March Madness is over. The University of Connecticut men and women emerged as the NCAA Division I champions.
But the real winner is the National Collegiate Athletic Association and its 351 member institutions. Once again the NCAA has made a killing. More than 150,000 fans attended the Final Four at Texas Stadium. Of course, those ticket sales are only chump change compared to the $10.8 billion contract the NCAA has with the CBS television network. Yes, that’s $10.8 billion.
To say the NCAA is raking in the cash is an understatement. Only the U.S. Mint can make money faster. What a deal, huh? The NCAA make millions, the coaches make millions, all without having to pay the stars of the show, the athletes.
OK, the athletes do get to go to school on a so called ‘free’ scholarship. However, practically every college student-athlete will tell you they earn every penny. No one has given them anything considering the inordinate amount of time they put in at practically year-around practices, and ‘voluntary’ workouts (that you bet not miss).
Yes, student-athletes earn their scholarships through hard labor. And that is precisely why the National Labor Relations Board recently ruled the Northwestern University football team were free to organize as a union. (http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/05/us/northwestern-university-football-union/)
Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter testified that the team spends 40 to 50 hours a week in practice, and 20 hours going to class.
Northwestern and the NCAA are against this movement. No surprise there. Who would they want to change their good thing? Now, some will say that college athletes are treated like slaves. That is going to far. They aren’t slaves by any means.
Certainly, the scholarship has tremendous value, if it is parlayed into an education that will provide a prosperous life.
However, today an athletic scholarship alone is no longer enough, considering the money that is being generated.
It is also important to understand that these inequities go far beyond money. College athletes get the short end of practically every stick that is passed in the NCAA.
For example, a coach can move from one school to another without stipulation. However, a student-athlete who decides to transfer from one Division I school to another, must sit out a year.
An enlightening column written by Geoff Grammer of the Albuquerque Journal illustrates the vast differences, and just how unfair these practices are. (http://www.abqjournal.com/380146/sports/ncaa-is-hypocritical-in-limiting-the-opportunities-of-studentathletes.html)
Now, this is not to say that finding fair equity for college athletes is an easy thing to do. I am not here to say that I have the perfect formula for a system that will offer more benefits to college athletes.
I will say that the current way _ while once upon a time a fair bargain _ is now totally unfair. And I do have some simple ideas that will at least start giving student-athletes a better share.
The first thing is to offer every scholarship athlete an opportunity to their respective university free tuition and books for life. The student-athlete should be able to pursue the highest academic degree the particular school confers.
So, if a player wants to get his bachelors, masters and doctorate from the University of Michigan, the school should make that happen. This would cost the university pennies. What are a few more seats in a lecture hall? What are the cost of a few books?
Whatever it is, the proceeds from just one home game at historic Michigan Stadium, which seats more than 100,000, will help. According to the website Statisticbrain, the payout for last year’s BCS championship game was $18,000,000. (http://www.statisticbrain.com/college-bowl-game-payouts/)
That is just one game.
Also, how about putting a cap on the amount of money a college coach can be paid? It is utterly ridiculous that football and basketball coaches make millions, and the young men and women who do the work on the field can’t even get a simple stipend.
An amazing statistic appeared on MSNBC’s “All In” with Chris Hayes show (March 8, edition). During a segment debating whether to pay college athletes a graphic showed that in 40 of the 50 states, either the football or basketball coach was the highest paid public employee.
The segment also showed a clip where UConn’s Shabazz Napier, who scored 22 points in the national title game, said during a March 27 interview there were times he didn’t get enough to eat. “There are some hungry nights,” he said.
To hear a kid say that, and to know a coach like Kentucky’s basketball John Calapari is paid more than $4 million a year, is disgusting. There is simply no reason for Calapari to be paid and sum like that, when his players get nothing. By capping salaries schools could put even more money back into programs for the student-athletes.
And a cap wouldn’t hurt the quality of coaching one bit. There are coaches who would take a tenth of what Calapari makes (which would be, $400,000, by the way) and do just as good a job.
There is change in the air. Today’s athletes are beginning to see the glaring inequities in college athletics. There have already been rumblings. The Grambling University football team boycotted a game last season because of unfair treatment. At tiny Lane College, a Division II school in Jackson, Tenn., football players went to the administration to let their feelings be known about the hiring of a new coach.
Finally, college athletes are beginning to realize the true power that they’ve always had.
