Oklahoma head football coach Bob Stoops doesn’t believe scholarship D1 student athletes should be paid a stipend, stating:
“I don’t get why people say these guys don’t get paid. It’s simple, they are paid quite often, quite a bit and quite handsomely.”
Interesting these comments from a guy making over $4 million dollars a year to coach “amateur” NCAA football. Of course, Stoops is entitled to his opinion and he is not the only one who believes student athletes are already “paid” quite handsomely because of the free education they are afforded — but like most things in life, there are many layers to this debate that also need to be examined.
The easy answer to why student athletes should not receive a stipend is the argument Stoops makes — that is, student athletes already get a “free ride” in addition to countless privileges they receive as being rock stars on campus. While this may be true, there are many counter-arguments to this position, including the following:
- D1 student athletes are afforded a free education, but not every SA comes to campus with an appreciation for this trade-off. In fact, many SA’s (and especially the blue chip players) are coaxed to attend a specific college not for the academics, but for the more direct route to the NFL. When academics are devalued — or viewed as a “necessary hindrance” as some coaches see it — can you blame student athletes when they, too, devalue the “free ride” they are given?
- Following the last point, many student athletes are encouraged to major in eligibility classes in order to stay on the field. Keep in mind college football coaches (including Bob Stoops) get raises for perfect seasons, conference championships, and BCS appearances — not graduating players. The reality is keeping student athletes eligible is of the utmost importance, which often creates a decreased value for student athletes to choose more pertinent college majors.
- The message of “you already get a free education” is beginning to be sniffed out by increasingly more student athletes who see their coaches (including many assistant coaches these days) earn $1 million or more dollars a year. As the gap widens with coach salaries compared to everyone else on campus, student athletes are catching on and seeing that their “trade” is hardly comparable to what coaches make — and, ironically, coaches make these huge salaries exclusively on the backs of the student athletes they recruit.
- Student athletes also see how their likeness is profited by countless people – but not themselves! While seemingly everyone around the student athlete makes money off his likeness (i.e. college apparel, video games, etc), the student athlete sees none of this money.
The “you get a free education” argument really only goes so far, especially when it’s been demonstrated that many student athletes (at the very young age of 18) are persuaded (overtly or casually) that it is most important to choose a simple major and instead prioritize the fact that they are the select few to have an opportunity to play football for the school. The easy comeback to this is “they are young adults and need to be more responsible with the privilege of a free education,” but that argument doesn’t wash for two very important reasons:
1.) Young adults are just that – young. It’s a shallow argument to assume they are wise enough to make mature, sound decisions when everything is thrown at them as is the case with big time college sports. Just think what you were doing at 18, and then imagine how you might have responded at this age as you were walked down the “football hall of fame” at XYZ university, where you see all the former greats who later went on to successful NFL careers. Do you think you might have “drank the kool aid” and focused a lot more on football than you would have school?
2.) The #1 job of compliance is to keep student athletes eligible, which often means finding majors that are most conducive and suitable for the lifestyle of a D1 student athlete. At risk of offending anyone majoring in traditionally “easy majors” that don’t have much value for a future career, I’ll just say that it’s commonly known there are majors out there that simply keep student athletes eligible, and not necessarily the best to help with a future, non-sports career. Again, if you were 18 years old and told you could stay eligible by simply taking a couple PE classes, a music appreciation class, and maybe a CPR class, would you fight your adviser in order to take a more rigorous schedule?
I have long wondered what would ever happen if student athletes unionized? While college athletic departments roll in the dough, student athletes receive a *free* education in return. But what would happen if there were a union of student athletes who assembled and fought back for equal pay in return for the tens of millions of dollars they generate for their respective universities each year? And what if these student athletes ever went on strike? Can you imagine the leverage they would have against the NCAA machine? The truth is student athletes actually hold all the cards, and the entire NCAA cash cow machine would crumble without their participation. Perhaps Bob Stoops and others should fear that possibility more than fight against student athletes earning a few measly dollars for their pockets.
www.drstankovich.com
