are real good, lots of free clothes and food, and hero status around campus for 2-5 years.)
End of story.

 

The problem is, the NCAA continues to portray its 'student-athletes' as a group of college students who just needed to blow off some steam after class, so they decide to play a sport, and after a while, decided to challenge the nearest school next to their campus. The thing is, that ended about 100 years ago.

Today, it's all about the money. Yes, the majority of schools athletic departments are not money-makers. A lot of that is because of the huge rise in coaches salaries and the arms race to build bigger facilities. But there is so much money in football and men's basketball. The choice the NCAA needs to make is either forgo the money hunt and make each school like an Ivy League or Division III team, (which it won't do, naturally) or allow everyone (including student-athletes) to partake in it. If they don't come up with some plan, like Major League Baseball, it will eventually backfire on them.

Do they receive those $50,000-$100,000 scholarships? Sure. Then you are effectively saying that playing a sport is their job. Then let's treat it as a job, and the players as employees of the university, just the same as a student who is working in the school cafeteria or lifeguarding at the school pool.

That means, if someone outside the school wants to tip them for a job well done (scoring a touchdown), then let them. If O.J. Mayo wants his own sneaker deal for playing at USC, let him. The way big-time college sports is now, is like an employee at McDonalds who is told that he must wear McDonalds-related clothes all around campus on his own time, and can only eat at McDonalds-owned shops. And if a customer likes the way the McDonalds employee flips burgers, and decides to tip him an extra $5, the employee can't take the money. And pay them overtime if they have to work extra (playoffs).

 

I refuse to believe that everything an athlete gets combined is worth less than minimum wage.
I'm talking about full-scholarship guys at the major collegiate level. They get tuition, housing, meals, tutoring, books, travel, personal trainers, medical care, etc.
I don't care if they spend 50 hours a week on their sport. There is no way that stuff is worth less than $258 a week.

 

When I was in college, I spent at least 50 hours a week at the school paper for three years. I got paid $250 per semester. My best friend was a theater major who spent more than 40 hours a week at the workshop or in show rehearsals every week, on top of other non-class activities. My roommate was a bioengineering major or some crazy thing, and he spent at least eight hours a day studying on top of his classwork.

None of us got a single dollar worth of scholarship money.

Cry me a fucking river, jocks.

 

This is spot on. I teach at a university and about 90 percent of my students -- none of them athletes -- have jobs aside from their commitment to the school paper. One of my kids wraps burritos to pay his way through school, another works the late shift at a local gas station ... and these kids do not get release time from class to do their things. I'll not feel bad for the kid who gets to play basketball to pay his way through school. Athletes do not have the easy life, but neither does anybody else.

And then there is the issue of debt load ... athletes have considerably less upon graduation. Some of them have none, while I have kids going into a dying profession carrying at least 25k in debt and they'll likely make less than that in their first year in the biz.

 

That's what I mean. I feel these athletes should get treated like anyone else, like the NCAA says they should. That means either let boosters give them cars, or take away the sneaker money from the coaches. You don't see the theater professor getting paid by a clothing designer to make sure his actors are wearing the designer's clothes.

Where the NCAA comes off looking idiotic is when they jump on the jocks for having someone buy them a beer at a bar, stuff that everyone else is allowed to do for their friends. But whines when an athlete gets a sponsorship for a non-collegiate sport (Jeremy Bloom) and ignores Coach K's million-dollar sneaker deal.

 

None of those other students are expected to work FOR THE UNIVERSITY. None of them have 55-hour a week jobs that require travelling the entire country. This is cheap labor and the system better recognize it or the system's going to collapse one day.

 

Workers (like Division I football and basketball players) who generate huge sums of money for their schools/employers should be paid a proportionate, negotiated cut of that revenue. Why is that so hard for people to grasp?

Comparing these athletes to students working on the school newspaper or Taco Bell is disingenuous. Top Division I athletes are uniquely skilled and in extremely high demand by the schools who recruit them and the viewing public. To limit their compensation to scholarship while a school reaps huge profits from their services is patently unfair.