(09-12-2013 08:36 AM)CommuterBob Wrote:  Athletes get tons of preferential treatment within the current system as well. Many get into colleges that they could not otherwise attend (and many get into college period when they would normally be unable to qualify) simply because they are good at a sport. That's a huge benefit right off the bat. They get free tutoring, free training, preferential scheduling, all on top of their free tuition, room & board, and books.

That argument has never worked for me.

The reason it doesn't work is that, with a few rare exceptions, the athletes for whom those things are real benefits -- i.e., the athletes who go to college to get a good degree and not just as a waystation to their pro sports career -- are not the athletes whom "the marketplace" would pay money to play college sports.

And, conversely, John Wall, Johnny Manziel, Terrelle Pryor, Andrew Wiggins, etc. are not going to college to get a degree. College for them is just a stage in their planned lucrative professional sports career. For them, taking and passing classes is just a charade that they have to put up with until they can start their pro-sports career.

Which is perfectly ok for them, because they're going to make big bucks in their chosen career. But it's silly to pretend that a one-and-done or two-and-done athlete who doesn't want a degree is "benefitting" from tuition-and-books freebies.

(09-12-2013 10:48 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 10:28 AM)TerryD Wrote:  Me too. I think that there should be a 16 team minor league football entity with franchises in Las Vegas, Portland, Los Angeles, Memphis, Columbus, Ohio, Baton Rouge, Orlando, Florida, Tucson, AZ, Albuquerque, NM, Sacramento, CA, Birmingham, AL and a few other non-NFL cities.

I think that there should be a draft of high school players for this league. These guys should get $100,000/year or so and these franchises should be tied to two specific NFL teams.

Those teams would get to call up players from the minor league franchise they are tied to, perhaps by some sort of free agent signing or rotating selection system.

The universities would continue to play college football. NCAA football would exist separate and apart from this minor league system.

NCAA football would have stronger, higher academic standards than exist currently.

The players would have to meet academic requirements that are higher than exist now, lower to what non-athlete student admissions require, but closer to the latter than now exists.

The players that play college football and are recruited by those schools would get a full, four year scholarship ( cannot be run off for non-disciplinary/non-academic reasons) and are paid a $5,000/year stipend.

I'll take it.

Won't hurt college attendance except possibly in minor league football cities and even that is not guaranteed.

The people watching to see the best players are such a small fragment of college football attendance and viewership that culling the top players who aren't there for a degree or at least a degree as a back-up isn't going to harm college football and pulling the "franchise" caliber players out of the college system will do more to stop cheating than anything else.

Talent is on a sloping curve. There are very few kids who are so superior that getting them is a huge difference maker. The further you move back up the curve the more fungible the talent gets.

This is a solid idea, Terry, but I think the salary is too high to support the minor league football viewership/attendance. $50K is probably more do-able. The appetite for minor league football is nowhere near as great as it is for college football due to the impact of having school ties.

(09-12-2013 11:11 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 08:36 AM)CommuterBob Wrote:  Athletes get tons of preferential treatment within the current system as well. Many get into colleges that they could not otherwise attend (and many get into college period when they would normally be unable to qualify) simply because they are good at a sport. That's a huge benefit right off the bat. They get free tutoring, free training, preferential scheduling, all on top of their free tuition, room & board, and books.

That argument has never worked for me.

The reason it doesn't work is that, with a few rare exceptions, the athletes for whom those things are real benefits -- i.e., the athletes who go to college to get a good degree and not just as a waystation to their pro sports career -- are not the athletes whom "the marketplace" would pay money to play college sports.

And, conversely, John Wall, Johnny Manziel, Terrelle Pryor, Andrew Wiggins, etc. are not going to college to get a degree. College for them is just a stage in their planned lucrative professional sports career. For them, taking and passing classes is just a charade that they have to put up with until they can start their pro-sports career.

Which is perfectly ok for them, because they're going to make big bucks in their chosen career. But it's silly to pretend that a one-and-done or two-and-done athlete who doesn't want a degree is "benefitting" from tuition-and-books freebies.

Fair enough. But just like internships in other real-world professions, there are steps everyone must take that don't lead to mainline success immediately. Plus, nobody forced those guys into college. Granted, it's the best choice for them, but it's certainly not the only route into the NBA.

How much of the problem goes away if the NFL and NBA get rid of their age cap? That way, the elite athletes can go pro like they want, and no one is "forced" into college.

I personally like the "0 or 3" system of MLB. Either go pro out of high school, or commit to 3 years in college.

(09-12-2013 11:47 AM)nuftw Wrote:  How much of the problem goes away if the NFL and NBA get rid of their age cap? That way, the elite athletes can go pro like they want, and no one is "forced" into college.

I personally like the "0 or 3" system of MLB. Either go pro out of high school, or commit to 3 years in college.

The thing is that the NFL and NBA aren't in the business of solving college sports' problems. They're leagues where draft picks are expected to play immediately (unlike baseball or hockey) and they need the top draft picks to be generally known by the American public from day one (once again, unlike baseball or hockey). The current college sports system generally serves that purpose (although the NBA would probably be helped further if players had to spend 2 years in college instead of just 1 year - it just wasn't an issue that the NBA owners were going to prioritized in its latest labor negotiations with the NBAPA). Ultimately, the NFL and NBA are free to set their job entry requirements in the same way that Goldman Sachs and Google aren't hiring people without college degrees regardless of how talented and smart they might be at age 18.

(09-12-2013 11:58 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Google aren't hiring people without college degrees regardless of how talented and smart they might be at age 18.

Google isn't conspiring with every other "team" in Silicon Valley to force 18-year-olds to go to college before applying for a job in Silicon Valley.

If a group of super-talented 18-year-olds demonstrated the capability to, say, create a new mobile phone operating system that is as good as or better than Android or iOS, I guarantee that major tech companies would hire them even if they never enrolled in a college.

(09-12-2013 11:47 AM)nuftw Wrote:  How much of the problem goes away if the NFL and NBA get rid of their age cap? That way, the elite athletes can go pro like they want, and no one is "forced" into college.

I personally like the "0 or 3" system of MLB. Either go pro out of high school, or commit to 3 years in college.

The NBA's reason for implementing the age cap was they saw way too many kids forgoing college (and even HS in some cases) because they could play ball. The NBA didn't want to be the source of the problem of kids (especially inner-city kids) thinking that all they had to do was be good basketball players and it didn't matter if they graduated HS or not. They saw that as bad PR as kids would drop out, sign with agents, and then not get drafted and then basically end up destitute. It wasn't an epidemic, but there were enough kids doing it that they wanted to nip the problem in the bud before it bacame one.

But the NBA had too much success with HS kids to drop them out entirely, so they came up with the one-year rule. That way, they could legitimately say they had required kids to go to HS and encouraged them to go to college, while still getting a bunch of young talent.

The NFL has used the three year rule mostly to keep kids from having debilitating injuries right out of HS. The linemen, LBs, and players in general in the NFL are bigger, faster, and stronger (on the whole) than in college. They don't want to spend salaries on players who can't hack it and get hurt. Plus, they have their own minor leagues to develop players in CFB.

(09-12-2013 12:12 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 11:58 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Google aren't hiring people without college degrees regardless of how talented and smart they might be at age 18.

Google isn't conspiring with every other "team" in Silicon Valley to force 18-year-olds to go to college before applying for a job in Silicon Valley.

If a group of super-talented 18-year-olds demonstrated the capability to, say, create a new mobile phone operating system that is as good as or better than Android or iOS, I guarantee that major tech companies would hire them even if they never enrolled in a college.

They probably would simply buy the idea from them rather than hire them.

(09-12-2013 12:22 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 12:12 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 11:58 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Google aren't hiring people without college degrees regardless of how talented and smart they might be at age 18.

Google isn't conspiring with every other "team" in Silicon Valley to force 18-year-olds to go to college before applying for a job in Silicon Valley.

If a group of super-talented 18-year-olds demonstrated the capability to, say, create a new mobile phone operating system that is as good as or better than Android or iOS, I guarantee that major tech companies would hire them even if they never enrolled in a college.

They probably would simply buy the idea from them rather than hire them.

I said "capability" as in they've shown they have the talent, not that they have a fully-formed OS that they're offering for sale. And even if they did, Silicon Valley companies usually want to bring on the creators/developers so that they acquire the know-how about the product and not just a bunch of lines of code.

(09-12-2013 12:12 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 11:58 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Google aren't hiring people without college degrees regardless of how talented and smart they might be at age 18.

Google isn't conspiring with every other "team" in Silicon Valley to force 18-year-olds to go to college before applying for a job in Silicon Valley.

If a group of super-talented 18-year-olds demonstrated the capability to, say, create a new mobile phone operating system that is as good as or better than Android or iOS, I guarantee that major tech companies would hire them even if they never enrolled in a college.

Neither is the NFL. If another group of billionaires want to try and take on the Shield and use a completely different hiring methodology, they are more than welcome to do so.

(09-12-2013 12:37 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 12:22 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 12:12 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 11:58 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Google aren't hiring people without college degrees regardless of how talented and smart they might be at age 18.

Google isn't conspiring with every other "team" in Silicon Valley to force 18-year-olds to go to college before applying for a job in Silicon Valley.

If a group of super-talented 18-year-olds demonstrated the capability to, say, create a new mobile phone operating system that is as good as or better than Android or iOS, I guarantee that major tech companies would hire them even if they never enrolled in a college.

They probably would simply buy the idea from them rather than hire them.

I said "capability" as in they've shown they have the talent, not that they have a fully-formed OS that they're offering for sale. And even if they did, Silicon Valley companies usually want to bring on the creators/developers so that they acquire the know-how about the product and not just a bunch of lines of code.

Let me clarify.

If you, as an 18-year old, can get a meeting with Google to show that you have the capability to create a new mobile OS at that age, yes, they might hire you (although as CommuterBob intimated, if I were that 18-year old kid, I'd go out and get VC funding and have Google buy my company for many more dollars). I agree that if your talent is so overwhelmingly and stunningly exceptional that you might break through.

However, if you're in the 99.9% of the people that apply to Google on a daily basis, your resume is getting thrown in the trash if you don't have a college degree. Same thing for any of the other tech firms in Silicon Valley (even the ones famously started by college dropouts).

As applied to the NFL and NBA, having no age cap would work if (a) *only* the most overwhelmingly and stunningly exceptional athletes entered the draft out of high school and/or (b) the pro teams would *only* draft the most overwhelmingly and stunningly exception athletes that entered the draft out of high school. Essentially, no age cap would work if ONLY LeBron-types entered the draft and got drafted. What we saw with the NBA was that this didn't happen - too many high school players that weren't ready were entering the draft, meaning that either (1) NBA teams drafted them on athletic potential alone since they were scared of missing out on the next Kevin Garnett or Kobe Bryant, which led to lots of high profile busts and lowered the overall quality of play or (2) high school players that got overly-positive biased information about their draft prospects ended up not getting drafted AND lost their college eligibility. As I stated before, the NBA is not a league where you can sit your top draft picks on the bench or send them down to the D-League - those guys need to be able to play on day one at the top level or else they're busts. That 1-year age limit is at least a buffer for the NBA to make sure that they're not completely drafting players on spec because making a mistake with a lottery pick in basketball is multitudes more damaging in the long-term compared to any other sport.

(09-12-2013 12:58 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I agree that if your talent is so overwhelmingly and stunningly exceptional that you might break through.

But that's who we are talking about with would-be NFL or NBA athletes. That description applies to Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett.

(09-12-2013 12:58 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  if you're in the 99.9% of the people that apply to Google on a daily basis, your resume is getting thrown in the trash if you don't have a college degree.

Yes -- Google doesn't want to hire some high school kid who offers nothing more than a solid school transcript and a working knowledge of C++ and Java.

But, Google can and does take care of that by just ignoring the resume or politely saying "no" to the kid. They don't need to organize and enforce an industry-wide prohibition on hiring people who haven't been to college.

(09-12-2013 10:44 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 10:37 AM)CommuterBob Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 10:13 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  I have no problem with being a minor league if we adopt the features of a minor league.

1. Parent club assigns talent.
2. Academic component is removed.
3. Players aren't artifically required to remain at the minor level for a minimum time period.
4. Parent club picks up all or part of the payroll.
5. In lieu assigning all players to the teams, the major teams have to buy the contract of a player from a willing school. If the Jets want Johnny Football and he has two years left with TAMU, the Jets have to make an offer TAMU is willing to accept to sell his contract.
6. No more limit on the number of years at a school.

Not that I don't agree with your concept, but why would a school agree to hosting a basketball or football team if there wasn't an academic component? Plus, if #4 is in place, why would the pro team agree to #5?

#5 is only if #4 isn't in place.

The presumption Wetzel puts forward is it is all about the money so let's get it in the open. Fine. Let's make a real minor league system.

Let Alabama sell their QB to Green Bay and then Bama can buy Arkansas State's QB.

Well, since some here think it would be advisable to create a "real" minor league system, I assume everyone will be fine with the concept of these programs paying "real" federal and state taxes, just like the "real" professional minor and major league programs.

There are certain requirements for college programs (among them, adherence to Title IX). In exchange, these programs are classified as as college/educational programs and enjoy tax-exempt status. IMO, it is fine to run these programs in a minor league system, just pay the taxes like the minor leagues. Lest see how many programs are willing to pay 1/3+ of their revenues in taxes.

The argument that these programs are already feeders to the professional leagues so they are already de-facto professional leagues is bogus, IMO. Yes, they may feed players to the pros, but that is by default as FB and BB do not have minor league systems. Colleges have sent players to the pros for decades - extending far back to when college programs were much different than what they have become today.

(09-12-2013 12:58 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 12:37 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 12:22 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 12:12 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 11:58 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Google aren't hiring people without college degrees regardless of how talented and smart they might be at age 18.

Google isn't conspiring with every other "team" in Silicon Valley to force 18-year-olds to go to college before applying for a job in Silicon Valley.

If a group of super-talented 18-year-olds demonstrated the capability to, say, create a new mobile phone operating system that is as good as or better than Android or iOS, I guarantee that major tech companies would hire them even if they never enrolled in a college.

They probably would simply buy the idea from them rather than hire them.

I said "capability" as in they've shown they have the talent, not that they have a fully-formed OS that they're offering for sale. And even if they did, Silicon Valley companies usually want to bring on the creators/developers so that they acquire the know-how about the product and not just a bunch of lines of code.

Let me clarify.

If you, as an 18-year old, can get a meeting with Google to show that you have the capability to create a new mobile OS at that age, yes, they might hire you (although as CommuterBob intimated, if I were that 18-year old kid, I'd go out and get VC funding and have Google buy my company for many more dollars). I agree that if your talent is so overwhelmingly and stunningly exceptional that you might break through.

However, if you're in the 99.9% of the people that apply to Google on a daily basis, your resume is getting thrown in the trash if you don't have a college degree. Same thing for any of the other tech firms in Silicon Valley (even the ones famously started by college dropouts).

As applied to the NFL and NBA, having no age cap would work if (a) *only* the most overwhelmingly and stunningly exceptional athletes entered the draft out of high school and/or (b) the pro teams would *only* draft the most overwhelmingly and stunningly exception athletes that entered the draft out of high school. Essentially, no age cap would work if ONLY LeBron-types entered the draft and got drafted. What we saw with the NBA was that this didn't happen - too many high school players that weren't ready were entering the draft, meaning that either (1) NBA teams drafted them on athletic potential alone since they were scared of missing out on the next Kevin Garnett or Kobe Bryant, which led to lots of high profile busts and lowered the overall quality of play or (2) high school players that got overly-positive biased information about their draft prospects ended up not getting drafted AND lost their college eligibility. As I stated before, the NBA is not a league where you can sit your top draft picks on the bench or send them down to the D-League - those guys need to be able to play on day one at the top level or else they're busts. That 1-year age limit is at least a buffer for the NBA to make sure that they're not completely drafting players on spec because making a mistake with a lottery pick in basketball is multitudes more damaging in the long-term compared to any other sport.

I agree the leagues benefit too much to actually do this plan, but a guy can dream.


"(a) *only* the most overwhelmingly and stunningly exceptional athletes entered the draft out of high school and/or (b) the pro teams would *only* draft the most overwhelmingly and stunningly exception athletes that entered the draft out of high school."

From the college perspective, these are exactly the athletes that shouldn't be in college. They're the ones that could be considered "harmed" or "underpaid". In my dream world, all these athletes go to the pros or a minor league or wherever, and the only ones that go to college are the ones that genuinely want to go to college.

about the glorified D league comments.....

im currently a college student at a p5 school and I love the fact that I go to class with the same guys on the football & basketball teams. at the end of the day 95% of these guys are real & legit student athletes trying to earn their degrees. guys who put academics ahead of sports and are working their butts off in the classroom just as hard as I am. at the end of the day they are the same as me and thats why its so much easier to cheer them on each saturday.

i got to talk to the best bb recruit who ever committed to our university since the rankings started. he came here because he wanted to stay close to home and help build a new bb powerhouse. id hate to see things like that which makes CFB & CBB so great get tarnished.

sorry but i still firmly believe the amateur system is still strong and hasnt been tainted by the sh.it that has been thrown at it from the last few months.

(09-12-2013 01:18 PM)Eagle78 Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 10:44 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 10:37 AM)CommuterBob Wrote:  

(09-12-2013 10:13 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  I have no problem with being a minor league if we adopt the features of a minor league.

1. Parent club assigns talent.
2. Academic component is removed.
3. Players aren't artifically required to remain at the minor level for a minimum time period.
4. Parent club picks up all or part of the payroll.
5. In lieu assigning all players to the teams, the major teams have to buy the contract of a player from a willing school. If the Jets want Johnny Football and he has two years left with TAMU, the Jets have to make an offer TAMU is willing to accept to sell his contract.
6. No more limit on the number of years at a school.

Not that I don't agree with your concept, but why would a school agree to hosting a basketball or football team if there wasn't an academic component? Plus, if #4 is in place, why would the pro team agree to #5?

#5 is only if #4 isn't in place.

The presumption Wetzel puts forward is it is all about the money so let's get it in the open. Fine. Let's make a real minor league system.

Let Alabama sell their QB to Green Bay and then Bama can buy Arkansas State's QB.

Well, since some here think it would be advisable to create a "real" minor league system, I assume everyone will be fine with the concept of these programs paying "real" federal and state taxes, just like the "real" professional minor and major league programs.

There are certain requirements for college programs (among them, adherence to Title IX). In exchange, these programs are classified as as college/educational programs and enjoy tax-exempt status. IMO, it is fine to run these programs in a minor league system, just pay the taxes like the minor leagues. Lest see how many programs are willing to pay 1/3+ of their revenues in taxes.

The argument that these programs are already feeders to the professional leagues so they are already de-facto professional leagues is bogus, IMO. Yes, they may feed players to the pros, but that is by default as FB and BB do not have minor league systems. Colleges have sent players to the pros for decades - extending far back to when college programs were much different than what they have become today.

This is an important point and where we may need to bifurcate the issue. I think we're focused a lot on what a school may or not be paying directly to a player. At the end of the day, if you want to be in compliance with Title IX, a school is going to have to pay the same amount to a Heisman-winning QB as it does to the last scholarship player off the bench on the women's water polo team.

What shouldn't affect Title IX or tax-exempt status, though, is what the market has already been adjusting for despite NCAA rules: outside money from boosters and other sources that are reflecting the true market value of players. Why can't the schools just let this continue and remove the restrictions? Maybe have a reporting requirement of payments similar to what you have to disclose if you make a political donation to a candidate or party, but otherwise just let it happen. This way, the football and basketball players that are truly making a ton of money for their respective schools can get paid their fair market value without such schools running afoul of Title IX laws and needing to deal with tax-exempt status. Take what's currently underground and make it above ground. It's all happening already and has been happening for decades and decades (SMU wasn't exactly the first school to engage in pay-for-play tactics, and that scandal is now 30 years in the past). Why deny it? Why try to shut down something that won't ever be shut down no matter what rules are put into place? Any argument that alleviating restrictions would cause abuse of the system doesn't make sense since the system is already being abused to the maximum extent (only we pretend it's not happening and then act shocked when stories like the current Oklahoma State one come out). I'd rather see that money go into the pockets of the players on the field than the Taj Majal-like facilities that are at Oregon.

(09-12-2013 01:27 PM)nuftw Wrote:  "(a) *only* the most overwhelmingly and stunningly exceptional athletes entered the draft out of high school and/or (b) the pro teams would *only* draft the most overwhelmingly and stunningly exception athletes that entered the draft out of high school."

From the college perspective, these are exactly the athletes that shouldn't be in college. They're the ones that could be considered "harmed" or "underpaid". In my dream world, all these athletes go to the pros or a minor league or wherever, and the only ones that go to college are the ones that genuinely want to go to college.

Oh, I agree. LeBron James spending any time in college would have been pointless. It's just that high school players that aren't anywhere near as good as LeBron and are too cocky enter the draft to their detriment while NBA GMs also feel that they have to draft high school players that aren't as good as Lebron. Think of the very basic roots of financial crisis back in 2008 - consumers couldn't help themselves when banks offered so much loose credit, and in turn the banks couldn't help themselves providing even more credit to keep more consumers coming in (which created a vicious circle). That's essentially what happened in the NBA context when high school players could enter into the draft directly. The draft is inherently NOT a free market situation, so there aren't any natural checks and balances to keep both high school players and NBA GMs for overreaching. The NBA age limit is to protect everyone involved from themselves.

Honestly i wouldn't mind CFB becoming like NCAA baseball, i also think that every sport should be allowed full scholarships

These athletes, in all sports, get to go to a university because they can play a sport. i remember playing football in HS, it was worth all the extra hours just to wear that uniform and say i played football for Abilene High.

The only way i ended up in university was spending 3 years in ****-holes getting shot at, mortared and watching friends die. while I joined because of family tradition, thousands think that getting the GI bill to pay for college is worth joining the infantry in the middle of a war.

Athletes are given the opportunity to get a degree, if they don't that's on them

(09-12-2013 08:36 AM)CommuterBob Wrote:  http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf--late...22795.html

Quote:This detestable idea was later co-opted by the NCAA and the modern Olympic Games (the ancient Greek athletes were actually paid). The public was then repeatedly sold the idea of the innocence of amateurism and sold it well. This conveniently allowed the powerful administrators to control all the revenue produced.

Amateurism is a sham in practice, too, one that simply isn't being followed or respected, as story after story after story proves. So many of the athletes, players and administrators don't believe in it. That's the value of the coverage. It's made denying the extent of the violations laughable.

Enforcing amateurism became so impossible and ridiculous that even the International Olympic Committee – still in favor of kickbacks and bribes, mind you – gave up on it … nearly three decades ago. The Olympics didn't collapse because Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps can appear in TV commercials. It actually got more popular. It'd be no different in the college game.

Quote:The real scandals don't involve money; they involve academics or drug-test fixing or other real-world issues. Systematic academic fraud – one that keeps borderline students uneducated – is what should generate the harshest penalties, the loudest condemnations and the most aggressive NCAA investigations. These are, after all, supposed to be institutions of higher learning. And the schools are very capable of looking into this stuff themselves.

That isn't how the system is set up though.

College sports wants to protect its money – making sure every dollar Manziel or Fluker or whoever can generate comes through them and only them. No side deals directly to the players. That's the motivation to stop middlemen.

I don't necessarily disagree with the spirit, but unfortunately Title IX has a large role to play in the process as well. Simply put, you cannot pay a football player without also paying a women's tennis player, or rower, or some other non-revenue sports participant. The Title IX lawsuits of the '80's and '90's have regulated as such - there must be proportional opportunity for both sexes and that includes scholarships and participation in athletics. Never mind the simple fact of life that women don't particiapte in sports at the same level of interest as men do, or the fact that by and large, women's sports (as well as many men's sports outside of football and basketball) don't generate any revenue. It's all about gender equality, which is a noble goal, but it is truly what is holding back athletes in revenue sports from getting paid.

Athletes get tons of preferential treatment within the current system as well. Many get into colleges that they could not otherwise attend (and many get into college period when they would normally be unable to qualify) simply because they are good at a sport. That's a huge benefit right off the bat. They get free tutoring, free training, preferential scheduling, all on top of their free tuition, room & board, and books. Sure they need a few more dollars to make it fully complete and to cover such things as laundry, transportation, and other soft costs, but they also have the ability now to have sponsored entertainment provided by the schools. The "slave" mentality that Wetzel and others in the media try to portray for these athletes is way off base. Yes, these athletes make millions for the schools, but they also get more than their fair share when you compare the benefits graduate students, or even faculty get for also making the schools millions in research grants. And because the revenue sports' revenue really covers the athletic department budget at only a handful of schools, most of the time the school itself is having to cover some of those costs - and most schools have the rest of the student body paying a decent chunk of that in the form of student fees. Again, I don't have a problem paying players, but if another student has to contribute even a dime unwillingly to do it, then I do. That's not what universities are supposed to be about.

And as Wetzel alluded to, the academic fraud should be the biggest scandals of them all. If an agent wants to make a bad investment by shoveling some money to Tyler Bray in hopes that he'll sign with him after graduation, by all means let him make that mistake. The NCAA's concern is that agents would go crazy and give loans to these kids and saddle them with debt they may not be able to pay off with a professional career - and that's noble for the NCAA to do - but there are other ways to prevent that from happening. The primary mission of the NCAA should be to make sure these kids get an education and anything that violates that primary mission should be seen as much more heinous than a kid getting a few extra dollars. I know the NCAA is also trying to fight off corruption and influence, but it is seemingly doing so at the expense of education. Have half your football team enrolled in a no-work class? The NCAA looks the other way and says that's an academic issue. But have a guy get $500 from a long-time family friend and he has to sit out half a season. That's messed up. The former is literally cheating these kids out of receiving the primary benefit of going to college, whereas the latter isn't a crime at all. Yet what gets punished?

In that regard, I agree with Wetzel.

Good post and commentary Bob.

Go ahead and pay the athletes whatever amount, but make them pay for their education. All along still maintaining a roster size.