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Can We Just Pay the College Athletes Already?

Right now Mr. G is watching football. It’s Sunday, and Sunday is for football. Unless you’re a fan of College Football. If college football is your thing, then you spent Saturday watching games.

Right now college athletes are icing their bumps and bruises, training for next week, or (less likely) studying. Now, I know there are plenty of College Athletes who will leave their four year schools with a wonderful education, and a fine work ethic.

When I look at Football players for NCAA Division 1 schools I see professional athletes. I understand that they are supposed to be students. I am cognizant of the fact that they are not allowed to be paid, but still I see professional athletes.

College athletes bring millions (cumulatively billions) of dollars to schools, television networks, bars, eateries, parking lots and cities. College athletes are devoting a huge amount of time and resources to their sport, and not necessarily getting the education they are supposedly being gifted.

How many college football players are leaving college better prepared for the workforce than if they’d just went to high school? How many college football players will actually go on to play in the NFL? How many Division 1 Football players will leave college without having made academic advances?

College football players don’t have time to get jobs, and even with a full scholarship their families are often at a serious loss fiscally with travel expenses.

Every few years there’s a big scandal, and right now Reggie Bush is about to be made an example of. As far as I know only his family accepted gifts. How in the world is a College Football Coach supposed to monitor that.

Why should we care?

These kids are sacrificing everything just to run and catch a ball. Businesses are built around their athleticism, when we stop playing pretend and just pay these kids?

4 thoughts on “Can We Just Pay the College Athletes Already?”

  1. How many college football players will actually go on to play in the NFL? How many Division 1 Football players will leave college without having made academic advances?

    I hear what you are saying, but at the same time they made the choice to play. Didn’t have to do it, no one made them.

    Most of them aren’t fortunate to go on to make millions of dollars in the NFL, NBA what have you. So I ask about graduation rates and those numbers are out there. We could pull them and see how many athletes earn a degree. And if they got a full scholarship they graduated debt free, or at least without any school loans.

    That is not such a bad deal.

    I worked 50 hours a week during college, not every semester, but I did it because I had to. Got out and still had to pay some loans off. Took a while before I was able to start earning money.

    Not necessarily saying that I disagree either with paying the athletes, but I don’t feel badly for Reggie Bush. No one took advantage of him, he always knew what he was doing.

  2. My love for college football is because every boy out there is because he truly wants his moment to play a sport he has played for a great while of his life. It’s because when I watch the NFL, my stomach turns. I am dangerously ignorant in that I believe a larger portion NFL players are there for the check and nothing more. The shenanigans that accompany the no bribery aspect of college sports is, simply put, a pain. Reggie busted his ass, though he beat out my first love, Vince Young for a trophy. No Escalade made him do that. As for their education, the kids that will be penalized for accepting gifts aren’t from a low slung university. They have the resources to do well with what they’ve got. And I, again dangerously ignorant, want to believe that the majority of them will.

  3. I completely agree that they should be paid. Same applies to college basketball players. I only played division 3 NCAA ball, which entails nowhere near the level of commitment of division 1, but still, it was huge.

    “They know what they are doing?” They are really still children when they make the decision to devote their college years to athletics (this happens long before they are seniors in high school, of course–recruiters start paying attention earlier and earlier). These kids get vast amounts of attention and support in the realm of athletics, and virtually none in academics. Not such a wonderful deal as most won’t make careers out of sports.

    1. “They know what they are doing?”

      Life is full of risks. I used to think that I was going to be a professional athlete and it didn’t happen. I am not willing to remove their obligation and responsibility to take control of their lives. Not every athlete receives the sort of attention you are talking about.

      Lots of people are forced to spend their time doing a lot of things that prevent them from focusing solely upon academics. It is not such a cut and dry picture.

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