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It is amazing to me the absolute con job the NCAA has done on so many people to convince them that college athletes do not deserve compensation.
Colleges have been handing out athletic scholarships as incentives for perspective student-athletes for as long as they have been participating in sports, which is some cases is as far back as the 1800s.
And, basically, the college scholarship is still the same deal it was when the NCAA was formed to regulate collegiate athletics in 1905.
The deal was this: You play football at State U., and State U., let’s you attend their school, tuition free.
It was a great deal then, and it is a great deal now. An education is a tool that can be used sustain a family for a lifetime.
It is an opportunity that should never be taken for granted.
However, while education has remained a great deal for the student-athlete, it has become a ‘freaking, gold mine, print all the money you want, kind of deal’ for many major colleges in America.
If you have read The African-American Athlete, you know how I feel:
College athletics has become a billion dollar industry. Almost everyone is getting paid _ the schools, coaches, conferences, television networks, athletic supply companies.
However, the stars of the show _ the athletes who pack the stadiums and arenas _ are getting the same deal they got at the turn of the century.
But now they are scrutinized like professionals, practice like professionals, and threatened with the possible loss of scholarships by coaches, if by chance they don’t play up to their potential. Oh yes, a coach will find a way to run you off, if you don’t fit the system.
And yeah, yeah, yeah, the academic opportunity is great. They are there to be student-athletes. Well, if that’s the case why don’t they go back to when coaches taught classes, and then coached football after classes, for $40 grand a year?
I have tried to convey this message over and over again. But there is nothing that I can write that is as hilarious, and as true, as HBO’s John Oliver, the host of HBO “Last Week With John Oliver,” breaks down the money made of the NCAA basketball tournament.
