Should College Athletes Be Paid?

I found this article on USA Today about whether or not athletes should be paid in college. I think is an interesting topic because I was once a college athlete and I can see where the author is coming from in this article.






College athletes want cut of action

By Kelly Whiteside, USA TODAY

From TV rights to its men's basketball tournament, the NCAA averages better than half a billion dollars a year in revenue. That does not include payouts from the 28 football bowls, which exceed $184 million and go to the conferences.

Before the 2003 BCS title football game, then-Ohio State player Maurice Clarett gave the issue of pay for play a national platform.

Given those numbers, why aren't athletes in revenue-generating sports such as men's basketball and college football paid?

Athletes see what's in it for everybody else. They see their jersey numbers on the racks of the campus bookstore, but they don't see any share of the profit. They see their coaches drawing million-dollar salaries and their schools and conferences taking cash from corporate sponsors, but they don't get a whiff of the action.Last year state legislators in Nebraska endorsed a stipend for University of Nebraska football players, and lawmakers in California, Texas and Iowa have considered athlete-welfare measures, although no legislation has gotten off the ground. A former UCLA football player, Ramogi Huma, founded the Collegiate Athletes Coalition to act as an advocate, even aligning with the United Steelworkers of America in 2002.

Before the 2003 national championship football game, then-Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett gave the issue a national platform when he railed against the riches of college athletics while expressing resentment that Ohio State didn't buy him a plane ticket to fly home to attend the funeral of a boyhood friend. (School officials said he could have used the NCAA's Special Assistance Fund but failed to fill out necessary paperwork.)

Still, pay for play is one change that is unlikely to happen. The NCAA remains firmly opposed.

"We have a model for paying players. It's called professional sports," NCAA President Myles Brand says.

Only 40 Division I-A institutions operated in the black in 2001, according to the NCAA. Revenue are rising for those few schools; however, annual operating deficits are growing for most of the rest of the membership (composed of about 1,000 schools). In many cases, those schools with football and basketball programs that do make a profit use that money to underwrite the school's other sports.