College basketball is back. The Maui Invitational, The Great Alaska Shootout and the Preseason NIT are all signs that another season is upon us. Most importantly Tuesday marked the beginning of the second annual ACC/Big Ten Challenge, the most entertaining tournament of them all. Eight of the top 25 teams in the country are playing in this series.
No. 1 Duke’s 78-77 victory over No. 8 Illinois on Tuesday was the first of what promises to be numerous great games. It must have been very entertaining for those who have cable, even though they had to endure the rants of Dick Vitale, a man who has never met a player or coach who isn’t “great,” “super” or “special.” Honestly, have you ever heard him say a bad word about anyone?
Like most tournaments, the ACC/Big Ten Challenge has loads of corporate sponsors paying for this event. ESPN is paying lots of money to broadcast these games, and the schools participating are getting lots of money to play in these games.
Who isn’t getting any money? Coaches? No. Athletic directors? No. That’s right, it’s the players, the only essential part of the game. I would pay to see Duke-Michigan State on the playground, but you could not pay me to watch Tom Izzo stomp his feet and yell. Will someone please pay these players?
It is time for the NCAA, the most hypocritical organization in the world, to step up and pay the athletes of big-time college sports, especially basketball and football. Parents and students complain that these athletes are getting a full scholarship, but $30,000 seems like a small amount of money when you realize CBS paid the NCAA $6 billion to broadcast March Madness.
The NCAA had no problem accepting that money, just like they have no problem accepting Fed-Ex’s money for the Orange Bowl. No one would ask the NCAA to broadcast these games for free, so why should the players have to play for free?
The money the schools make off the athlete’s blood, sweat and tears provides Johnny’s library and Suzie’s chemistry lab.
Then, critics say, you would have to pay all athletes. Well, no. When NBC pays $6 billion to broadcast the collegiate pole-vaulting championships, then those athletes can be paid accordingly. They might put in as much time and effort, but they do not bring in revenue to the school. I’m sorry, but that’s the way the proverbial cookie crumbles. A construction worker might work harder than an investment banker, but for obvious reasons they do not make the same salary. Fair? Maybe not, but it’s the way the world works.
Also, if you pay the athletes, it eliminates the unsavory element of sports agents. Players won’t have to illegally take money from agents because they will have their own money to buy clothes or jewelry or to take their girlfriends out. There will be no more suspensions because an athlete didn’t have enough money for a plane ticket to visit his sick mother. The NCAA can make billions off the players, but they can’t give a player $200 to visit his family.
But, if you pay these athletes, what is their incentive to go to class? Well, those who have no pro future will realize that they cannot live off a stipend and will have to educate themselves. If an athlete stops going to class because he’s making a little money, chances are he is not a Rhodes scholar.
It would be nice if the athletes with pro futures went to class, but if they don’t is it really that big of a deal? You go to college to prepare yourself for the workforce. Some are lucky enough to be ready during their sophomore year. When advertising majors focus mainly on advertising, it is applauded. When an athlete focuses on athletics, he is criticized.
Somewhere along the way we were taught that it is okay for certain people to focus on one profession, but it’s not okay for others. The logic is that very few athletes make the pros, so they should get a “real” education. However, it is considered perfectly fine for aspiring actors to go to an acting school like Juilliard. These students focus exclusively on their potential acting careers. Is the rate of success in the acting profession distinctively higher than in professional sports? What if a Juilliard graduate is never successful as an actor? What will he/she do then? When aspiring actors graduate and wait tables, preparing for “their big break,” they are just “paying their dues.”
If a basketball player, like Chris Webber, leaves college early and struggles, everyone blames it on his lack of college experience. No one thinks he is just learning the game from other professionals. If you’ve watched a game recently, you can see that Chris Webber turned out fine.
An actor rarely comes out of college and stars opposite Tom Cruise in a major film. They work their way up, doing small plays and taking lesser roles in movies. This is exactly what the pros do — only they do it in the public eye. For every Matt Damon or Ben Affleck, there are a hundred Joey Tribbianis, still waiting for that starring role. This double standard is ridiculous and the perception of athletes should change.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
