By Larry Elder, Apr. 9, 2014
Yes, it “opens up a can of worms” if colleges started paying the student-athletes who put fannies in the seat.
Questions include: How would it work? How much would they be paid? What about risk of injury and issues of liability?
Legitimate questions.
But there is something fundamentally wrong when the losing Kentucky Wildcats basketball coach earns over $5 million and the players violate NCAA rules if they accept a free meal from a fan. Maybe the end result is that some schools will drop programs if they find these questions to thorny to resolve. Not a bad outcome. That there are far more questions than answers doesn’t mean we can’t figure out something.
Shabazz Napier, the most valuable player on the winning men’s UConn team, said in a postgame interview: “We do have hungry nights that we don't have enough money to get food in. Sometimes money is needed. I don't think you should stretch it out to hundreds of thousands of dollars for playing, because a lot of times guys don't know how to handle themselves with money. I feel like a student athlete. Sometimes, there's hungry nights where I'm not able to eat, but I still gotta play up to my capabilities.”
Leave aside the claim that UConn allegedly plays its games with starving players. After all, student-athletes in elite programs like that of UConn usually have access of unlimited amounts of food. But Napier’s point deserves consideration.
UConn clearly recruits some “student athletes” knowing full well most will not graduate. The graduation rate for UConn’s male basketball program, for those entering between 2003 and 2006, was 8 percent. Meanwhile UConn’s winning female basketball team graduates 92 percent of its players.
Something is wrong. Very wrong.
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