Just like Desert Oasis' Dominic Paratore (5) being off-base
against La Jolla, this writer says college sports are not
only off-base but in need of restructuring with solutions
like a fair stipend for college student-athletes.
(Photo by Ed Piper)
Looking at Desert Oasis High School's pitching, I have some thoughts. DO is the Las Vegas team that beat La Jolla in the semifinals of the Lions Baseball Tournament Thurs., April 2. The D-Backs' presumed number-four hurler threw a complete-game four-hitter.
On Monday, DO's number-one, Nolan Kingham, lost 1-0 to Country Day, despite throwing a three-hitter, on an unearned run in the bottom of the sixth inning. Kingham was recorded as hitting 96 mph with his fastball, according to LJCD coach John Edman.
On Tuesday, DO's presumed number-two blanked Coronado, 6-0, which isn't hard since Coronado is not very strong, on a one-hitter. (As evidence, Country Day no-hit Coronado in a face-to-face, 10-0, on Wednesday.) This pitcher is also reported to throw in the 90's, just like Kingham.
On Wednesday, DO's presumed number-three blanked Bonita, 5-0, on a three-hitter. He also is reported to throw in the 90's.
Here is my thought. You're going to have to walk with me on this one. It's not about how one high school, supposedly established as an academic institution to educate children in its surrounding area, can garner three teenagers that throw a baseball 90 mph. (I'm a high school teacher, by the way.) That's basically unheard of, unless it's a private institution (which DO is not) and it is recruiting. That's for another story.
DO's superior quality as a high school baseball team is the springboard for one of my pet ideas: Solving the abuse, cheating, and corruption in college sports. I told you that you'd have to work with me. These three 90-mph throwers are all prepping for Major League Baseball's annual amateur draft held every June in which the Padres, Dodgers, Giants, and so forth divvy up high school and college players. And/or these young men are looking at colleges who they will play for in return for a full-ride scholarship before they turn pro. In either case, it is a business proposition.
Ah. That's what I want to talk about. I believe, when and if these players--and La Jolla's players who go on to play baseball in college--enter NCAA sports, they should receive a stipend in addition to the free education they get on a full-ride scholarship.
Here is my reasoning: First, there is already massive corruption in college sports. (I'm actually thinking more about football and basketball, but it's spring, so let's include college baseball, which is a solid sport.) Money is already changing hands.
So, to answer the stipend suggestion with the typical "But that will make them pros," college athletes already are pros. They are obligated to work out year-round. The sports program owns them, requiring meetings, weight-lifting, conditioning, in addition to regular practice and games. Since millions, even billions of dollars, are already moving around, let's re-organize and do it within an updated structure that meets the real-world circumstances of 2015.
The same argument was used to try to keep the Olympics from admitting professional athletes before eligibility was opened up to pros or amateurs: "Let's maintain the purity of amateurism." I love the idea, but amateurism left the scene a long time ago. Wake up. Smell the Jamba Juice.
Secondly, the Ed O'Bannon case will change the world of the NCAA. It is the case by the former UCLA basketball player that attacked the greed and corruption of the powers-that-be in the NCAA (a decrepit, aged, outdated institution). The case was brought by the former Bruin forward because the NCAA could use the images of the student-athletes on video games and the like to make millions of dollars, without compensating the young people whose images were used.
In other words, the NCAA and member colleges make millions, even billions of dollars, on the backs of these young athletes. The athletes get nothing.
Here's my complaint with that--I'll call it point three. The recent revelation of massive abuse in the University of North Carolina program, a formerly respected school when it came to education and sports, shows that college athletes are sometimes--often?--not receiving a college education worth a darn.
Not just in the last few years, but for decades, Tarheel athletes were receiving credit for paper courses, courses in which you didn't have to show up for class, to keep them eligible to play in games. Read the recent Sports Illustrated story by S.L. Price, a UNC grad. In the article, he expresses his utter shock and disillusionment with his alma mater while investigating the immense pressures for abuse that come with, among other things, getting a new multi-million-dollar arena or stadium.
Point four: You read the reports of the USC football player who was limited to one meal a day because he didn't have money to buy food. That's crazy. He's receiving a full scholarship, but there is not enough provision to cover his meals.
I can't hand a burrito to an athlete from a local college without violating NCAA rules. Meanwhile, the major colleges pull in mega-millions from TV money. An appearance in a football game means several million dollars in income for the participating institutions.
Thus, one of my solutions: I'm for a stipend for athletes. This is different from a full salary. I don't know how a fair amount would be arrived at, but if all the experts we have who solve other problems could come together and develop an approach, it would go a long way. Whatever it is and however it's done, it will take time to develop and tune a new system that makes sense.
Johnny Manziel making a few thousand dollars from signing autographs while he was quarterback at Texas A&M? At first, I took umbrage. Then I thought about it. A few thousand dollars? Did this really compromise his participation in college? His family is known to be wealthy. He isn't an athlete from the ghetto who is seeking to escape poverty. I don't prefer the model he represented for children people with his wild lifestyle, but it got me to thinking about the millions Texas A&M made off him without having to share it with him.
I'm not advocating for unionization like athletes at Northwestern tried to do, organizing as "employees" of the university. There are many things to be worked out, but college sports of today are not the ones your grandfather followed, we can safely say.
I was talking with another gentleman during the recent NCAA Western Regionals in basketball at Staples Center, which is what spurred this article. We agreed that something has to be done. It's not like athletes are "pure amateurs" anymore. The millions that colleges make from sports dictate that we move from the 1930's of Knute Rockne, "Win one for the Gipper," to 2015. Let's re-organize and make it fair for the young people. Let's rein in the wild horse that is NCAA sports.
Otherwise, abuse and corruption will continue and multiply geometrically, as the money already is. And young people's opportunities will be damaged.
My advocacy for club sports, which involve athletes without any tie to a school, is another story for another time. I played for an adult basketball team in Mexico City eons ago that was not tied to any academic institution. As a result of this structure--common in the rest of the world--there wasn't any risk of abuse of academia as we see with sports teams "representing" colleges.
This was a long way to travel. Thank you for going there with me.
Copyright 2015 Ed Piper
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