Every so often, a question with no discernible or popular answer leads the sports conversation topic list.
Thanks to Ohio State, Steve Spurrier and lockouts, paying college athletes again has cropped up.
Ohhh, the NCAA has so much money.
Ohhh, so many college kids get nothing while their schools get rich.
Ohhh, the injustice of it all.
For one, there’s already enough paranoia, tunnel vision, misinformation and hypocrisy among the populace on anything the NCAA does. Of course, there’s a suffocating level of paranoia, tunnel vision, misinformation and hypocrisy among the populace on most anything.
The NCAA isn’t a bunch of old white men in a cave rolling around in the cash, just like the government isn’t simply made up of word-playing, truth-testing, deaf, out of touch raving hypocrites in Washington -- or any other conclave where their types gather.
The NCAA is Michael Adams, Bill Underwood, Larry Rivers, Wendell Staton, Jim Cole and all the other presidents and athletics directors at the NCAA.
The NCAA is nearly 1,100 schools in three overall divisions, with more members in Division III than either I or II, and the schools range from Arizona State (58,000 students system wide) to Rosemont College (about 500 students).
Money goes back to the schools, in one form or another. It certainly doesn’t go to a bloated enforcement staff, for which most big-school football and basketball fans are grateful. After all, fewer than 50 investigators to keep up with 1,100 schools and around 120 in the FBS.
Yeah, the cheaters aren’t very worried.
The NCAA puts on all of these tournaments and events, and you watch only a fraction of the championships in the three divisions. All of those others cost money and don’t make money. People keep forgetting: Things cost, and they’ll always cost more now than they did then.
For another, being a college student -- athlete or not -- is a volunteer decision, one in which you may be rewarded with your college expenses being paid for.
Look not the gift horse in the mouth. You can have your education paid for, or pay for it yourself, Junior or Missy, it’s your choice. We can always tax that scholarship money if it’s not worth anything, OK?
And recently, radio host Dan Patrick broached a branch of the subject and pondered the possibility of just having a freshman class everywhere that deals with finances, rules and laws.
A goal is to help the fortunate one to go pro in a sport not blow money on toys for the intellectually challenged and from investing with sleaze bags, relatives or not.
The two topics -- paying athletes and education -- connect with two long-standing beliefs from this corner.
On “paying” college athletes:
A) make stipends solely based on financial need; B) attach them to class attendance, academic progress and cleanliness.
Period.
Not every athlete in every sport at the nearly 1,100 NCAA schools is broke or in need. Shoot, we can drive by some high schools around here and see better cars in the student lot than faculty lot. The same goes at many colleges. And let’s check those cell phone bills.
Few athletes at Mercer -- or a Davidson, Duke, Stanford or Northwestern, etc. -- would qualify for this basic stipend, nor would many in sports like tennis, golf, swimming and similar offerings.
And just from observing, there are plenty of power conference schools where fewer than half of the football team’s scholarship players would qualify or qualify for much.
Allowing for employment is an option, and it’s a lot harder to get away with the “I water our fake grass twice a day” job with so much scrutiny. And again, let’s mention the IRS.
That’s the simplified version, but maybe it’s a start.
Patrick’s discussion touched on a two-decade-old belief from this vantage point that a life skills class should replace a math or science class in third, sixth and ninth grades.
Not enough young human beings know how to be older relevant human beings, ranging from renting an apartment to taking life -- which isn’t a movie or video game -- seriously.
Nowhere near enough young human beings are getting the right lessons from the older human beings who are allegedly in charge. Frankly, about 95 percent of our issues can be solved in the living room because that’s where our issues are starting.
Better financial management within athletics departments as well as football and basketball would certainly help in funding.
With all that comes the apology for wasting your time offering some solutions. If an issue doesn’t come with a 30-second sound bite summary and a two-month fix, well, it just can’t work.
Contact Michael A. Lough at 744-4626 or mlough@macon.com
