If Rick James is a Miami Hurricane fan right now he’s singing “You Dropped the Bomb on Me” cause that’s exactly what Yahoo did. This is just the beginning of The U’s possible death penalty sentence, and as they await their time on death row the good ole well discussed question will be brought up: Should college athletes get paid?
Let’s get this out the way first…somebody is paying some player on your team. Don’t be naïve and think that your program is clean. They’re not, no one is. Their dirt just isn’t as deep as the next teams. Even players on garbage ass teams in the WAC are getting dough. Is it as much as players at big time schools, of course not, but they get the hundred dollar handshakes and free meals. Want to know why? Because every school has at least one booster who will reward a player for making his alma mater look good.
With that being said should the NCAA make it legal for these football players to be paid? Absolutely not!
These cats ain’t struggling, don’t let them fool you. Free meals, free books, free housing, free clothes and shoes, free thousand dollar educations. That’s a lot of free. But they don’t have pocket money, yet half the team has a new car. These dudes are living the life. It’s a life they signed up for. No one is forcing them to play. They cannot play and take out loans like everyone else if an education and some pocket change means that much to them.
On to the schools….
Not every sports program in the NCAA makes a profit. Even if the football and basketball program do make a ton of money ( which it does at certain powerhouses but not everywhere) they have to give that money to the track program and the baseball team and all the other sports that don’t generate money so that they are able to stay afloat. So a lot of schools don’t even have the money to pay these guys after paying for every other sport.
And oh yes that includes women’s sports too. There’s this little thing called Title IX basically saying women and men have to be equal. If there are 6 men’s teams there have to be 6 women’s. If men get paid women get paid….HOL UP, HOL UP, HOL THE HELL UP!!!! You mean we’d have to pay those chicks? The chicks that can’t fill a high school gym let alone an arena. The same chicks who only garner attention if they happen to be cute or freakishly tall. The same chicks that can’t generate any revenue. Yes my friend they’d get a check too. Do they deserve a check? I dare you to say yes with a straight face. If it was up to most schools they would axe women’s sports altogether so do you really think they’d want to pay the girls’ team the same as the boys. Nah homie ain’t happening.
You know what…Screw them! If your sport generates dough then you’re getting paid. Trent Richardson come get your check I know you got kids to feed. LaMichael James here’s some for you, spend it wisely. Michael Dyer do you want a Chevy or Cadillac? Ya’ll earned your thousands dollar game check congratulations. Steven Clark, Cody Parkey here’s your thousand dollar game check too. Wait a minute who? Who in the hell are they and why are they getting the same as these All-Americans? They were the backup kickers on the Auburn National Championship team. Did they contribute to the team? Yep Cody put in a whopping 2 extra points last year and my boy Steve showed out real nicely punting the ball 9 times in 5 games (which I’m guessing their starter was hurt). Cam Newton, Nick Fairly and them all get the same amount for the entire season because things have to be on an equal playing field. Everybody has to get paid the same.
But that’s not fair you should get out what you put in. Alright then forget those back up kickers they ain’t shit. Let’s give the money to the people who earned it. Let them get endorsements and be able to openly sell their jerseys like my boy AJ Green did. C’mon dude that was ridiculous it was his jersey for crying out loud. He can’t even make money on something that’s his?!! That’s some bull shit!!! NCAA videogames, numbered jerseys without names on the back; the NCAA profits off all of that and a brotha can’t sell his own jersey to make some dough on the side.
Nope. Do people realize how big of a clusterf*ck that would become if players could make money off their image while in college. Phil Knight would have row after row after row of merchandise with Oregon player’s faces plastered all over it. Would he give the same treatment other Nike sponsored school’s players I doubt it. Those Cliff Harris sneakers are gonna be fly tho; the number 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 top recruits in the country are going to get their own line of shoes just like it. He’s Phil Knight, he owns Nike he can make it happen. He can promise any recruit in the nation whatever shoe, shirt, clothing item he wants and they’d still have the swoosh so they wouldn’t have to tape over anything (word to MJ’s son who’s school rocks Addidas). Yes other schools have billionaire boosters too, Oklahoma St. has T. Boone Pickens and they can’t even win their conference. But I bet he’d openly pay the top talent in the country each year to play in Stillwater.
What about the coaches? I see Nick Saban, Mark Richt, and Gene Chizik all in truck commercials. How come they make millions and get endorsements but the players get nothing? That’s their job. That’s the same as asking “How come professors get paid but the students who go to class don’t?” It is their job to teach as it is a coach’s job to coach. The best professors get paid the most; the best coaches get paid the most. Simple as that.
Now if you’re still reading this you’re probably saying to yourself “It’s still not fair. Why can’t they just legalize it?” What would be the point? It makes no sense to legalize it and turn college sports into the wild wild west with no rules and regulation. It would create more problems than it would solve. The best thing for the NCAA to do is leave things just as they are. Schools are going to cheat anyway they can’t stop that. They let you cheat all you want but the one thing is you can’t get caught. Realistically the system that’s in place now it works. It really truly works. Essentially people are getting what they want and don’t realize it. When they argue for paying players they are talking about the best players on the most important teams. They don’t care about the backup swimmer (is there such a thing?) on the girls’ swimming team at Ball State. They care about the star QB and receiver, the power forward who puts up 25 and 11. Those are the ones who people want to see get paid and those are the ones getting paid. When it comes to the NCAA and paying players there’s only one rule: it’s not don’t do it; it’s don’t let us catch you.
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