(04-16-2015 11:16 AM)TerryD Wrote:  Do you really believe that? Time will tell.

For the B1G, it's a guaranteed fact.

They'll go the Ivy League route, if they have to. Club teams, even.

(04-16-2015 11:14 AM)TerryD Wrote:  I am saying "Create one" and drop the hypocrisy of the current "student-athlete" system.

Drop the network deals, lower the bowl payouts, reduce coaches salaries, etc...

Make the schools only recruit kids who score high on ACT/SAT and have taken sufficient core courses with good enough grades to predict their likely success in earning a college degree in a real curriculum.

Have these kids only play "college football" with scholarships and stipends only.

That would be real "college football" with real "student athletes".

Have the other kids go play minor league football. Pay them a salary and a signing bonus.

Give them the option to bypass college completely instead of letting them play without going to class, studying, passing tests, writing their own papers and actually having to graduate.

It works pretty well for college baseball and pro baseball. That would be the model to emulate.


Otherwise, the current system is really is a joke.

Once again, I agree. But there is no such system and I ask you who will finance an NFL D-league?

Major college football has taken that role.


And once again, as a matter of correctness not of semantics, a stipend is the same thing as a salary.

Thus if you agree with no salaries in "college" football, then you agree no stipends. Just scholarships.

(04-16-2015 12:03 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(04-16-2015 11:14 AM)TerryD Wrote:  I am saying "Create one" and drop the hypocrisy of the current "student-athlete" system.

Drop the network deals, lower the bowl payouts, reduce coaches salaries, etc...

Make the schools only recruit kids who score high on ACT/SAT and have taken sufficient core courses with good enough grades to predict their likely success in earning a college degree in a real curriculum.

Have these kids only play "college football" with scholarships and stipends only.

That would be real "college football" with real "student athletes".

Have the other kids go play minor league football. Pay them a salary and a signing bonus.

Give them the option to bypass college completely instead of letting them play without going to class, studying, passing tests, writing their own papers and actually having to graduate.

It works pretty well for college baseball and pro baseball. That would be the model to emulate.


Otherwise, the current system is really is a joke.

Once again, I agree. But there is no such system and I ask you who will finance an NFL D-league?

Major college football has taken that role.


And once again, as a matter of correctness not of semantics, a stipend is the same thing as a salary.

Thus if you agree with no salaries in "college" football, then you agree no stipends. Just scholarships.

I think that stipends are coming. My position is that they are not enough to compensate the employees on the field or court doing the work.

(04-16-2015 12:32 PM)TerryD Wrote:  I think that stipends are coming. My position is that they are not enough to compensate the employees on the field or court doing the work.

If you're referring to FCoA, that means the scholarship's dollar value is increasing somewhat. But it will still be ever bit the same scholarship as it is today. Not a stipend.

A stipend is what a graduate student might receive if he/she wins a fellowship. Something like $20k-30k per school year, as a salary.

That's not what's on the table for FCoA.


Currently, student-athletes are not employees of the university.

(04-16-2015 01:02 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(04-16-2015 12:32 PM)TerryD Wrote:  I think that stipends are coming. My position is that they are not enough to compensate the employees on the field or court doing the work.

If you're referring to FCoA, that means the scholarship's dollar value is increasing somewhat. But it will still be ever bit the same scholarship as it is today. Not a stipend.

A stipend is what a graduate student might receive if he/she wins a fellowship. Something like $20k-30k per school year, as a salary.

That's not what's on the table for FCoA.


Currently, student-athletes are not employees of the university.

Which is merely a legal fiction that can be changed at any time.

(04-16-2015 01:13 PM)TerryD Wrote:  Which is merely a legal fiction that can be changed at any time.

I guess all laws and rules are fiction, depending on who's reading the book.

(04-16-2015 07:59 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  If that's true, then how will they be able to both be enrolled in the school and be employed by the school for non-academic purposes?

There must be millions of college students who are both enrolled and employed by their school. They have part-time jobs in food service or the bookstore or the library or whatever. College athletes put in enough work in their college sport that it's definitely a job, too. The difference is that the powers-that-be have arbitrarily decided to pay the students who serve coffee or stock bookshelves, but not the students who play football.

Here is what it all about...

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

(04-16-2015 04:43 PM)Wedge Wrote:  There must be millions of college students who are both enrolled and employed by their school. They have part-time jobs in food service or the bookstore or the library or whatever. College athletes put in enough work in their college sport that it's definitely a job, too. The difference is that the powers-that-be have arbitrarily decided to pay the students who serve coffee or stock bookshelves, but not the students who play football.

You're correct. There probably are millions of current students (undergrads, as well) who are employed by the universities in non-academic roles. And I've never heard a school administrator, president, board member, etc. publicly speak out against student employees at the school. I'm sure they serve a necessary function at most schools.

So I have to concede that point. Students could also be athletic employees of the school. The mechanics are there to facilitate it.


However, whether it's justifiable or not, this is why I think everyone is fearful of student athletic employees:

1) unlike other student employees, once the door to athletic employment has been opened there is no guarantee that wages could be held down to reasonable levels.

A student who serves food in a cafeteria probably makes minimum wage or some other relatively low salary and that's fine. But football players in a program pulling in more than $100 million dollars might decide they should be making $50k a year. What's to stop them?

In other words, if everyone could be guaranteed that football players would be making salaries no more than (or not significantly more than) the equivalent dollar value of the scholarships being paid out, then I don't think it would be nearly as big a deal.


2) as I've said already, once the door to athletic employment has been opened, there is a slippery slope to non-student athletic employees.

An age restriction would make it more palatable, I think. But only so much.

(04-16-2015 12:00 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(04-16-2015 11:16 AM)TerryD Wrote:  Do you really believe that? Time will tell.

For the B1G, it's a guaranteed fact.

They'll go the Ivy League route, if they have to. Club teams, even.

Perfect. I would love to see that. It will never happen. Don't give me Delany's DIII quote. That was as disingenuous as Jack Swarbrick's recent quotes.

(04-16-2015 01:20 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(04-16-2015 01:13 PM)TerryD Wrote:  Which is merely a legal fiction that can be changed at any time.

I guess all laws and rules are fiction, depending on who's reading the book.

Well, I have been practicing law for 28 years this month, so I would indeed agree with you.

(04-17-2015 08:52 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(04-16-2015 04:43 PM)Wedge Wrote:  There must be millions of college students who are both enrolled and employed by their school. They have part-time jobs in food service or the bookstore or the library or whatever. College athletes put in enough work in their college sport that it's definitely a job, too. The difference is that the powers-that-be have arbitrarily decided to pay the students who serve coffee or stock bookshelves, but not the students who play football.

You're correct. There probably are millions of current students (undergrads, as well) who are employed by the universities in non-academic roles. And I've never heard a school administrator, president, board member, etc. publicly speak out against student employees at the school. I'm sure they serve a necessary function at most schools.

So I have to concede that point. Students could also be athletic employees of the school. The mechanics are there to facilitate it.


However, whether it's justifiable or not, this is why I think everyone is fearful of student athletic employees:

1) unlike other student employees, once the door to athletic employment has been opened there is no guarantee that wages could be held down to reasonable levels.

A student who serves food in a cafeteria probably makes minimum wage or some other relatively low salary and that's fine. But football players in a program pulling in more than $100 million dollars might decide they should be making $50k a year. What's to stop them?

In other words, if everyone could be guaranteed that football players would be making salaries no more than (or not significantly more than) the equivalent dollar value of the scholarships being paid out, then I don't think it would be nearly as big a deal.


2) as I've said already, once the door to athletic employment has been opened, there is a slippery slope to non-student athletic employees.

An age restriction would make it more palatable, I think. But only so much.

If the AD's, university administrators and coaches would agree to an income cap, then I would say that it would be fine to cap player's salaries.

Otherwise, why is it a good thing to cap players' salaries only?

(04-17-2015 10:49 AM)TerryD Wrote:  Perfect. I would love to see that. It will never happen. Don't give me Delany's DIII quote. That was as disingenuous as Jack Swarbrick's recent quotes.

If by "disingenuous" you mean "completely serious, then yes I agree that Delany's threat to take the B1G to DIII was disingenuous.

It's a done deal. The Ivy League had to choose between keeping a standard of morals vs. riding the gravy train on the backs of professionals who were unrepresentative of the student body. The B1G will make the same choice, if it has to.

(04-17-2015 10:50 AM)TerryD Wrote:  Well, I have been practicing law for 28 years this month, so I would indeed agree with you.

Then I'd be interested to hear your take on the outcome of the O'Bannon (NIL) lawsuit as well on the (upcoming?) lawsuits regarding amateurism.

And what the heck is the status of those lawsuits, anyway? We heard lots in the media about the O'Bannon lawsuits, the ruling, the appeal, etc.

I haven't heard anything in some time about the amateurism lawsuits. Did they just go away?

(04-17-2015 10:52 AM)TerryD Wrote:  If the AD's, university administrators and coaches would agree to an income cap, then I would say that it would be fine to cap player's salaries.

Otherwise, why is it a good thing to cap players' salaries only?

But a cap today is lifted tomorrow. And that doesn't address the slippery slope of non-student athletic employees.


I think the P5 would do very well to cap coaching salaries too. They've gotten ridiculous.