Kansas Crimson

pdub wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 10:25 am Also, with that edit in mind, you sure you want to see the original post?

When it comes to preventing young athletes from earning a fair share of the more than $8 billion a year generated by college sports, the National Collegiate Athletic Association is akin to a moralizing street mugger. It’s not enough for the organization to flash a knife and demand players’ wallets; it also has to tell everyone within earshot that, no, actually, empty pockets are good. That’s how the NCAA argues that its amateurism rules — which limit player compensation to tuition, room, board and small cost-of-living stipends, but do not restrict sports administrators such as Alabama football coach Nick Saban from collecting millions — are necessary and justified because they protect and enhance athletes’ educations.

There’s no connection between cash in a player’s hands — or a W-2 form in their mailbox — and their ability to open a textbook or show up to class. But that hasn’t stopped the NCAA from making this case in the court of public opinion and, more recently, in federal court.

[...]

The NCAA is telling Wilken that paying players would have “staggering and destructive implications” for college sports — and for the educations of campus athletes. “Maintaining amateurism,” the organization says on its website, “is crucial to preserving an academic environment in which acquiring a quality education is the first priority.”

How so? According to the NCAA, paid players would study less and play sports more. As its former vice president Oliver Luck once explained, paychecks and the “opportunity to do an autograph signing, or an endorsement” would “distract” campus athletes from “what’s really important, which is the educational component.”

Moreover, the NCAA asserts that permitting pay would make athletes less integrated into their campus communities. If an “athlete was being paid and it changed significantly their lifestyle,” NCAA President Mark Emmert testified in a previous federal antitrust case, “they probably would not be living in a residence hall. They probably would not be eating in the cafeteria, they probably would not be as — as active a member or participant in the life of a campus.”

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Eliminating amateurism probably wouldn’t make athletes like Colter more distracted or more likely to sacrifice school for sports. It would simply allow them to be compensated for the sacrifices they’re already making. Working and earning while attending college isn’t exactly unheard of. According to a Georgetown University study, between 70 and 80 percent of college students are active in the labor market, with roughly 40 percent of undergraduates working at least 30 hours a week and 25 percent of full-time students also working full-time jobs.

NCAA schools don’t tell those students what they can and can’t earn for the sake of academic focus, any more than Georgetown — my alma mater — told me I couldn’t collect a check from my job at the student bookstore because it might distract me from my government homework. Actress Natalie Portman worked on a Star Wars film while enrolled at Harvard . Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd sold tote bags to raise money for animals affected by the 2010 BP oil spill while she was attending Southern Methodist University. Numerous professional athletes — including current Washington Wizards forward Jeff Green and former Baltimore Ravens lineman John Urschel — have completed undergraduate and graduate degrees while being paid to play sports. Why should campus athletes be held to a separate and unequal standard?

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All anyone needs to know about the assertion made by University of South Carolina President Harris Pastides during the O’Bannon trial — that allowing player pay would “drive a wedge” between athletes and their fellow students — is this: The same people making those claims are busy using the money they don’t spend on athletic labor to build lavish, multimillion-dollar, sports-only training facilities containing barber shops, bowling lanes, movie theaters, beach views and man-made lazy rivers , offering athletes a luxe world separate from the rest of campus.

The NCAA’s assertion that if players are paid, then they won’t study is inarguably paternalistic, arguably racist — would amateurism exist if it was siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars from predominantly white revenue-sport athletes to overwhelmingly black school administrators, and not the other way around?

IllinoisJayhawk wrote: ↑Mon Sep 24, 2018 12:13 pm Can someone explain to me why baseball gets treated differently in the eyes of the NCAA? Isn't one of the leading Heisman candidates this year collecting a baseball paycheck?

IllinoisJayhawk wrote: ↑Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:58 pm

jfish26 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:55 pm

IllinoisJayhawk wrote: ↑Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:51 pm I fear the NCAA may do exactly that...but it won't happen until after the FBI thing is wrapped up...and who knows when that'll be.

They (NCAA) also have said or at least implied they won't declare anyone involved eligible or ineligible until the FBI says they can get involved, which won't be until the FBI wraps up their stuff.

So while I agree that SDS was previously declared eligible, I don't think that's the same as saying he's positively eligible currently....but he's also not positively ineligible currently...which really puts us in a bad fucking spot if we believe/know what he's accused of is true or somewhat true.

This is not correct. SDS is eligible. He has been cleared. He is 100% positively eligible, currently.

I mean, I get what you're saying...but I am not sure that's how it actually works.

For reference was Marcus Camby eligible too and then they found out shit and retroactively vacated their season? I was like 7 so I don't remember.


I HATE THE NCAA...and I hope Fish is right and the NCAA pretends this never happened....but their "commission" comments made me feel uneasy about that happening.