You've absolutely presented less evidence than I have (you've presented zero, for anything) TR, but it's cool. I am getting a kick out of someone calling me Horatio Alger, that's hilarious, on a couple of levels.
You've absolutely presented less evidence than I have (you've presented zero, for anything) TR, but it's cool. I am getting a kick out of someone calling me Horatio Alger, that's hilarious, on a couple of levels.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
While I don't think having a college education is necessary for everyone, I think it is incredibly valuable for a lot of college athletes coming from impoverished backgrounds. It's easy for someone who comes from a middle class upbringing and probably went to a decent school system to say they don't need a college degree to succeed. But for a lot of these kids getting athletic scholarships, that college degree is a ticket to the middle class. Most of them won't make the pros, and sure, they might end up working in some office and never getting paid tons of money. But they'll likely get a job that will get them some kind of health and retirement benefits and allow them to support a family, maybe buy a house. Without a college degree, relying only on a high school diploma from an inner city school district, a lot of them would be looking at career prospects of working for minimum wage in fast food or doing manual labor in construction, landscaping or roofing. Worse, some of these guys, based on where they're living, would end up resorting to a life of crime.
Back in 1955, a degree from Kent State (my alma mater) might have opened up a lot more doors than it does now. However, in 2013, lacking a degree from Kent State, or any institution of higher learning, or even doing university level coursework, severely limits the job prospects of people from certain backgrounds, and makes it impossible for them to get even a single door most fields to open.
I think the paying of college athletes might end up bringing a lot of unintended consequences that end up harming athletes more than helping them. I think colleges might do something like have major sports teams operate separately from the school as semi-pro teams with management taken over by investors who then pay the school licensing fees to use the school's name and colors. They could then give players the option of being paid money, but if they wish to attend the affiliates school they have to pay their own way, or they could be given a scholarship by the university and allowed to play for the semi-pro team as a kind of unpaid internship. The likely result is that many of the kids coming from impoverished backgrounds would take the money now and probably even forgo the option of taking university classes in hopes that they can go pro when they're eligible. The kids coming from middle class backgrounds would probably opt for the college education because their college educated parents will advise them to do so. Now taking into account that most of these college-level athletes will not make it to the pros, you'll have a lot of the kids taking up-front money ending their careers with not a whole lot left over and no education to show for it.
I think the whole college level education system needs to be reformed to bring down costs and directing more students to fields with job surpluses and a dearth of qualified candidates. They could also cut down on the number of useless electives required for graduation and do more to promote internship and co-op programs to get students actual work experience before they graduate. However, when it comes to college athletes, I think money and effort is better spent in increasing graduation rates to ensure that these athletes have something going for them when their playing careers end.
Wear gaudy colors, or avoid display. Lay a million eggs or give birth to one. The fittest shall survive, yet the unfit may live. Be like your ancestors or be different. We must repeat!
Old school 1983 (06-22-2014)
Because schools aren't likely to want to give them all free educations in addition to paying them to play sports. Also, there may be the question of whether paying athletes fits within the purposes for which the school was chartered.
While college sports have morphed into a profitable industry for some schools, it is not so for many schools outside the major conferences. I'd say out of all the universities in Ohio, Ohio State is probably the only one with sports programs that bring in a substantial profit. If schools are required to pay athletes, then it will likely be devastating to mid-major schools, especially if rulings under Title IX require payments to female and male students. You may actually see a lot of schools dropping varsity sports all-together. I doubt you'd see a ruling where only schools raking in the huge bucks had to pay because then it raises an equal protection question.
Wear gaudy colors, or avoid display. Lay a million eggs or give birth to one. The fittest shall survive, yet the unfit may live. Be like your ancestors or be different. We must repeat!
I could care less what the schools want to do. I doubt the players want to make the school millions and millions of dollars for the little return they get, but they do it because the other choice is even worse.
I also absolutely hate the fact that the law would probably state you are correct in that if you paid men athletes you have to pay the women. Sorry, your sport doesn't make money then you don't get paid. Sorry mens volleyball, sorry womens basketball, sorry track and field. There should be no "equal protection" when you lose money.
You could ask the same types of questions about the monster that high level collegiate athletics have become. I don't believe the original purpose was to jump from conference to conference chasing bigger and bigger TV dollars, all the while lowering your academic standards to let in elite athletes.
I've linked this article before in similar threads, but I will do so again. This article lays out the history of amateurism in collegiate athletics.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...sports/308643/
The problem is that you can't have your cake and eat it too. It is beyond hypocritical for universities to seek bigger and bigger TV deals, switch conferences to maximize their dollars, play ridiculous schedules simply to fill the coffers, pay their coaches millions upon millions, and then cry poor when it comes to doing more for the people who make all of this possible. The Ivy League (who BTW, came up with this system), abandoned this system a long time ago. Maybe everyone else should too.
Variatio delectat - Cicero
I think in order to better understand this entire topic, we need to ask a simple question. What is the purpose of college athletics? I'm not sure I could come up with a solid answer.
Variatio delectat - Cicero
Cut smaller sports. If you can't support yourself through sales of tickets/tv deals/merchandise or boosters, then sorry, but just like in real life, you go out of business. It is ridiculous that tuition is as high as it is, while schools are losing twenty million dollars a year because Susie *must* have the chance to play soccer in front of 3 fans in college or because Dave *must* have the chance to wrestle in front of 25 fans.
That's not accurate. The average college applicant today is much better qualified than it was 25 years ago, not to mention how many more of them there are. The problem is the finite supply of quality higher education available in this country. To meet the demand, much lower alternatives have been created that has diluted the other degrees, IMO...
Better qualified, sure. But that is also for so many reasons it isn't funny. I guess I should have said, more people are accepted today than ever before, people that should never get into college. People today are accepted into accredited schools who can't put together a sentence or a paragraph.
Doug,
You're far too smart to conflate all the points you're making when in fact what you're asserting runs counter to most available data.
1) I'd venture a guess that even the lower end of kids being accepted into major universities are better students than those who entered college 25 years ago. We prefer to think that back in the day, colleges were more difficult to get into and they never would have accepted the terrible students they accept today but I don't believe any statistical analysis would back that up. The top students are better, the middle students are better, and the lower end students are better.
2) There's very little correlation between Title IX requiring colleges to offer equal scholarships to women's sports and college tuitions going up or colleges losing money. In fact I don't think you could make a good argument that colleges on the whole are losing millions of dollars. I'd bet most athletic departments are struggling to break even, but that's a different funding issue than the overall colleges.
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