Looks like the split will primarily between FCS and FBS football schools, with FBS schools providing stipends to all their athletes. But will the Sun Belt definitely be included? Would we be included as a basketball only school? Could we really afford to pay all our athletes stipends which likely will be required? Will we have to add football to continue in the "new" Division I? I really don't know the answers to these questions, but the head of the NCAA said "Big changes are coming". Seems like the only thing we have going for us, at this moment, is that we are in a conference with football. Not sure how long a conference, which is now totally focused on football, will stand for that.

I'm just barely hanging in now as a fan of a college program. If and when the day comes that they start paying college athletes a stipend along with a full scholarship to play ball, I'm through for sure. That is downright ridiculous. If I'm still here when that happens, I'm completely done with college sports. I will not support that, nor condone it. No way in hell a program like UALR can survive doing that. Evidently it's barely surviving now. The next thing they'll be wanting to do is identify a good athlete in junior high, and give him a stipend through school until he's ready to come to college on a full ride and a stipend.

We become a wasteland between d2 and "full" d1


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

We already have minor league sports. If a player wants to get paid, he ought to go that route.

(09-26-2013 11:20 AM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  We already have minor league sports. If a player wants to get paid, he ought to go that route.

I don't have strong moral feelings about it, one way or the other. I think it ridiculous that coaches make millions, and players are out there getting life-changing concussions, knee injuries, etc. and get nothing. Yes, they do get a scholarship, but how much is that realy worth to an Instate student who could likely get a pell grant or some other scholarship or funding. It does likely take UALR out of the "big time" athletics ballgame, which is sad. But I might get more enjoyment out of watching "real" student athletes in the long run.

And a graduate assistant helps a professor on a project that will be worth no telling what on down the line, and he gets an assistant's pay. "Assumption of the risk." If you don't want to get hurt, don't play football.

(09-26-2013 12:00 PM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  And a graduate assistant helps a professor on a project that will be worth no telling what on down the line, and he gets an assistant's pay. "Assumption of the risk." If you don't want to get hurt, don't play football.

While I don't particularly like bringing race into the conversation, you typically have white coaches and administrators making big bucks off the backs of athletes that are often poor and black. There just is something wrong with that picture. If coaches weren't making millions of dollars, i would probably be much more strongly against stipends.

Kevin Sumlin, James Franklin and others, if I'm correct, are not white. They are quallifed coaches being paid the going rate. Dont' make it a black, white issue. Plenty of good black coaches in college as well as the pros. Whether the players should get a stipend is another issue.

The Big East is going to be very much in this discussion, as they are all non-football schools.

The man who invents a valuable patent at IBM gets his salary. The CEO makes the bonus from the increase in the company's profits. The principle of the big guys making the money is all through our society, not just in college. And these kids do not even have college degrees yet. And a 4-year college degree completely paid for is not chicken feed, in the first place. What is the total cost of a 4-year degree these days, anyway?

(09-26-2013 12:52 PM)outsideualr Wrote:  Kevin Sumlin, James Franklin and others, if I'm correct, are not white. They are quallifed coaches being paid the going rate. Dont' make it a black, white issue. Plenty of good black coaches in college as well as the pros. Whether the players should get a stipend is another issue.

To me that's the entire issue. Many college athletes come from poor and/or broken homes. The sad reality is that most of those athletes are also black. If 95% of college athletes came from middle class homes or above, no one would be talking about stipends. Maybe stipends should be need-based just like financial aid is for regular students. A college student should have the money to be able to go home and see their families or go out to dinner and a movie if they choose to do so.

I dont think the kids should get move than the scholarship but should be allowed to work.

As far as the little guy not getting paid, risk/reward.

If i take the risk with my money to pay you then i get the loin's share of the reward.

There are guys in my job that make 75k a year and there are guys making 3 to 6 million a year. Risk reward at the highest level. The guy on the low end is salary and the guy on the high end is straight commission. To get paid big you risk.

The kids risk is interesting. Most would play pickup ball anyway.

Football is way different. A few kids get hurt every game.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Let them do work-study for spending money. Nothing wrong with that. I was on tuition scholarship in school and I still did work-study. It would be one more thing to monitor.

(09-26-2013 01:11 PM)mjs Wrote:  Many college athletes come from poor and/or broken homes.

Call me unsympathetic if you like, but all six of my children went to some college, and all of them paid their own way because I was just not in a position to pay for it. It was not a broken home, but pretty close to being a home that was flat broke a couple of times.

Proposals to pay the student athlete a stipend is another attempt at socialism. Everyone will be taken care of from birth to the grave, and nobody will be rich, and there will be no poor, but everybody's the same. That's the road this country is going down. But, someone still has to do the lower echelon jobs. Is the guy that spends a fortune going to college and medical school going to make the same money as the person who does not go to college or doesn't even finish high school, and does custodial work? That's pure bull****. That's a little bit of an exaggeration, but not far from the truth. That's socialism. I realize that some don't have the chances in life that others do. That's unfortunate, but a fact of life. Take away the rich who invest their money for new ventures, and this country goes to pot. How many of you have ever been offered a job by a poor person? Hell no to colleges giving stipends to student athletes. It would be interesting to know the percentage of all these poor student athletes on scholarships, that actually get their degrees.

(09-26-2013 01:53 PM)LRTrojan Wrote:  Proposals to pay the student athlete a stipend is another attempt at socialism. Everyone will be taken care of from birth to the grave, and nobody will be rich, and there will be no poor, but everybody's the same. That's the road this country is going down. But, someone still has to do the lower echelon jobs. Is the guy that spends a fortune going to college and medical school going to make the same money as the person who does not go to college or doesn't even finish high school, and does custodial work? That's pure bull****. That's a little bit of an exaggeration, but not far from the truth. That's socialism. I realize that some don't have the chances in life that others do. That's unfortunate, but a fact of life. Take away the rich who invest their money for new ventures, and this country goes to pot. How many of you have ever been offered a job by a poor person? Hell no to colleges giving stipends to student athletes. It would be interesting to know the percentage of all these poor student athletes on scholarships, that actually get their degrees.

When college athletics started players were students who happened to play sports. Same as many of us did in high school. We played because it was fun and something to do. Now big time college athletics is a billion dollar "business". Schools have athletic budgets of more than 100 million dollars. The two main coaches at UAF make about 6 million combined. Their assistants salaries total millions more. The schools make millions of dollars off these kids whose scholarships are rescinded if they don't play well enough. Like I said, the majority of Southern schools have white coaches (making millions) and primarily black athletes working for nothing. Something smells here. I really have mixed feelings about stipends, and in many ways don't like the idea, but it will happen in the very near future.

(09-26-2013 03:10 PM)mjs Wrote:  

(09-26-2013 01:53 PM)LRTrojan Wrote:  Proposals to pay the student athlete a stipend is another attempt at socialism. Everyone will be taken care of from birth to the grave, and nobody will be rich, and there will be no poor, but everybody's the same. That's the road this country is going down. But, someone still has to do the lower echelon jobs. Is the guy that spends a fortune going to college and medical school going to make the same money as the person who does not go to college or doesn't even finish high school, and does custodial work? That's pure bull****. That's a little bit of an exaggeration, but not far from the truth. That's socialism. I realize that some don't have the chances in life that others do. That's unfortunate, but a fact of life. Take away the rich who invest their money for new ventures, and this country goes to pot. How many of you have ever been offered a job by a poor person? Hell no to colleges giving stipends to student athletes. It would be interesting to know the percentage of all these poor student athletes on scholarships, that actually get their degrees.

When college athletics started players were students who happened to play sports. Same as many of us did in high school. We played because it was fun and something to do. Now big time college athletics is a billion dollar "business". Schools have athletic budgets of more than 100 million dollars. The two main coaches at UAF make about 6 million combined. Their assistants salaries total millions more. The schools make millions of dollars off these kids whose scholarships are rescinded if they don't play well enough. Like I said, the majority of Southern schools have white coaches (making millions) and primarily black athletes working for nothing. Something smells here. I really have mixed feelings about stipends, and in many ways don't like the idea, but it will happen in the very near future.

"primarily black athletes working for nothing." That's pure bull****. They are getting the great opportunity that literally millions of even better students don't get, and that is the opportunity for a completely paid for college education, and most of them aren't even there for that reason.

And as you say, "it will happen in the very near future", and I agree. But I won't be paying for it. If I'm not already gone by that time, I will be then. And when a program like UALR jacks up the ticket prices to pay for it, more fans will be dropping off like fleas off of a dipped hound dog. It probably won't hurt programs like Arkansas. They've got enough fans that'll continue to pay out the butt to be able to call themselves hog ticket holders, and others waiting in line to get the tickets of those who drop out, but it'll be the beginning of the end for programs like ours.

It doesn't really matter the good athletes and their families are already getting paid under the table. I'm always amazed that some folks think the big time programs are not indirectly giving benefits to athletes. What the ncaa is attempt the level the playing field for the haves. Schools like ualr are part of the have nots.

(09-26-2013 04:59 PM)LR Alum Wrote:  It doesn't really matter the good athletes and their families are already getting paid under the table. I'm always amazed that some folks think the big time programs are not indirectly giving benefits to athletes. What the ncaa is attempt the level the playing field for the haves. Schools like ualr are part of the have nots.

You're likely right about athletes at the big schools being paid under the table. That's one reason I think the stipends are silly. Two thousand dollars a year is chump change. It will do nothing to stop the under the table payments, other than make them worse. Once athletes are paid, it will be that much harder to monitor "illegal" payments.

Do you have any personal thoughts about black athletes making millions for "white" colleges and coaches with no compensation? Do you think I'm going over the deep end for feeling it reminds me a little too much of what the country looked like before the Civil War?

Put it like this I don't get upset when the top players look out for themselves and their families to get a piece of that multibillion pie called college athletics. I hear the grad assistant/patent argument a lot but a grad assistant can get money from an investor and start a side biz while in school. A great college player can't get money from an investor (agent) while they are in school or they lose their eligibility. Everyone has a talent rather is physical or mental. It's unfortunate that folks that have a physical talent does not get the leeway of a mental talented person while they are in college. This is all because of a fake perception that college athletics is pure and all about the student athletes.