1-2-13: College Football Madness

I was the president of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee for a Division I athletic program when I was in college, a scholarship athlete, and I believe that it is incredibly ignorant to overlook how these students are actually "paid": through education. We're talking about scholarship athletes; scholarships that are built partially on taxpayer dollars (since a huge percentage of the top programs are publicly-funded schools), and the other part comes from donors (who were somehow a part of an earlier taxpayer-funded program that did favorably).

Yes, it is true that the colleges and the NCAA and the BCS are making millions of dollars off of the talents of these student-athletes, but if the student wanted to be paid, they could enter the draft. The NBA requires one year of college ball before the student can enter a draft, and I believe the NFL requires the same. This gives both the professional teams, as well as the student, to see how well the student will perform at a highly-competitive level before they are given that $10M annual contract.

The fact is that 90+% of student athletes, in all sports (including basketball and football, the collegiate "breadwinners), will NOT go on to play these sports professionally, which means that colleges and universities should be doing what colleges and universities were designed to do: educate, prepare students for careers. There was a great series of commercials for one of the athletic conferences a couple years ago that showed baseball players, swimmers, etc., who were excelling off the field. Why are we not celebrating this anymore?

On today's program, Mr. Branch continually overlooked the NCAA's role in auditing academic performance, and only honed in on the organization's role in determining amateur status. Most colleges hold their athletes to pathetic academic standards, especially in money-making sports like basketball and football, whereas the NCAA creates requirements for students to have passable grades in order to compete. Let's take a look at Towson University as an example. The Tigers' men's basketball program performed so terribly in the classroom that their athletic conference gave them the boot. Additionally, in the 2010-'11 and 2011-'12 seasons, combined, the team only had a single win. Yet, when the university was determining which men's programs to cut due to funding issues, the basketball team was overlooked - despite being a disgrace both on and off the court - for two programs that were doing significantly better in both academics and athletics.

All of what I am pointing to here goes directly against what these academic institutions are designed to be about. Especially in the state institutions, where the academics are so heavily funded by tax revenue and other government funding, we should be demanding the schools pay more attention to getting these 90+% of students who have little future in athletics a shot to make it in the workforce.

Lastly, as I mentioned briefly earlier, these students are already being paid; many of them with a free education (or a deeply discounted education), which they, in many cases, are not taking advantage of. I found Mr. Branch's estimation of "50 hours per week in classes and 60 hours on the field" to be a gross overstatement. The average course load of any college student is closer to 15 hours in class per week; and if there is such an imbalance as 15 to 60, then the real issue should not be "why are we not paying these kids?" It should be "why have we lost sight of our goals as educators?"