At the end of last year I watched Pony Excess a documentary about how players for SMU were being paid by boosters (people who fundraise for the school) enormous sums of money to entice players to come to SMU. However, it wasn’t just SMU that was paying players to come to their school it was nearly everyone in college football. SMU was the only school however to get the death penalty which shut down their season and I would argue since then has tarnished their football program ever since then.
Somehow people in America have t he romantic idea that athletes are at any university to get a good education in addition to playing sports. People tend to argue about the high rates of graduation from colleges with sports programs. There are exceptions like Vanderbilt who apparently have a graduation rate of over 90%. However, I would mention some programs with this claim. The first is that college athletes in general don’t always pick the most demanding majors. This would make sense though since their primary role is to play sports. Also professors are pretty aware of who the athletes are since they get notices if there is a “school-sponsored” trip. Professors also don’t usually require the same amount of work from athletics that is required of regular students. This only perpetuates the notion of athletes spending more time on the field than studying or in class.
If we want to be honest though the role of college athletes is somewhat of a minor league or farm league for majors sports teams. Nearly everyone on the field is making money except for athletes. Camera men, refs, and even ball boys are making more than athletes. The highest paid people on the field are usually the coaches. Most people are not aware that college coaches are paid more than professors, deans, and presidents of colleges. The argument is that since sports exposes the school to the nation if the coach is good and keeps winning the school will spread to states and cities where the school is not well known or entice people to apply to that school. John Calipari who is the basketball coach the University of Kentucky is paid $4 million per year. Nick Saban who coaches the University of Alabama football team makes on average around $4 million. However, college coaches are underpaid compared to professional coaches. Bill Belichick is paid $7 million per year to coach the New England Patriots. LA Lakers coach Phil Jackson makes $10.3 million per year. Professional athletes make much more than their coaches however which is how it should be in college sports. The athletes themselves collectively determine the outcome of a game than any coach on the field yet they are not paid. Statistics from NCAA, the odds of an NCCA basketball player getting drafted are 1.2%.Don’t forget to get the odds of just playing basketball in the NCAA are 3.1%. For football the odds are a little better with 1.7% of NCAA senior football players getting drafted into the NFL. So if over 98% of college athletes will not go pro why don’t colleges at least pay them for their time on the field? Colleges could also establish relationships with professional sports teams in order to recruit NCAA players.
Paying athletes would not put money in the pockets of college kids, but also reduce the corruption of college sports. The reason we have the scandals is because it is illegal to pay athletes which in economic terms suggest they are not getting paid their market value. Allow players to be paid any amount by the school or have donors endow positions with their own money and we would have a better system. The NCAA wants to try to convince people that they are trying to promote young men and women playing a sport and getting a degree in the process. People should never look at the intentions of any program they should look at the outcomes are results as the true test of anything.
