Every so often, there's a big debate in the sports world about whether we should pay college athletes. The argument for doing so is that because they generate revenue for the school they should be compensated. I agree in theory... but from the point of view of a student worker, not a student athlete. In other words, I'm *not* in favor of paying a student athlete commensurate with the revenues they generate (as is done, for the most part, in professional sports). I do, however, think it's reasonable to compensate a student athlete for the time he puts in "on the job"-- on a pay scale similar to what he/she might get paid working in the cafeteria or mail room.
In reality, however, paying student athletes would open up a can of worms. Do you compensate all student athletes, or just the ones on the teams that generate a profit? Is it fair to discriminate? There are many athletic departments here on the east coast being forced to cut this or that varsity sport because they can't afford to support them financially as is. This would drastically increase if they were forced to pay student athletes in any sport. I say "forced" because if other schools did so, they'd have to do so or risk losing the better players to those other schools.
As for Duhon's mother getting a job in Durham as a result of her son going to Duke, as long as she actually works a "reasonable" number of hours commensurate with a "reasonable" salary for the job at hand, I see no problems with that, even if the job was incentive for her son to sign with Duke. If the NCAA really, truly wants to go to this level of detail to avoid improprieties, I suggest a better use of their time would be to see just how many actual hours of classroom time players put in and the fairness of the grades they receive. In other words, when it comes to protecting the integrity of the student-athlete, they would be better off concentrating on the student side of the equation.
- Jeff |
