Pro

By Jesse Franz

Imagine an owner of a company that is predominantly made up of unpaid interns. These interns are subject to some of the most physically demanding duties in their work environment, and risk blood and body everyday. At their work place they are constantly verbally and physically harassed often in a demeaning matter, and are evaluated solely on their superficial talents. Despite the fact that their boss occasionally makes more $100 million, he refuses to pay his interns. The interns therefore, without enough time in the day to work another job, fall deeper into poverty.

Now, most would agree that the above stated working environment is something that should not be endured by anyone. However, it is. Not only has it become an excepted work place in our society, but every Saturday 100,000 fans cheer for it at America’s coliseums.

College football players in the NCAA risk their well being everyday for no pay. They put on pads and a helmet to play games that rack in millions for their schools, yet often return home to a family that could not even afford to attend the game. The schools they play for dangle the ever elusive promise of a better life through a good education in front of them, however instead of the athletes using the school to strive for a better life, it is undoubtedly the schools who use the athletes to fuel their institutions bank accounts.

The only way to break the tide of schools using players to further their own gain, is in fact to pay them their fair share. No one is proposing that an 18 year old freshman recruit should be paid the million dollar salaries that have come to be common place, but to fair pay of it’s employees in any institution is ethically paramount.

A flat and equal salary between all players would suffice. It would insure that economic powerhouses like Texas and Alabama did not buy a decade’s worth of national championships, while still enabling the players to provide for him or herself, and help provide for their family.

Some may claim that paying college players cuts at the very fabric of the game. Well in that case, perhaps televising college games should be outlawed, as to keep money as far away from the sports as possible. If the effort is to stop money from entering the game, the most simple solution is to make it illegal for schools to sell merchandise, or even tickets to the game. However, that will never happen, and that is the double standard of NCAA. If paying college players truly cuts at the fabric or endangers the “sanctity” of the game that much, perhaps it is a necessary cut that will bring college sports in to the 21 century once and for all.

In any other work environment, the treatment that college sports players receive on a daily basis would be deemed unacceptable. However, trapped in tradition we have accepted the subjugation of our young athletes, smiling as we say that our tradition dictates that we must watch your family slowly suffer the depression of poverty.

All these student athletes want to do is learn, live, and play the games they love as they have since they were kids. However, as grown adults with their own monetary and life stresses, the only way to get back to those days is to give them their fair share of the hundreds of millions of dollars that college athletic programs make riding on their backs.

Con

by Tomas Kassahun

Remember the 3rd grade? Remember when we played sports because we wanted to and not because anybody paid us a dime? Maybe it was just the feeling of freedom, or the time we loved to spend with our friends, but whatever the reason, it was not that complicated. We just loved to have fun.

As we grow older, sports become more serious and some of us decide we are not cut out for it. Nevertheless, the value of sports never have to change. Even for the college athlete who appears on our television screens every weekend, the meaning of sport must be much like it was since the beginning.

What can diminish this value is the love of money. While $1 million can give a student athlete a million reasons to play the game, there are a billion other reasons to play the game. And no amount of money compares with these reasons.

Remember college sports is not a career. For a select few it can be, but for the moment it remains a game. Yes, it is a great tool for students to further their education. But the value of sports goes even beyond that.

College athletes play the game not for contracts, but rather for the simple reasons. It sounds ludicrous to some, but there is something magical about the simple act of cutting a net. There is a common ground found in a smelly locker room. On a long bus ride in the middle of nowhere, a bond unlike any is created.

Let us also remember the point of sports is for more than one’s own personal gain. Remember it is for places such as Wichita State, Ball State, and Fresno State, who would otherwise be hardly on the map. It is for mom who’s in the stands wrestling with tears, for dad who cannot believe that is his little girl who yesterday did not have a chance against him or maybe it is for the man who wishes he was a father after all. It is for 70,000 fans who have spent their hard earned dollar in hopes of a catching a moment they will talk about for the rest of their lives. It is for the ups and downs and for the strength gained somewhere in between.

Above all, it is for the memories that remain long after the money ends. What fans remember is not the amount of money any athlete made, but rather the stories that will be preserved for a lifetime. They remember the odds that were shattered. They remember the student who didn’t care if he was the only black guy on the team.  And maybe they remember the athlete that missed the game winning free throw, but the athlete remembers his teammates who had to lift him of the floor afterwards.

I would love for Andrew Luck to get paid because it would allow me to use the real Andrew Luck when I play the NCAA video game. But I am willing to put that selfish desire beside me. What I want more is the integrity of the game. It is hard to imagine college students negotiating with their schools. It is even scarier to imagine what an 18-year-old can do with a few million dollars in hand. The baggage that comes with the responsibility of cash is likely to follow.

As it is, the NCAA is struggling to clean up the image of college sports. Some student athletes are no longer seen as students, but rather as celebrities. Some get more air time than the Kardashian sisters combined.  Heck, some date a Kardashian while the average college student tries to get the number of the girl in Algebra. At times, it seems as though success is determined not by academics, but instead by athletics.

The distractions of a college athlete are already insurmountable. They are already hounded by so called friends and lovers who see the potential in them. Before the mansions and the Mercedes, these student athletes need time to distinguish who wants friendship and who wants everything else.

If college athletes are paid, there is no telling how much they will make. If it is not the school paying them enough, you can count on Nike to sweeten up the deal. At that point how many college athletes have reason to take their education seriously?

For future NBA stars, college is a lot like grandma’s house. They attend college for a year only because the NBA requires it. When their short visit is done, they are off to bigger and better things.

Let us not take the madness to a new level. Let us play for the love of the game. Not the love of the money.