Student Athlete

[SuzySunshine]

I'm stealing this from a friend's fb post.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...march-madness/

This was my response there.

But they get a free education worth thousands and thousands of dollars. Do you know how many of these student athletes would not be students if they couldn't play sports? They get an education for free or close to it. And yes, the schools do profit greatly off of men's basketball and football but do you know how many students in other sports get scholarships and free or close to free educations because of these two sports? I'm guessing there are a lot of people in this country that would have gladly played college sports if they had the talent in order to graduate debt free. Do I think that athletic departments should have to give a percentage of their profits back to the schools, to the academic side? Yes. I do. I do think there are ways the athletic departments could further support students that aren't athletes but I don't think college athletes should be paid above their scholarships they are already getting paid.

Beyond that a few things that stood out to me in the video
- Scholarships are only one year - this I don't agree with, you should commit to the student athlete for 4 years just like they commit to you because if you take away their scholarship they have to transfer, sit out, etc.
- They say that the average scholarship is $3k short of covering a students annual "essential" expenses. I'm sorry but they have the right to take out loans just like the rest of us did when we went to school. Would I have loved to have graduated with only $12k in loans? Absolutely.
- They talk about the graduation rates being low in football and basketball at some colleges. Part of that is the way they calculate it in my opinion. But these students still gets TONS of academic help, TONS of free tutoring, etc.
- I do think once they graduate if they are marketed for something, like video games, they should be compensated.
- Are some coaches overpaid, yes but I still don't think athletes should be paid.

I think what happened at Penn State with Paterno shows that SOME athletic departments are out of control. I had friends in college that were athletes, I had friends in college that tutored the athletes - they're students, at a modest college they get around $120K over for years, at least, I still don't think they should be paid.

I just think its a very interesting topic and knowing we have some huge sports fans on this site I'm surprised we haven't talked about it. Or at least I couldn't find where we had.

[SoonerTexan]

I completely agree. I took the Spanish class held in the stadium (in the classroom inside of it) because it was an "athlete" class and known to be easy. It was! I do know the athletes did work really hard, though...sometimes it seemed over the top. My youngest sister is already a star athlete and her dream is to play college softball or volleyball...we're trying to get her to focus on getting an academic scholarship instead. As someone who went to school on an academic scholarship, I can tell you it is a WAY better deal than an athletic scholarship!

- I do think once they graduate if they are marketed for something, like video games, they should be compensated.

That does bother me a little...do they have a choice to be included in stuff like this? Probably not. I would like to see some compensation there.

[SuzySunshine]

That does bother me a little...do they have a choice to be included in stuff like this? Probably not. I would like to see some compensation there.

No, in fact the letter of intent, or whatever they call it specifically says they can never profit from their college image. The example they gave was a former UCLA player who didn't even know his likeness was in a video game until a friend told him. He's well out of school and getting no compensation for it.

[Ladybug]

I think if they profit from their college image it would become another way of bribing players to come there. I don't think they should. I think companies should be legally required to keep all college electronic games generic. Most athletic scholarships do not cover full tuition, and it's a huge time commitment to maintain on top of your grades. Most families invest a crazy amount of money in coaching and traveling just to get their kids to the college level. It rarely pays back financially. It makes more cents to raise a mathlete if you have the option.

[diggitydot]

They get most of their education funded, room and board, tutoring, and many times lots of mentoring.. That equals pretty damn good compensation in my book. No, it isn't the millions of dollars typically seen in the pros, but they're not being completely shafted. However, I think once they've graduated, they should benefit financially from their image being used in video games. It's their image, they should have complete control over it after the compensation can no longer be construed somehow as bribing a player.