Do you really think student athletes should be paid?

Ricky Williams, the former running back disagrees saying "that would devalue the education."

With all the reports of ineligible athletes being given a free ride through school, some are suggesting that academically ineligible athletes not be invited to the combine.

Many schools don't make much money off of their football program and some actually lose money, should the school take money from academics to pay their athletes? What about the students from poor backgrounds who busted their tails in school to get a scholarship? Are they less important than athletes? They make the school look good for helping kids from impoverished families get to college, maybe they should get paid too. Many of them have health issues caused by their upbringing, are they less important than athletes who get injured playing a game they love?

I think that the NCAA should have an exit program for college athletes to help them adjust to life after college sports and to assist them should there be lingering health issues, but they don't need to pay them. That would take the focus off the importance of an education and just prove that college sports is more important than academics.

College athletes already get a free pass throughout their stay, and it sends the wrong message, as this article shows:

"We love the game. We love the players, too, even when they scare us.

Like the blue-chip defensive secondary leader who wrote his personal essay for an openly gay professor on the time in high school he gleefully commanded a posse to bash a girly fag near to death, caved the queer's face, and ruined his smile.

Or the hulking offensive star who brought a friend to help him corner a short, pretty instructor alone in her closet office and scare her within an inch of her life for telling the athletic department he was clowning in class.

Or the top offensive player who sought tutoring from me on a plagiarized paper while tweaking on uppers. Or the standout lineman who never showed for my lectures or turned much in except for a term paper written in someone else's voice, then magically disappeared from the class roll when I resisted the team handlers who pressed me not to fail him.

These guys are all starters at Florida State University. They're probably going to play for the national title; they're almost certainly going to go high in the NFL draft. None of them is older than 22, and they already have longer Wikipedia entries than anyone on the FSU faculty.

My colleagues and I—writers and teachers of writing—are on that faculty. Most of us are Seminole fans as well as teachers. We've dashed off tributes to the game and the players—some conflicted, some not."

http://deadspin.com/jameis-winston-isnt-the-only-problem-here-an-fsu-teac-1467707410

Oops, wrong forum =-/

Wrong Forum but correct terminology in my eyes.

My actual issue with this is the age limit in the NFL and NBA. In Europe there is no organized sports in the high schools or universities (some countries may be an exception but in general). The point is that the clubs throughout the leagues have their own youth organizations. They are responsible for finding and developing talent. Then the players go to the higher leagues and things move on.

I get it - it is completely different and one of the main differences is the lack of a draft. The person becomes something on his own and signs contracts with clubs and then is sold and the FA thing is fairly recent and isn't a collective bargaining agreement like here it is the result of a court case settled in the EU court and referred to as the Bosman case.

My point being is that the pro-leagues are the ones responsible for the kids having to stay in college even when they don't want to / would be ready for the pro-leagues. The NFL and the NBA is using colleges as a free farm / development system and the colleges accept it and most likely benefit from it.

The schools should take a different approach. The kids should sign a four year deal - if you break it you owe money to the university. They should take those for whom the pro-league isn't an option and who wants to play sports with a focus on education. That is what colleges are about. They aren't supposed to be about big sports they are supposed to be about education and providing sports on the side.

So if the colleges don't want to take the "high-road" approach but provide a semi-pro product then I would say yes the players should get paid...... The tuition, room and board etc is part of that payment but for many it isn't enough - for some it is more than they bring in

Yes for the players of sports that are big revenue-makers.

Actually, I think that big time football and basketball should be totally divorced from the collegiate system, but I know that will never happen because a) people at traditional college sports powers in football and men's basketball would be pissed, and b) the NFL and NBA have no interest in subsidizing (or further subsidizing, in the NBA's case) a minor leagues for the 18-22-year-olds that would play there. They get a minor league system for free cost to them - but one that the taxpayers are ultimately paying for.

^ And to further the taxpayers paying - if you buy luxuary boxes etc for these stadiums it is tax-deductible as the school is non-revenue....

Absolutely not. I would be fine with the NCAA being forced to share a lot more of the profits with colleges, though.

The bitch of it is...where do you draw the line? I believe the revenue from the Dawg football team pays for every sport at U-Dub. I'm sure that is the case at most top programs. It seems like these guys should have enough money to buy their squeeze a damn pizza, take 'em to a movie. But then you have the baseball team, the golf team and the tennis team crying foul: "because we don't play football, we get nothing"? I think the whole thing is just silly complicated and nobody should be shocked when a kid sells a game jersey or signs an autograph for money.

I don't know about "paid" but they shouldn't have to eat Ramen noodles and water every night. Some of these kids got as far as they did because of their athletic ability, and sometimes are the first person in their families to go to a college of any kind. The NCAA needs to find a way to help these kids, whether its a debit card type deal with a monthly limit (for something that they can actually live with) or something else, I dunno.

How about a good student type situation? Get a 2.8 gpa and get some extra money or something like that. Gives you some incentive to attend class and get an education as well.

No, they shouldn't be paid. I do think that major reform is needed, though. NCAA and universities should not be profiting off of merchandise, clothing, video games, etc in which specific athletes are featured. That's just wrong. Better cooperation and perhaps controls should be in place to prevent the NBA and NFL from using college athletics as a farm system.

Realistically, though, universities also need to do a much better job of educating and not exploiting their athletes. In this context "athletes" refer to football and men's basketball athletes. Many/most of them are coddled to a creepy degree from the time they showed any promise, be it in AAU, Pop Warner, junior high, whatever. Most 18 year olds entering college aren't ready to fully handle life away from their parents, but coddled athletes are even less prepared. Universities have an obligation to educate their athletes and helping them with basic life skills is part of it. Along those lines, the booster programs for those two big sports are messed up and a breeding ground for corruption. That has get cleaned up. Schools shouldn't be pimping their athletes out so wealthy donors can relive the glory days.

I was a D1 athlete (not football) while in university. I can only speak for my own experience, of course, but some of the athlete sob stories get a little much for me. For scholarship athletes, I think you'll find a lot of the financial issues related to poor money management rather than not enough money to get by. That is often related to lifestyle choices - living off campus, alcohol, vehicles, etc. In addition to tuition, books, room and board, athletes get unseen benefits - per diem on travel, clothing, medical care, tutoring, and food. My experience was that the athletes that "struggled" financially were disproportionately football or (to a lesser degree) basketball players. I rarely or never saw athletes from volleyball, tennis, golf, track, swimming, baseball, etc experience the same hardships. Obviously I think there is a positive correlation of coddling to struggling. I think it takes a bit of tough love to clean that up, but it would be foolish to not acknowledge that many of these guys simply haven't been taught how to budget or save money by not eating out or delaying gratification for material goods.

tl;dr No to pay to play. NCAA/Universities shouldn't exploit athletes. Clean up corruption. Life isn't that hard as a scholarship athlete.

They should be going to college for an education. If their education is sports medicine...then the degree is more corresponding to the next level of sports they are doing. If their degree is basket weaving for basketball, that may apply...but I think not. Ballroom dancing..for a senior to maintain his eligibility for playing football so he gets drafted...not really. To comment to the grade point average...if they are taking just get by classes...and making a C average...They need to spend more time in the books. I speak from a tiny bit of experience studying while in the military. I had a full time job and still got a minor degree. I was concerned every day I had class whether I could go to class due to my responsibilities as a supervisor in charge of a building and people. I never knew if there was someone there to take care of the job besides me. Sorry if this is a long diatribe...but I thought I would expand on my experience.

Yes, absoultely they should. The NCAA: A perfect business model...you make billions and you don't have to pay the employees.

They need a way to fairly compensate these players

Yep. Pay em all! Even the rowing teams that bring in no revenue.

If they make revenue by using the persons likeness after they have left that school then yes they should be compensated like anybody doin advertising but while they are in school I still see too much gray area to wade through

Nope. Regardless how far they have drifted from the student-athlete ideal, paying them for sports would be too much.

I would rather that athletes be required to have the same academic requirements to get in as any other student. Until the expectations are raised, we will always have new student athletes who were shuffled through the system and not prepared for school, much less life in general. Below standard entrance requirements for college perpetuate this.

Proponents for paying need to remember that the main reason the schools draw so much sport fan support is that the fans are supporting their school. Not the athletes specifically. It creates a default bond between athlete and student/alumni. The perceived shared experience of both being students.

You can also look at all the benefits they currently get (acceptance to a college they could never have gotten on their own academic merit, tuition, high level training facilities, medical care, personal coaching, room & board, tutoring, a platform to showcase their skills). A normal student gets little of that and usually ends up with loads of debt (and they have to get in on their grades).

Remember, these are schools first.

If needed, ensure that the athletes have access to free room and food for the duration of their time. Ensure that they can't have their scholarship pulled out from under them (onus on school to recruit fairly). Essentially guarantee their scholarship, as long as they maintain their grades like any other student. No more treating players as disposable employees, when a coach wants to upgrade the position. Force the programs to suffer the consequences of choosing a win-first mentality.

They are paid. They get to go to school for free. Even if the players were paid 100 dollars a month that's a lot of money out of the school's budget and I don't know if all schools can afford that. If they do have the extra revenue it should be spent in the form of price breaks for the rest of us who had to pay the ridiculous full price.

This has been discussed before. Realistically there is no fair way to pay a student athlete. There are just too many things that make it so overly complicated on top of the fact that they get a free education, room and board while attending school.

Clearly reform of some kind is needed. I'm not sure paying active players is the solution. As mentioned, football and basketball revenues pay for the other sports.

Let's also be honest here, football and hoops are seen as a way out for a lot of kids that come from less than ideal situations with regard to their home/neighborhood. Most of them will not end up in the pros, but they may get something out of college that will help them in life. The focus needs to be on making sure they actually get that help and a degree that will be of use to them.

For the relative few who are the stars, the NCAA and the schools probably should be willing to share in the dough they continue making off athletes' names and likenesses once those athletes have left school, provided the kid has not gotten kicked out for being a problem child.

I also think some sort of general fund should be set up so kids can stay on scholarship even if they are forced to quit sports due to injury, and that scholly should no longer count against the max. Bigger schools can usually absorb that cost; smaller schools can't. Over-signing needs to be eliminated to prevent abuse of this.

If it isn't already, whatever stipend an athlete gets needs to be adjusted for cost of living at whatever school/town/city the athlete is in as well as annual COLA adjustment.

The NCAA rulebook and processes for compliance, investigation, punishment and appeal need to be gutted. Rules and punishments need to make sense, be clear and have consistent application. Proper investigatory methods and due process need to be applied.

The system as it exists has serious problems. Fixing it will not be easy or quick. The real question isn't whether players should get paid, it's whether the schools actually want to go through the painful process of change.

Being paid in a devalued college degree sure sucks. Maybe we should give out free t-shirts to top football stars that say "I made billions of dollars for the NCAA and all I got was this lousy business administration degree."

Half these guys shouldn't have to go to college. They don't want to be there in some cases. Those guys should be able to make some money at the profession of their choice like every other eighteen-year-old has a chance to do.