Tonight, the University of Connecticut and the University of Kentucky will play for the NCAA men’s basketball championship.
During the television broadcast, the announcers will probably proclaim repeatedly that the players are student-athletes. They are NOT. They are employees.
I have held the above opinion for nearly 30 years. As far back as 1989, I wrote a column advocating that college athletes should be paid. I couldn’t find that column today, but I did find one I wrote in 1996 or 1997 entitled “Undergraduate Stars Should Leave Colleges for Actual Students.” That column will be Part II of this series.
Since college football and college men’s basketball became hugely popular and began generating huge amounts of money for their schools decades ago, there have been innumerable scandals about athletes playing for college teams although their lack of academic performance should have disqualified them from being classified as college students.
In innumerable cases, they should never have been admitted to the college in the first place. In innumerable cases, athletes have been compelled by coaches to take courses that had little or no academic value.
In 1940, University of Chicago president Robert Hutchins was so disgusted by the sham of big-time college sports that he abolished one of the nation’s premier college football programs -- a program that had produced the first Heisman Trophy winner as the nation’s best college football player in 1935. In the speech announcing his decision, he noted that about half of the football players in the Big 10 Conference, which Chicago was then a member of, were majoring in physical education.
"There is no doubt that football has been a major handicap to education in the United States," Hutchins said.
A few years later, University of Kentucky men’s basketball coach Adolph Rupp, pictured above with a player, was handing out $100 bills to players who had just played well in a basketball game. About 40 years after that, the Kentucky program fell apart when it was discovered that a package from an assistant coach to recruit Chris Mills contained thousands of dollars and recruit Eric Manuel cheated on his college entrance exams. The NCAA considered abolishing the program and put the school on probation, but Kentucky rebuilt its program within a few years.
Today, the school recruits high school students who want to play in the NBA ASAP, but aren’t allowed to because of rules that protect the interests of everyone but the students. The students play for Kentucky for one year and then go to the NBA. There is no reason for them to go to class. By the time they receive their failing grades, the season is over. Every starter on this year’s Kentucky team is a freshman. Most or all of them will never become sophomores.
Connecticut wasn’t allowed in the 2013 NCAA tournament because its basketball players’ academic performance was pitiful for several years.
Today, though, the universities of Connecticut and Kentucky will collect millions of dollars thanks to their shenanigans. “Crime” pays.
I don’t blame the players. Like I said early in the article, they’re employees. With tens of millions of dollars at stake, their coaches make sure that they practice, practice, practice -- and do NOT go to class. Often, they can’t go to class. How can they? They’re traveling all over the nation.
Two weeks ago, National Labor Relations Board regional director Peter Ohr ruled that Northwestern University football players could start a union because they were employees and not “primarily students.”
“The players spend 50 to 60 hours per week on their football duties during a one-month training camp prior to the start of the academic year and an additional 40 to 50 hours per week on those duties during the three- or four-month football season,” ruled Ohr. “Not only is this more hours than many undisputed full-time employees work at their jobs, it is also many more hours than the players spend on their studies.”
Northwestern, for those who don’t know, is one of the best academic schools in the USA -- and historically has been lousy at football. If Northwestern players are spending so much time playing football, how many hours do you think University of Alabama players are devoting to the sport?
In his testimony, Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter testified that the football coaches wouldn’t let him take the courses he needed to pursue a career in medicine.
The colleges argue that the students shouldn’t get paid because they receive scholarships that are far more valuable monetarily, but what’s the value of a scholarship if the players are full-time employees who often aren’t on campus, often don’t have the academic skills to learn what they’re being taught or pass their courses, and often aren’t allowed to take beneficial courses they’re interested in?
Oh, one more thing. The players’ “scholarships” are good for one year and aren’t renewed if their on-the-job/field performance is unsatisfactory. They’re not connected to academics.
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