17 August 2014 | Pay Student Athletes? What the Hell For?

I don't know the name of the sports talk show host, but after listening to this guy berate a college student about the uselessness of anything other athletic departments at universities, I realize that his attitude is exactly why student athletes should not be paid.

While the unnamed host dismissed the caller's contention that non-athletic departments bring in quite a bit of money to research universities, he also casually brushed the caller off with a "go play with your Bunsen burner", insisting that now-professional football player Johnny Manziel brought in millions to Texas A&M and that's all that matters. That surprised me a bit because athletic department across the country loudly proclaim how universities do not give them one red cent; that they're entirely self-sufficient. Unnamed radio host seems to think that boosters were donating to the entire school, not just the athletic department. Texas A&M boosters sent their money to the sports program; they don't give a damn about anything else. (And what else is there at Texas A&M?)

But even the claim that athletic departments are cut-off financially from universities is a ruse. These departments don't own the land, don't own the state-of-the-art training facilities and their workers are all university employees. Their positions are not grant-based, like say, a researcher's staff, but come out of a university's overall budget. True, a university does not get its state monies with a sticky note marked "For athletics only," but the claim of total independence and no financial support is hollow and administrative sleight-of-hand.

As for directly paying student athletes, excuse me, male student athletes, the unnamed radio host's attitude sums it all up: athletes in large, prestigious university sports programs are arrogant and entitled immature men. And now you want to pay them? They already have a terrific support system to help through their "academic" careers that other students do have access to. Most are exempt from the standard rigors of attending classes because they're too busy training or on the road. And one should look at the percentage of these students who are not in the political science or "consumer science" programs, two limp-wristed tracks if there ever were. The body is developed. The mind is not.

Student athletes are already at the top of the college population caste system; now you want to exacerbate that by paying them what will amount to far more money than any other student worker. (And please, don't cling to the notion they'd be paid according to the pay-scale tiers for student employees.) More importantly, you want to give money to young men who, as I stated, are still developmentally immature. As they already know a university values them more than other students, why would you want to encourage that by giving them lots of money?