The Shame Of College Sports

In August, Miami's head football coach, Al Golden, leaves a news conference before football practice in Coral Gables, Fla. Allegations surfaced last month of a booster give illicet benefits to players. (AP)

Every season seems to bring more scandals involving college sports, but a provocative article in The Atlantic says the real scandal is the NCAA’s concept of amateurism, and the story makes a case for paying college athletes. In his piece, historian Taylor Branch argues for paying athletes and also says a spate of lawsuits making their way through the courts could destroy the NCAA.

NPR’s Frank Deford called it “the most important article ever written about college sports.”

The Atlantic: The Shame Of College Sports

Guest:

Taylor Branch, Pulitizer Prize winning historian

We welcome comments from all of our listeners. Post below. Please stay on topic and be civil. Comments may be moderated by us, but you are solely responsible for the content of your comments.

Chris

Perhaps the NFL should throw in a subsidy since they get all this free player development and since NCAA football has no competition for talent, like a minor league system or a junior system.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Dan-Fulton/100000019043153 Dan Fulton

For additional perspective review:
http://blog.locustfork.net/2010/09/alabama-football-coach-paul-bear-bryant-interviewed-in-1973/
mogl

I do not follow college sports, but I do follow the news (especially public radio) and for three decades I have been listening to the discussion of amateur-v-professional athletes. I have a question that I hope you might address in one of the endless discussions on this topic.The colleges and universities want to maintain the amateur status of the athletes for reasons which benefit the institutions. I get that part. But what would happen if someone (the courts, student-athlete organizations, parents, the public, someone) held them to the spirit of that choice with all it’s consequences, not just the ones advantageous to the institution? What would happen if, for example, the institutions and organizations were barred from marketing individual players? They could market the team or the sport, but not the students. Nothing with the likeness name or number on it.You have heard the story or the parent who dies and the will says one kid divides the assets and the other gets to pick his/her half, right? If the schools insists the athletes are students first (rather than revenue generating assets), and the games are part of an education (rather than a highly profitable business), and someone made them behave that way … would they choose differently? CHOICE 1: Professional athlete-students who can be marketed as the assets they are — with maximum revenues.CHOICE 2: “Student-athletes” participating in an educational activity, who should not be exploited — with lower overall revenues.Where’s the smart money on that one? Your thoughts?
Anonymous

I think at a minium, the athletes should get a guaranteed scholarship. It seems unfair that it gets yanked if the player gets hurt and can’t play. Especially since so many players look at a scholarship for sports as the only way they can go to college. Everything is over after an injury.
Kate

There are paid professional athletes, they are called professionals.

Personally, college sports disgust me. The big money sports have turned the college for these athletes into an audition for pro sports. Let the athletes join the minor league teams and go back to college after there athletic career is over, when they are actually focused on learning – which is the point of school after all.
Chris

Also, if Division I football players and mens basketball players get paid, would you have to pay D-I players in other sports, hockey, baseball, womens basketball, etc.? Would football players at relatively small-time UMass(soon to be FBS) have to be paid like players at Alabama?
RobtOakley

Pay the athletes, call it work-study. (Put a cap on it, call it the minor leagues.)
Anonymous

Great segment. How about discussing the corruption college sports have brought to all American education? It seems Mr. Branch is assuming that highly funded college sports are a good thing in principle. I would suggest that competitive sports suck more air out of the educational system in this country than they bring to it. Rather than focusing on the health of all students through well-funded scientific physical education programs, the focus is on competition and star players. Vestigial tribal wars for booty instead of universal health-promoting participation for all. I believe this is the root of the problem.
George

These star atheletes whose performance have made them popular are not receiving free education.
In fact, clearly they are overpaying.�
Consequently, they are obviously being swindled.
This reminds me of the early days of black music and the music recording industry.
David Tooley

Don’t pay them. Only allow straight A students to play. Limit practice to 15 hrs a week. Coaches paid on the same scale as professors. All money made has to go into academics.
- http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp
  
  Like, like, a thousand times like.
- Brian
  
  Doesn’t address the issues of the current corruption, nor does it address the issues of the media virtually owning college sports, while colleges make money off the backs and talents of student athletes. Pay them federal work study rate. Allow bonuses of $5,000 each for conference champions (regular season only) and $10,000 bonuses to athletes on a National Championship team. Half of the money made must be reinvested into athletics, the other half into academics.
BHA in Vermont

They are already getting paid – free ride through college. That is worth what? $100K to $250K over 4 years?

Plus, while I think college coaches, asst coaches, etc being paid hundreds of thousands if not millions is grotesque, please explain how ‘paying’ the ‘ workers’ little (tuition/room and board/ books, etc) while paying the ‘executives’ 100% to 1000% more is any different than corporate culture?

In the USA, the people who make the products/services that are sold are not the ones paid the big bucks. Without the workers, the execs would be on the street corner panhandling.
Lmlewis2010

Ancillary topic to this discussion, but the contemporary term is workers’ compensation, not workMANS’ compensation.
- http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp
  
  Thankfully, I missed the memorandum on that one.
Kaitlyn

Often Master’s and PhD students at colleges obtain TA positions (Teacher Assistants) and they are given free tuition and ALSO provided with a stipend for their teaching time. Although not much $ they are still being compensated. Athletes should be compensated for their playing time.
- http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp
  
  Why? They add nothing to the educational process.
Citizenish

A thought for your next project… the Supreme Court codified in the Citizens United case that corporations are people, doesn’t this open up a civil rights concern with regards to the different rights that are available to corporations….

Here I’m thinking of such things as….
Corporations have specific taxation rights available to them.
Corporations have different bankruptcy rights than people.
When corporations or businesses are ended, are they thus killed? Should those who file for such endings be treated differently than those who kill or murder and happen to be human.

Are humans the next civil rights category???
Tony

It is an importaint discussion, but please,please stop calling them unpaid, salves, plantation mentality etc. Where do I sign up to do something I love (a sport), get a free ride to a great university, a degree, round the clock professional training and coaching and a chance at a multi million dollar contract at the end of it all? Come on! If you want “Paid” go play minor league ball for $15-$20,000 an year, if your are lucky. It’d be a pretty dramatic pay cut from what Division 1 football and Basket ball players are “Paid” now.
Mike

Players should not be paid. They already recieve free tuition, room and board, books, meal plans, etc. Most of them are eligible for pell grants and, if they have good grade, other scholarships. There is plenty of money out there for them.

Where do we draw the line if players are to be compensated? Do we only pay football players? What about women’s sports? Smaller universities? Do you base the pay on the amount of money the university makes off of the sport or merchandise? Are all players paid the same?

However, I do think the players should have the right to market themselves if a sponsor would like to use their name or likeness on a product.
http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

The old Greek idea of physical education was to have a sound body in which a sound mind could function. Added to that was the value of physical skill for citizen soldiers. Today’s sports programs have nothing to do with education and ought to be removed from schools. Athletics has swamped the educational process.
joseph myers

A terrific show. The NCAA is far more a conspiracy than a “sports organization” — and it has simply hijacked the word “Collegiate” to provide a patina of legitimacy. Where the “rules” are broken, the penalties are invariably imposed on the players — when it would be far more effective, if they deserve enforcement, to impose the penalties on the head coaches (for repeated dangerous play or for corruption). If the head coach stands to lose $25 million, then I’d imagine he would be rather strict in preventing “spearing” on the football field…………… And the creation of a “national championship” with attendant business opportunities would only compound this disaster. College sports are wonderful for students and fans. The people who profit so handsomely from them, in the background, probably drinking mint juleps and enjoying the cotton crop, are evil.
Micnviv

this subject is old and tired. Now, to equate the issue with slavery is nothing short of disgusting. I am in debt up to my neck because I did not have my education paid for by a sports scholarship. If the players feel cheated, don’t take the scholarship.
Avarga08

I wrote a Master`s Thesis in law school on compensation for student athletes starting with Worker`s Compensation about 40 years ago. Obviously it never caught on! However, I also felt (and feel) that if Affirmative Action works in favor of Black`s it should also work in favor of White`s on sports teams. How`s that for progressive thinking! Can you imagine a school like Georgetown being required to put a white or two on it`s basketball team.
Maxine Levy

After listening to the interview I have a solution for consideration. Every school or representative [read coach, if there is personal gain] and the NCAA should place in an IRA type fund, each year for every player, a percentage of every cent earned by that player’s team. So at seasons end [read after bowl games], the total years earnings should be determined. This money would be small to the schools and NCAA but a help for the players who aren’t going on to professional sports. For example: $10,000,000in earnings x 0.001 = 10,000 per player on each football team. I’m sure getting $40,000 at graduation would help. I”m sure this could be figured out by someone.