Life, Liberty And The Pursuit of Happiness May Be Inalienable Rights - A College Scholarship Is Not
This is the third and final part of Dan’s essay on pay for play. You can check out the earlier entries for part 1 and part 2.
I refused to write this article sober.
In ”I’m Not Telling The Pistol Team Their Sport Is Useless”, I used the words football players instead of “Everyone kills People” Pryor, “Sexual Ball’ah” Bush, “I’m a Soldier” Winslow and crew. I’m now talking about the upper-echlon folks at the top BCS programs whose names plaster our ears on College Game Day and fill the highlight reel on Sports Center. The Men in Black - the “best of the best of the best”. These dudes knew they were going pro shortly before puberty. I took a few moments to reflect back and apply all of those statistical methods I learned in grad school and analyze what I could when the thought “ya know, it’s often those ball’ah guys who pop-up for rules infractions allegations”. It turns out that there’s a strongly-positive correlation between being a stud on the field and fucking over the college helping you put together footage of you on that field for NFL scouts.
The correlation gets its measure from the lack of actual consequences. Potentially sit for a game for getting hammered on expensive steaks and booze before getting a bj from Nut Gobbler - on some other dudes dime on the nearly non-existent chance you’ll get caught OR just get hammered on expensive steaks and booze before getting a bj from Nut Gobbler - on some other dudes dime and play anyway!
These guys are at least 18 years old; that makes them adults. It is not the host institution or NCAAs’ job maintain control on every single athlete’s decision-making process. They know the rules. They were taught was is right and what is wrong. They know the official consequences. Hell, the host institution is actually incentivized to not maintain control. This is why Jim Tressel took the risk of lying and covering it up. He’s a smart dude. He ran the numbers and calculated an acceptable risk to lie about Tee Pee’s tats.
When shit goes down and players are caught, the punishment is not their burden to carry. Did USC know that Reggie got $200,000 for the house? Maybe, maybe not. Reggie did however make a conscious decision that ripped a school, locker room of teammates and a wealth of fans of a BCS National Championship. USC had nothing to do with his choices. Sure he lost the Heisman and a National Championship but he’s also worth 8 figures - not gonna feel sorry. Tee Pee got caught, kicked out of school and received a $500,000 signing bonus while Ohio State has to forfeit millions in winnings, a BCS bowl victory and a Big Ten Championship.
I offer a simple and sustainable solution that is practically self-governing. For every game that a player gets suspended, so are all the starters on that side of the ball. You win as a team and you lose as a team. Once the NCAA gets some fecal cohesion going on their rules manual, you can quite easily implement this. (I’ll admit the rules presently stray into may gray areas and is as dense as the Federal Tax code.). I’m comfortable estimating that car dealerships might be a little less inclined to stretch the rules.
As an additional punishment for the guilty player, they must pay back the lost portion of their scholarship; that is to say there are 12 regular season games and a one game suspensions means you owe 1/12 of the full financial benefits associated with your scholarship before your ass steps onto the field again. (It’s a side topic but people on academic scholarships are due the same financial punishment in my opinion).
A college education is a privilege - not a right. Players can be suspended for the season and not lose their scholarship. Translated to a normal college student means that they are not allowed to clock in at work for spitting in the customers’ food, still get paid, and still get to come back to work in year. Pryor took it a step further and chose to say “that’s ok, I found someone who’ll pay me more.. sorry about your customers”. If a student loses their job and cannot pay for school, they don’t go to school.
Tough shit. Learn from it.
NCCA athletes are given an amazing forum to showcase their impressive talents, a little humility to respect for the opportunity they have isn’t too much to ask. I call that accepting the consequences for the choices you make.
