BY BRANDON SLOANE
Recently, there has been a big controversy in the sports world regarding under the table payments to college athletes by various schools and recruiters. This is in direct violation of NCAA policy, which states that schools are not permitted to pay players anything other than the scholarship money they receive. However, as evidenced by the recent scandals involving the athletic programs at the University of South California and the University of Miami, the issue of paying athletes is running rampant and is showing no sign of slowing down. Some people believe that since this practice is already so ingrained in collegiate athletics, it should just be made legal to get rid of the hassle. But in reality, these athletes are already getting “paid” in a multitude of other ways that don’t involve dollar signs.
For starters, these athletes are essentially getting paid in the sense that they are getting a world-class education from a college or university. The fact that they have the chance to obtain an education from a university that they might not have otherwise gotten a chance to receive should be enough payment for these players. In addition, a lot of these players are attending school on an athletic scholarship. According to NCSAsports.org, the average NCAA athlete gets $15,500 in athletic scholarships per academic year. This equates to $62,000 over a 4-year period. This is an enormous amount of money that could actually pay for a full year of college expenses at most universities. With a good education plus an academic scholarship, it is clear these athletes are already getting paid more than enough by their schools.
Another way the students are already being paid is that they get access to great coaches and trainers provided by the team free of charge. College coaches are experienced, knowledgeable, and can teach players a lot of great things about their sport and help them fine tune their skills. Also these teams provide state-of-the-art training facilities for their players that help keep them in great shape and stay ready for the games. But the most overlooked aspect of payment that the school already gives to the kids is the transportation costs. Teams will travel around to many different states all across the country in order to play in different tournaments and compete against various opponents. Take the cost of gas or a plane ticket in today’s world and you can see how much money these players and their families save since the school pays for those expenses.
But the most important reason why paying student athletes shouldn’t be put into practice is because it is clearly biased in favor of male division one athletics. When people debate whether or not to pay athletes, the conversation always focuses on only the big time D-1 football and basketball stars. However, if a policy of paying athletes were to be implemented, every athlete of every sport in all 3 divisions would have to get paid equally for it to be a fair and just policy. How could a school justify paying the widely known football players but not the lesser-known track athletes? Also, because of the Title IX laws, which stipulate that women’s sports cannot be discriminated against, they would have to receive payments as well. It has to be an all or nothing policy or else it will collapse on itself. Since it isn’t fiscally reasonable to consider paying every college athlete on every level both male and female, the payment of NCAA athletes should not be employed.
The truth of the matter is, these athletes are blessed in so many ways. They get the chance to play for great teams, get a college education, and travel the country playing against top-notch teams. The fact that student athletes get to live out their dreams playing the game that they love should be more than enough of a payment to satisfy them.
