re: Have to do a speech on why college athletes should NOT get paid.

quote:

---

See my earlier post regarding the Basketball tourney. VCU, Butler, Wichita State are managing to hang with programs like Kansas and Kentucky.

---

Basketball isn't remotely the same as football. Basketball is a non-contact sport with 5 guys on 5. You could have a lesser team play great together and shoot lights out from 3 and hang with a more talented roster. When you're talking 11 on 11 where guys are physically manning up on each other on the lines, odds are that most of the time the big boys are going to have their way with the VCU/Butler/WSU's of the football world the overwhelming majority of the time.

quote:

---

Never forget, Georgia Southern beat UF one of the richest programs in the country.Jacksonville State vs Ole Miss. Bama vs La Monroe, LSU vs UAB

---

And those are 1 game scenarios. For every game you just mentioned, I could show you 100 where the big name team throttled the tomato can. Let's also realize that uf/ole miss/bama/lsu in those games you referenced averaged what, like 6 or 7 wins in those seasons? They are name teams but those simply weren't good football teams.

quote:

---

Do you really think if schools set their own pay limits based on revenue and resources that a boise state would have even a prayer of playing with the big boys?

---

I believe the "cost of attendance" is a "real" number and not some fictional value. I think I read somewhere that UofTexas was about $5000 and LSU's was about $3200, per year.

quote:

---

College is basically the NFL's minor league system in which they incur no cost for training, staff, facilities ect.

---

So...what came first...college or pro football?

Because they aren't pros and they are getting free tuition and board.

The critique of that is to say that the university is making millions off of them, they should be entitled to a share of that, and, therefore, they should be considered semi-pros. The counter to that critique is that if that's true, the problem lies with the universities profiting from amateurism, not the fact that athletes don't get paid.

Because they get a full ride to college. That's the kind of thing most high school kids outside of Louisiana would kill for. They also get free room and board. That's pretty damn valuable and much better than getting paid minimum wage or some bull shite. The only people who want college athletes to get paid are the ones who are already doing so, but want their actions to be legal.

The only athletes people care about paying are the football and basketball stars. So what about the athletes on the swim team or gymnastics or soccer? Heck baseball doesn't even have enough scholarships to give their players full rides. Just partial scholarships.

quote:

---

That's wonderful, but scholarships do exist so that's not a factor.

---

But there was talk from the Big 10 I believe at one point that they would eliminate scholarships rather than pay athletes. The NFL promptly responded with the possibility of a minor league system should this occur.

I mean Goodell desperately wants a team in London so wouldn't this be an ideal solution?

I'm sure it was hubris on the schools part but the fact they capitulated to full CoA shows they realize the value from their unpaid labor and the threat the establishment of minor league system would pose.

quote:

---

WG_Dawg

---

Good points.

This isn't really an argument as to why they should or shouldn't be paid, but more a perspective issue: people join ROTC so they can get an education and then there's a possibility they might lose their life if they serve during wartime.

I've always thought college athletes who believe they should be paid are selfish considering the above.

This is very similar to how we pay athletes millions of dollars, but our teachers and police officers/fire fighters are some of the lowest paid positions.

And if scholarship and academic pursuit are such noble causes, why isn't Nick Saban's salary commiserate with that of the Psychology professor?

You can't say he can go to the NFL if he's not paid because we all know how that ended the last time

Based on some of yall's assumptions, there's no reason for a mere football coach to be the highest paid public employee in most states.