Nuke it. Blow it all up and start over again. That’s the only remedy I can come up with for what ails big-time college sports, especially football.
The game itself is great; what surrounds it stinks.
This has been on the back of my mind for the past 35 years and on the front for just the past couple of days. So you decide if this radical semi-solution means I’ve overthought or underthought the issue.
Before I bounced this off Mouse Davis, I told him he’d think I’m crazy. He replied he already did. But after hearing the specific idea he said it makes sense. (Don’t forget, an offense with four receivers used to be considered insane, too.)
So here it is: As part of the restructuring of college sports, it should not be necessary to be enrolled in college to play college sports.
Haven’t ditched me for the comics yet? Good.
It’s actually simple.
When players are signed by college teams they get a choice: Take the classes, or take the money. If you take the classes, you are a traditional student-athlete. If you take the money, you are a professional athlete who happens to represent a college and be on the same team with some student-athletes.
How would this be different than what’s going on now? Not much, really, except everything would be a lot more up front. The guys who actually want to go to school will be in school. Those who need or want the money with no interest in sleeping through World Civ will get paid.
Since the schools would actually pay players, some of the riff-raff like the guy who ruined Miami will disappear. Not all, but you’ve got to start somewhere.
Maybe now is the time to mention that those who choose the money would get just a fifth of the value of the scholarship package spread out during their five years of playing college football (yes, not four years, everyone gets five to play five on my plan).
The rest of the money would be held back in case the player decides he wants to go to school (or the school decides he’s qualified for admission) at some point later on. And the student-athletes? They get some spending money, too, and a big bonus upon graduation.
IF YOU SAY this would ruin the purity of college football, I envy your bliss. Wake up and join us in the real world any time you like.
There’s no perfect answer because it’s an imperfect world and huge amounts of money are to be had in so-called amateur sports.
What the recent revelations and allegations regarding the University of Miami tell us about college sports is nothing new. No one’s surprised. But when the words “stripper pole” and “Miami football” coincide in a Google search 522 times you kind of guess things may have reached a new low.
Much of the discussion in recent days has centered on whether Miami should get the so-called “death penalty” from the NCAA.
But it’s the NCAA that should be executed, or at least vastly restructured. It’s had enough chances to try to maintain some semblance of law and order, while the college presidents it supposedly serves look the other way.
It’s way past time to acknowledge there’s really no such thing as amateur big-money sports with a value system and ideals coinciding with those of higher education.
