College athletes are supposedly unpaid, but the disparity between big-money schools and smaller institutions continues to grow. As we saw with one of UNC-Chapel Hill’s newest scandals, unpaid by the NCAA does not necessarily mean unpaid entirely — Greg Little, a player for UNC-CH told agents from the N.C. secretary of state’s office that he received more than $20,000 from sports agent Terry Watson in 2010. Surely Little is not the only athlete who is being and has been paid, so why don’t we just admit that most college football and baskteball players are closer to professional athletes than they are to students?
NCAA President Mark Emmert said, “One of the guiding principles [of the NCAA] has been that this is about students who play sports.” Although I think “student athlete” is still an appropriate pronoun for most non-revenue-sport athletes, the term does not seem appropriate for college football and basketball players. With a few exceptions, like Stanford University’s Andrew Luck, most college athletes who participate in either football or basketball are doing so simply as a stepping stone to earn a bid to join the professional leagues — both the NBA and the NFL forbid athletes to turn pro straight out of high school.
Emmert calls this required college detour an “artificial juncture.”
“Why would we want to force someone to go to school when they really don’t want to be there?” Emmert said. In concurrence with these statements, I don’t think there is any need for athletes to attend college before joining the professional leagues. This policy would allow athletes who are looking at professional careers to concentrate on those careers rather than wasting their time and the state’s money on their scholarships.
The NCAA is currently facing antitrust laws from former players who believe they’re owed millions of dollars in compensation, according to an Associated Press article. But many athletes already have scholarships, and if they value their education, they should appreciate that they are even getting that much. Unfortunately, this is not the case for revenue-sport athletes. “ … football and men’s basketball continue to hold the lowest graduation rates among Division I sports” said Caitlin Peterkin in a study published in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Universities don’t owe scholarships to revenue-sport athletes — they are giving student athletes a huge opportunity by allowing them to play at a national level. If athletes don’t seize the opportunity, they can’t expect more compensation than they already have the good fortune to receive.
Emmert spoke at Marquette University on Monday and said, “One thing that sets the fundamental tone is there’s very few members and virtually no university president that thinks it’s a good idea to convert student-athletes into paid employees — literally into professionals.” I agree with the sentiment, but with the current policies nearly forcing serious football and basketball players into colleges, the “student” part of “student-athlete” has been all but forgotten.
