While we're talking sports, we can revisit the topic of stipends for college athletes. If you've read my earlier entries, you know that I favor these. My reasons are that money is already changing hands, corruption is rampant (look at the massive scandal over University of North Carolina credits being manufactured for decades), and we can no longer live in unrealistic thinking about "amateur" athletes that fit the 1940's.
A recent story states, "...the Power Five schools voted in January to allow the NCAA's member institutions to provide student-athletes with full cost-of-attendance stipends..." This will include living expenses not covered by tuition-only athletic scholarships.
There have been numerous stories in the past few years profiling athletes who go to big-name sports universities, who had to eat one meal a day because they didn't have money to buy food, and the like. Antiquated NCAA rules prohibit a booster club member from handing the athletes a Subway sandwich, because that constitutes a violation. Ridiculous.
The article goes on to state, "...(M)any schools have declared their intention to offer these stipends, and can begin doing so this fall."
Here's my thinking: It is a stipend, not a salary. No one is saying we should pay these college athletes like professionals--though they are trained and otherwise treated as professionals, required to attend meetings, practice, and other events throughout the year, not just during the season. A stipend, the way I see it, is part of a new, positive approach to the mega-billion-dollar business that college sports have become.
Johnny Manziel, while still at Texas A&M, received money for signing a certain number of photos. He was penalized by having to sit out part of a game. The greedy university presidents, athletic departments, and boosters are making millions of dollars, into the billions, by the participation of these talented athletes who train arduously in pursuit of excellence and professional careers. The exploitation of these athletes by these institutions for the almighty dollar is blatant and far beyond being reined in by any antiquated, old-fashioned "amateur athletics" approach such as what the NCAA has still had in place until now. The stipend idea at least lets a little fresh air into the building.
There is so much money in athletics at the college and pro levels because of television. Besides ESPN providing 24-hour sports news, there are now Fox Sports One, NBC's sports network, and others. These businesses, through the sheer power of advertising income, infuse billions of dollars into sports.
In the scandal at the University of North Carolina, in which a professor oversaw the awarding of class credits to athletic team members for little or no class attendance or work submitted--over two decades or more, not just in the last few years--the pressure to bend the rules ramped up with the building of a new basketball facility for then-coach Dean Smith's basketball team. The arena broke the back of what formerly was a fairly clean program. The Tarheel facility took over the athletic department, blew everyone's perspective out of the water, and caused boosters to act in egregious ways that didn't happen when the basketball program was smaller.
By the way, I have the utmost respect for Coach Dean Smith at UNC. He was an honorable man. He had nothing to do with the corruption in this case.
I think if a Madeleine Gates matriculates at UCLA and plays volleyball, and continues to train year-round to be a productive member of the Bruin team, it is reasonable for her grant to include things beyond tuition: like food, laundry money, and so forth. I'm only using her as an example. The work that these kids put in is incredible. On top of their sports duties, they still have to go to class, create complex class projects, fit in time to study for high-stakes exams, and move toward job prospects in the business and work world, in addition to any pro career they might have.
I hope you will see the reasonable nature of the stipend idea.
Copyright 2015 Ed Piper
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