Should College Athletes Be Paid? The Answer Is Clearly No

Since 2006 the NCAA has been in a bind in keeping their talented players in school. The reason exists because of the NBA's rule that in order for a player to declare for the NBA draft. It states the player has to be at least one year removed from high school, which often means that the player looks to get a scholarship at a certain college and then bolts to the NBA after one year.

The original rule that the NBA followed stated that the player must have graduated high school and be at least 18 years of age to enter the draft. The rule change that was brought on by David Stern stated that a player must be 19 years of age, one year removed from high school, or play at least one year of college basketball.

With these rules the amount of freshman that have declared for the NBA draft have steadily increased since the rule went into effect. In 2006 there were only two players who declared as freshman, in 2007 it jumped to 11, and for the 2008 draft 13 freshman declared.

The NCAA has been struggling to catch up with the rule. So, now Myles Brand president of the NCAA must figure out a way to make staying in school more enticing. The topic that has been broached more often then not is to start paying the athletes so they don't get caught up with agents and boosters or leave after one year of college.

For the NBA it should have looked further into the other major sports to see how their drafts work and what the policies are.

In the MLB the draft requirements are definitely different. A player may enter the draft after graduating high school as long as they haven't attended a college or junior college. If a player has already entered college in order to be drafted the athlete must have completed their junior year or be at least 21 years of age.

For a junior college baseball player can enter the draft regardless of how many years completed at the school. A player has a right to choose to sign with the team they ahve until 11:59 PM August 15th to sign a player that was drafted if not then the athlete can return to school, if out of high school enroll at a four-year college. The player can then be drafted again in a future draft as long as the player is eligible for the next draft that is entered.

The NFL draft policies have specific reasons for their policy. There's no entering the draft straight out of high school. In fact in order to enter the draft a player must be three years removed from high school in order to be eligible to be drafted.

The NFL has three specific reasons for why they have the rule in place. First an athlete that is not three years removed from high school is not physically mature enough to play in the NFL.

Graduation rates for colleges would drop due to players leaving from school, but that also applies to the other sports as well. Lastly, the NFL Players Association supports the rules as well the policy has been in place since 1990.

The NHL draft polices are very different than any other sport. It alows for players to be drafted right out of high school, but they can defer their professionalism and go to school first. The players drafted realize that education is important and that they have a job once they've completed college.

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