Before I begin this article understand that I write this as a former scholarship NCAA athlete of 2 years and a 2 year academic scholarship recipient. I have seen the NCAA from both sides and I can only make one assessment. The NCAA is the biggest legally allowed pimp in this country. The organization that governs intercollegiate athletics to ensure that athletes are academically eligible and not using performance enhancing drugs are also tasked with ensuring that major universities reap as much profit as they can without the players getting a cent.
Now before someone points out that they get a free education consider this. For 2 year I got a free education for busting my tail for untold numbers of hours each week. After that I got a free education for simply going to class and getting good grades. While I was working the extra hours as an athlete I was part of a product that produced revenue for my school. When I functioned simply as a student I was compensated by receiving a free education by doing the very thing that's costs money in the first place (going to college). Now in no way shape or form am I knocking academic scholarship but those athletes sacrifice class time, study time, and social life in the name of playing intercollegiate athletics.
The NCAA mandates rules of how many hours can be spent on mandatory team activities; this is easily subjugated by “Voluntary” workouts and meetings. Considering that Scholarships are annually renewable and a student can be dismissed for almost any reason from his scholarship one can see how those “voluntary” team activities are crucial and therefore will not get skipped or challenged. I have personally seen the sport pushed before academics and seen people miss classes and perquisites because they were only offered during regular practice time and etc. For those “Student-Athletes” their sport is their life and the only reason they are on that campus.
Meanwhile the “student-athletes” get a college education consider that not everyone gets a full scholarship on each team, some get half and some get none at all. As these teams come and win and gain national exposure they generate millions of dollars in ticket and merchandise sales, television deals, and even sponsorship deals that pay some of the operating costs for schools such as jerseys and pads. If I told you will pay you roughly $100,000 and so you could earn me millions how would you feel? I mean $100,000 is not small piece of change and a lot more than most of America, but how would you feel when you realized your efforts were putting millions in my pocket in exchange?
The worst of this broken system of rules comes when the NCAA has to crackdown to keep “fairness”. This season University of Georgia Wide Receiver A.J. Green was suspended for 4 games because he took his game worn jersey and sold it to someone who offered him $600 bucks for it. He could have kept that jersey for a memento and hung it on his wall but since he sold it for some nice pocket change he was demonized and treated like he took performance enhancing drugs. His selling of his jersey in no way impacted anyone on either team gave no unfair advantages or hurt anyone in any way. What he did was attempt to take a share of the profit that the NCAA guards like pimps on the street. Meanwhile replicas of his jersey are sold in 17 different options for prices as high as $150. Does nobody see a problem with this picture?
Reggie Bush just recently announced that he is going to forfeit his 2005 Heisman Trophy amidst the allegations that he took gifts during his time at USC. No matter if he got gifts or not, his on field performance was not enhanced by drugs nor was his teammates. The teams he played against were not at a disadvantage so at the end of the day he trained, practiced, and went out and performed as the best player in all of college that year winning by a near landslide. Meanwhile USC gave back their trophy and forfeited wins and records but they will not have to give back one cent or pay any fines. The school administrators who most likely were aware or enabled said NCAA violations simply resigned or moved on to better jobs becoming untouchable.
Where is the justice? Meanwhile USC has to give up some scholarships (meaning kids who always wanted to play for USC but needed scholarships will have less of a chance) and cannot play in the postseason for 2 years (also meaning the current students, many of whom were not enrolled in 2005 cannot play in any championships or bowls). In essence everyone who did something wrong got away scot free (except the shame that Bush is getting but then again he is now a millionaire and Super bowl Champion), therefore how is this fair? For every game A.J. Green misses the University of Georgia continues to sell his jersey and reap the profits. How can a system that allows such injustices be considered fair and just?
I’m not saying that college athletes should get millions but a stipend to get gas money for a car, a meal outside of the school café or to go see a movie is not unreasonable. Realize that a student-athlete doesn’t not have time to work any sort of job for pocket money. Many of these young black athletes come from families that cannot offer much to them in form of financial support, heck I used to be one of them. It’s hard when you’re freshmen and you can’t order a pizza or wash your clothes because you literally have no money. That issue is compounded when you school is raking in thousands and often millions due to your play as part of a team. All teams should get a small stipend to give some pocket money and it should be the same for every player, that way it’s fair to the team, because even the stars need their team to win. This is just a thought, but one thing is sure, this system is corrupt, broken and the exploitation of the young student-athletes needs to stop.
