Ramblings: Pay for Play?

With there being absolutly nothing for the talking heads at ESPN to talk about during the dog days of summer, one of the things that frequently come up is paying college athletes more than what they are already getting for tuition.

Before I start, take a look at this article by ESPN’s Pat Forde, I feel like this is a good run down of what is going on.

The argument is saying that there is around a 3,000-4,000 dollar gap between what the student-athlete has to pay, and what they get from their full ride scholarship. What are these types of things you may ask, well I can tell you what it isn’t: housing, food, classes, books, and extra tutoring (where the regular student can’t get the same quality of tutor for free).

This is one of the topics that gets me near angry, especially since I became a student at the great University of Missouri. I am not trying to draw any sympathy or anything but I already have debt that is rising, which sucks. Guess what? The athletes that will leave the school will not have any debt, and will have a top tier education. That seems like a fair trade off to me.

Another argument that the backers of paying the student athletes is that these students cannot hold a job, like a regular student so they deserve the extra money. I will tell you for a fact, almost all of the people I know that have jobs during the school year and summer would NOT have a job if they were not worrying about how they would be paying off tuition the next year. This is a situation that student-athletes with a full ride do not have to worry about.

What concerns me the most is, that people think its a great idea to give the money to the sports they watch (Football and Mens Basketball) and forget about the olympic sports that have just as many athletes. You can’t just give the TJ Moes and Marcus Denmons of the world money while leaving out the Chelsea Thomases and Molly Kreklows that are just as successful (if not more team wise) in their sports. Kim English has previously posted on his twitter how much respect he has for the non major sports. These kids work just as hard, but get far less recognition for their work. Which is sad, but we shouldn’t compound this by not giving them the same type of compensation for what they do. There is just not enough money to be able to pay every athlete 3,000 dollars and you can not give money by how much TV revenue they bring in. That would be unfair and completely stupid in my opinion.

Another article and more thoughts after the jump.

Also on ESPN.com Dana O’Neil wrote this piece talking about a comparison between what Michigan State Quarterback Kirk Cousins and an average student at MSU. I just don’t get how I am, as a fellow student, supposed to feel bad or sorry for a guy who gets his entire school payed for. Oh no, he has to pay for a parking pass and food around his apartment? Those are things that the average student has to pay for too, do they part of that off with a side job? Sometimes. Although this is after already paying thousands of dollars and taking out loans…so I feel like some of the athletes kind scrape together some money for snacks.

There are some student-athletes that did not come from homes that do not have the money to be able to pay for the extra stuff, and that is not good. There should be a way for these athletes to be able to spend some of their scholarship on other things, the way the NCAA works needs to be fixed but we do not need to be just throwing money at athletes because they feel like they deserve it.

There is not many instances that I will go against the players, they are in school plus practice and traveling to games and the like. Its not easy, and they work hard. Although, maybe…just maybe that extra work and time they put in is worth 20,000+ a year? Just a thought.