Earlier this month I wrote about the one-and-done rule that has come under such scrutiny because college coaches are forced to try to get basketball players who have no business going to college past admissions boards. I felt that perhaps colleges should offer a stipend to players because of the income generated by big time college athletics. One person took me to task for saying that colleges should do more than provide a free education and room-and-board, and he may be right. The cost of tuition for the regular student is already a handsome sum. If a university is to give that to an athlete, perhaps their part is done. Nevertheless, there may be other options to entice top athletes to play for colleges without needing me to take the SAT fifty times a year. I should also not that that if a person couldn’t get into a university on their own, there should be some apprenticeship basketball program (maybe an expanded NBDL) so that college coaches wouldn’t be “forced” to cheat. (Some – without naming names – would probably cheat anyway. That’s just their way. My cell phone just rang – oh, just another text from Kelvin Sampson)

What I’d like to examine today is why college athletes have to have amateur status. According to Wikipedia, “Amateurism was a zealously guarded ideal in the 19th century, especially among the upper classes, but faced steady erosion throughout the 20th century, and is now strictly held as an ideal by fewer and fewer organizations governing sports, even as they maintain the word ‘amateur’ in their titles.” It doesn’t take make reading between the lines to see that this system is an anachronism. Even though the upper crust of the 1800’s thought sports shouldn’t be besmirched by money, it’s the all mighty dollar that pretty much runs things today.

The article has some other interesting tidbits about the abandonment of amateur status in the Olympics in almost all sports except boxing and golf. I always thought that this was caused by the results of the 1988 men’s basketball tournament in which the US lost to countries that employed various types of professional players, leading to the 1992 Dream Team. To be honest, I never really minded that the rest of the world had caught up to the US in basketball, even if they weren’t using “amateurs.” If the Olympics can ditch amateurism, why not college sports as well?

One final quote from the august Wikipedia, “Even the most commercialized college sports, such as NCAA football and basketball, do not financially compensate competitors, although coaches and trainers generally are paid. College football coaches in Texas and other states are often the highest paid state employees, drawing salaries of over one million US dollars annually. Athletic scholarship programs, unlike academic scholarship programs, cannot cover more than the cost of food, housing, tuition, and other university-related expenses. A school can pay an athlete to attend classes. However, a school cannot pay an athlete to play.” So, we know coaches are doing quite well for themselves and the student-athletes aren’t without a certain amount of compensation.

While it may not be right for the colleges and universities themselves to pay athletes, I am not sure why the regal status of amateurism needs to be upheld. While it may not be an apples-to-apples comparison, if an English major writes a book during college, does he lose his amateur status if he sells copies? If a musician records a bunch of songs, do the proceeds of any sales go directly to the university? Why should college athletes have to perform and make gobs of money for universities and coaches? Probably because unlike the student novelist or musician, there is gobs of money to be made.

My proposal is to dump amateur status. Let college athletes sign with agents and endorse products. If a player isn’t good enough to make money on their celebrity, agents aren’t going to want to sign them. Yes, this introduces the dirty concept of money into college athletics, but wouldn’t it be better to have things out in the open than Eddie Sutton mailing packages of dirty lucre to Chris Mills’ door? I don’t think players should have to attend university, but if they do, why should they have to lose money?