<p>Only if you wan them for free.</p>
<p>The heart of the matter is if you don’t want to pay the “student athletes” who will eventually turn pro that is fine. But explain to me why they can’t collect endorsements or have boosters give them a job while in school. How is this different from a fledging music major playing a paid gig?</p>
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<p>This is a good point. And when these boys get to college, they are given a LOT of support. My dad is involved with the athletics program at UT-Austin, and he said there is a huge center the kids can go to get tutoring or other assistance. I got to attend a banquet put on by the football program - each athlete invited the faculty member who had made the biggest impact on him. The school also waives tuition and fees for kids who leave school early to turn pro, if they want to complete their degree. I believe Tom Kite did that in his late 40s.</p>
<p>I’ve also heard Mack Brown talk to the players. He really does care about them as people. One time before a game, I heard him say, “OK, guys, after the game, I want you to shower and put some nice clothes on, because a lot of you will be going out to dinner with your folks.”</p>
<p>I do agree that it would probably make sense to pay them during college - maybe more of them would get their degree that way.</p>
<p>They can’t be paid above the std because that would lead to an even less even playing field among schools/teams. Music majors are not really competing on major teams that involve very large constituencies and high levels of national interest. They try to find a happy medium where there is some open level of competition and the richest schools do not dominate completely.</p>
<p>What is the sense of recruiting “boys who may not be very bright” and sending them to top 100 schools that happen to have a sports empire? Is this really in the best interest of the kid? I don’t think so.</p>
<p>Why does it actually matter if the richest schools dominate? Isn’t that the sort of thing we see happening in professional sports anyways? The Yankees and Red Sox certainly pay more than the KC Royals, but then again that makes it all the more exciting when a team like Tampa Bay does well.</p>
<p>“They can’t be paid above the std because that would lead to an even less even playing field among schools/teams.”</p>
<p>Less of a playing field than Alabama fielding 16 out of 22 starters who are NFL players?</p>
<p>The NFL has gone to great lengths to keep the field somewhat level. Baseball is dead and nobody cares anymore for the very reason you mention while the NFL dominates national interest. </p>
<p>Bama was nothing a few years ago. Oregon could knock them off. TAMU did. After them there are 10 teams that are pretty even. Then another 10 just below that. Wisconsin has had more players drafted by the NFL as Bama from 2000-2010.</p>
<p>[Rivals.com</a> College Football - By the numbers: NFL draft since 2000](<a href=“http://collegefootball.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1215565#sec]Rivals.com”>http://collegefootball.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1215565#sec)</p>
<p>And nearly as many Rd 1 picks</p>
<p>[The</a> Top 14 College Football Programs With The Most First Round Draft Picks Since 2000 | College Spun ? Social. Local. Consumable. College Sports.](<a href=“http://collegespun.com/pac-12/usc/the-top-14-college-football-programs-with-the-most-first-round-draft-picks-since-2000]The”>http://collegespun.com/pac-12/usc/the-top-14-college-football-programs-with-the-most-first-round-draft-picks-since-2000)</p>
<p>A look at the daily life of a college football player. </p>
<p>[The</a> Badger Herald · From sunrise to sunset: the life of a student-athlete - The Badger Herald](<a href=“http://badgerherald.com/sports/2013/10/28/sunrise-sunset-life-student-athlete/]The”>http://badgerherald.com/sports/2013/10/28/sunrise-sunset-life-student-athlete/)</p>
<p>My friend’s son was a recruited athlete for a D1 team and wasn’t allowed to ever take more than the minimum # of credits to still be listed as a full time student. 4 years later he did not make it into the pros and did not have enough credits to graduate. So much for “a great opportunity” and a “great support system”.</p>
<p>And even if all that is a good incentive to someone who wouldn’t attend college anyway, why couldn’t he own his own name, his own image and his own signature while he was a student athlete? Why does someone else own him?</p>
<p>He obviously picked the wrong program. Most players also redshirt 1st year (don’t play) and have 5 years to complete college. </p>
<p>Why can’t you own rights–you can–just not when you play US college football. Football is not a right.</p>
<p>Well Greenwitch (post#30), the recent litigation initiated by the former UCLA basketball player could end the NCAA’s power to prohibit athletes from profiting from their own likenesses.</p>
<p>As for the perennial ‘scandalous college sports’ argument, I honest don’t believe that things will change anytime soon because enough Americans, rightly or wrongly, like the system the way it is presently constituted. I love college sports but I think it’s silly how we keep escalating the arms race among big time programs and just grinning all the way down the road to Perdition. And I’ll agree with Barrons somewhat; as long as the parties, i.e. athletes, know that it’s a bit of a scam, they can go into it eyes open and still get a education of one sort or another.</p>
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<p>Not so sure. Look, if you take a kid off the mean streets of Detroit, you’re giving him a chance to be something other than a drug dealer and street gang member. Some will make it, some won’t. </p>
<p>Relatively few make it in professional sports–though I’d note that 30 alums of my alma mater are currently playing in the NFL, another 10 are currently coaching at that level, and hundreds more have had their shot at playing and/or coaching in the NFL, some turning out spectacular careers, others lasting less than a season. Others are playing or coaching professionally in the Canadian Football League or in Arena Football. Dozens, possibly hundreds more are making an honest living coaching at the high school and college level, guiding thousands of other young men away from drugs and street gangs. Others earn a handsome living as sports broadcasters.</p>
<p>And many do earn their degrees and find successful careers outside of sports in fields as diverse as academia, acting, advertising, law, the ministry, politics, banking, business management, non-profit management, real estate, sports apparel, and sales. </p>
<p>Heck, one alum of my alma mater’s football team became President of the United States. Many people thought he was “not very bright” either, but he turned out to be bright enough to earn a law degree at Yale (while serving as assistant coach of the Yale football team) and to rise in politics through hard work, attention to detail, team-building, leadership skills, and a sense of timing, strategy and tactics–life skills he always attributed to what he had learned as a college football player.</p>
<p>Ways major NCAA schools try to maintain competitive balance. I doubt the NCAA lawsuit will change much. They already have adjusted the rules to make the issues (using player images for a game etc) moot today.</p>
<p>[Report:</a> Football ticket revenue sharing cost Badgers more than $950,000 in 2012 : Ct](<a href=“http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/writers/todd-milewski/report-football-ticket-revenue-sharing-cost-badgers-more-than-in/article_33e46c58-3f36-11e3-bc46-0019bb2963f4.html]Report:”>Report: Football ticket revenue sharing cost Badgers more than $950,000 in 2012)</p>
<p>England has a big-time soccer prep program not tied to colleges … and it is a disaster. 18-year-olds are cut from the program after 4 years of soccer with little more than a junior high education. Our system isn’t perfect, but it is better than the other options.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, I’m not sure the Gerald Ford example should be applicable. College football players in his day were expected to be training for real life and not a professional football job. That, and 200 lb. white linemen don’t make D1 any more.</p>
<p>As long as colleges can afford to field all of these sports teams, and give out scholarships, there is nothing wrong with it. It provides a great opportunity for the players to get an education. </p>
<p>If colleges can’t afford it, (many athletic budgets are in the red) they should reduce the teams to club sport level. This is the only way to “live within their means”. This would probably be an issue at NCAA headquarters. </p>
<p>It is also important the colleges give good intramural and fitness options for “regular students” for the comeraderie and health reasons. </p>
<p>As college football deals with head injury issue, the big $$ will decline…</p>
<p>LOL Magnetron.</p>
<p>Yeah, Gerry Ford and Whizzer White are outdated examples. College ball and college expectations were much different in their days. Minnesota State Supreme Court Chief Justice Alan Page, formerly of the 1970s ‘Purple People Eaters’, and the first player on defense to win the NFL MVP trophy, is probably a better case to compare to today’s college athletes and their life’s options.</p>
<p>Or up-and-comer Cory Booker from the great state of New Jersey.</p>
<p>It’s not like anyone ever thought Cory Booker was “not very bright.” And he went to Stanford. Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that anyone who is recruited for football at Stanford is prepared to do the work.</p>
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<p>Nope. Six of the nine undergrad UCs don’t even a have a football team, yet all of them have vibrant women’s sports programs.</p>