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They should be paid when you think about the millions of dollars they make for the University. It's really unfair when a player cannot hardly even accept a free meal at lunch time without being investigated by the NCAA.
I'm torn on the topic because they're getting a free education worth at least 30k a year most places. They get a lot of other perks as well like the prestige of the position and many of the more major contributors do well in the business world in that area as a result too.
Then, when you start to pay the football players for example....then under Title 9....you have to start paying the volleyball players. It opens up a whole can of worms.
American colleges need to stop providing free minor league development services to major sports. At a minimum, athletic departments should have isolated budgets. If a school can't break even on sports, they shouldn't be subsidized by the general fund or student fees. Academics should be the priority for schools, and taking dollars away from education to put them into sports is a bad use of resources.
This should go for all lower level public schools as well. Taxpayer dollars should be funding academic education, not sports programs. All sports costs should be borne entirely by the players' families and private sponsors (pro leagues).
Only a very small percentage make it to the big time, and even when they do there is no ROI to the taxpayers who paid their way.
This should go for all lower level public schools as well. Taxpayer dollars should be funding academic education, not sports programs. All sports costs should be borne entirely by the players' families and private sponsors (pro leagues).
Only a very small percentage make it to the big time, and even when they do there is no ROI to the taxpayers who paid their way.
I understand where you are going with this, but am not sure I would be so draconian with the cutoff. The schools exist to educate the youth, this includes both physical and mental education (should probably include emotional as well). Since the facilities exist to perform various physical education activities, might as well make them fully utilized with after school sports (otherwise you would have excess capacity). With the exception of football, equipment costs are borne by the families. Coaches are offered meager stipends on top of existing teacher salaries (if they are employees of the school district). I think high school sports offer a good value to the community and as enrichment opportunities for today's students and am OK if a small part of my tax dollars.
From my personal experience, I can ensure you that parents bare the majority of the cost of sports/activities. Having a dancer, a travel baseball player and a football player, we (their parents) spend far more on their activities than is spent by taxpayers on their participation of school baseball/football teams.
I'm torn on the topic because they're getting a free education worth at least 30k a year most places. They get a lot of other perks as well like the prestige of the position and many of the more major contributors do well in the business world in that area as a result too.
Then, when you start to pay the football players for example....then under Title 9....you have to start paying the volleyball players. It opens up a whole can of worms.
To me, it goes even further back.
Intramural sports between high schools should not exist. It has gone way beyond just being fun, which was how it all started, and has ruined a great many more young lives that it promotes. We now have millions of young men who have given up their studies because they believe they can become professional athletes. Some of them actually make it, but for 99% there was never a hope.
Let the cities promote sport through their parks and rec departments. And let the educational systems spend their money more wisely.
How on earth, did an innocuous idea like a football game between schools in the 1800's get to this point?
Why the hell are these kids with (apparently) superlative football skills messing around at an academic institution? What is the point? Why are they being tortured when they have a really rare, really phenomenal skill which they could earn millions of dollars using?
They want to be seen by the pro scouts who roam the campuses? If they've got to be 3 years out of high school before they can be drafted they might as well spend that time honing their skills and being highly visible, not playing in some backyard league.
LOL....they might be at lower tier schools but not at any serious program.
I tutored at a mediocre (sports wise) Big-10 school which was excellent academically and 3 in 4 of the guys there had ZERO business being on that campus academically.
UNC just got busted for running an entire fake class ring for their basketball players.
If you're talking Div 2 or "meh" div 1 programs then fine....but the SEC schools, Big 12, PAC10 and so forth? No....no......no.......these aren't smart kids in general.
As for your claim about them taking tough courses and majors? NO EFFING WAY. At the Big10 school I went to they were all in marketing, kinesiology etc. and the business classes had a grading scale that basically went 40% A, 40% B, 15% C and 5% didn't show up for class got D/f. I cannot tell you how many moron stoners sat in the biz classes I took and copied off each other on finals to eke out that "C".
And this happened at one of the top 10 or so universities in the country and that wasn't even the athletes. Dear god, you could EASILY have a "friend" for certain athletes that sit next to them and pass answers. Childs play.
Totally correct. I think there was another major, communications or something, that was another biggie for the sports guys. I'll admit I have zero facts to back this up and it's simply conjecture but I'd wager that close to 90% pro players have essentially no learned skill to pursue after football.
Intramural sports between high schools should not exist. It has gone way beyond just being fun, which was how it all started, and has ruined a great many more young lives that it promotes. We now have millions of young men who have given up their studies because they believe they can become professional athletes. Some of them actually make it, but for 99% there was never a hope.
Let the cities promote sport through their parks and rec departments. And let the educational systems spend their money more wisely.
How on earth, did an innocuous idea like a football game between schools in the 1800's get to this point?
My theory is that the US has had several boom-times in the last century generally coming after Europe blew the crap out of each other and needed to rebuild.
During those times, any Joe or Bob with little education could make good wages at steel mills or manufacturing etc. and education became something for nerds and wasn't that important. It's hilarious to talk to people from India, China etc. and sports are NOT your social standing....academics are.
Look at the whole "nerd" thing in US culture, but that is starting to go away as people realize that "oh crap" I don't want to have a crappy job and struggle my whole life.
As such, sports became more important and academics weren't needed.
Totally correct. I think there was another major, communications or something, that was another biggie for the sports guys. I'll admit I have zero facts to back this up and it's simply conjecture but I'd wager that close to 90% pro players have essentially no learned skill to pursue after football.
It's a touchy subject because often it's kids from poorer areas that excel at sports but in those same areas the role models are less academic. Soooo, digging into the subject brings up the spectre of class warfare or due to correlation to poverty (due to history) it can be seen as being aimed at race.
The bottom line is that there are schools not just keeping kids eligible but GRADUATING them when they read at a 3rd grade level.
Again, this isn't your local ABC state division 2 school but rather the bigtime sports powerhouses. Just ask Penn State what they'd do to keep winning.....
I have not watched the Netflix special yet, but I certainly will now.
I am very aware of the school that second chance is based on. Some of the athletes that competed at The University of Alabama, where I attended university, certainly did not belong on a college campus. The way the line is drawn between student and athlete now, is quite murky. The NCAA, which is the governing body of it all, is merely a joke, an organization drawn up to "police" the academic side of athletics. It has no real power, and in case the OP wasn't aware, past academic and athletic digressions are punished on the FUTURE of the program in question. Individuals who committed the acts might lose their jobs at the institution, but that's the worst of it. The athletes? Nothing. They ride off into the sunset scott-free.
How backwards is that?
My university is highly successful in athletics, and the educational half of that institution wants the world to know that it produces top-notch business leaders, medical practitioners, and other fields. But it's TV presence, the football team, that is most closely correlated. And that shows in school enrollment figures. In fact, when I attended, in the 1990's, out of state students were much more rare than today. I read a report that showed more than 55% of incoming freshmen were out of state. I can't help but believe this is because of the high profile athletic success of the school. Never mind that there are people like myself who love sports, but went there on their own dime to learn a profession, which I did. And that's most of us.
It's a weird conundrum. And I won't go down the proverbial rabbit-hole and talk about how I equate those students who come from poor families, have little ability to read and write, but can run a 4.1 sec 40 yard dash, and how much money is made off of that student, and sales of athletic apparel with his sport number on it......
While some of these athletes may not be learning advanced Physics or whatever some of you all deem a "real" study, some are, in fact, learning lessons that a lot of non- athlete college grads do not possess when they enter the workforce (self-branding, negotiation skills, etc).
I think it depends on how you look at college as well-- do you look at it as a place to get specialized knowledge in one particular field, or do you view it as a place where you are preparing for a profession/career? Personally, I never understood why people get so bent out of shape about the whole "one and done" thing. I look at it like this, if a top athlete, who has worked for many years to get his body and mind in a position where they are able to go pro and leverage their skills into a profession they ENJOY, and they are able to do this before matriculation, who is anyone to judge them?
If a computer science sophomore invents an app and it becomes insanely popular and profitable, would the same people who criticize the athlete criticize this guy when he goes to work for himself inventing more apps?
Success is when preparation and opportunity meet. Some of these students just happen to come across this sooner than others.
You can always go back to school. You cannot, however, have the knees of a 20 yr old for very long.
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