College Football 2011: Big Ten Stipend Plan Could Save Big-Time College Sports

As we inch closer to the 2011 college football season, the Big Ten, ever the bastion of inventiveness and creativity (Legends and Leaders, anyone? Hey, I never said it was always good inventiveness and creativity) are reportedly looking into a plan that could change the college football (and college sports) landscape forever. 

According to multiple media outlets, the Midwestern conference is reportedly looking into giving players financial stipends to help cover the expenses not covered by athletic scholarships. 

We're not talking pro money here—the stipends would likely be in the range of $2,000 to $5,000 for the year—but even so, this could be exactly what big-time college sports need to save themselves from the corruption they've been fighting for decades.

Let's face it—college football and basketball recruiting rank among the seediest, most corrupt activities in the sports world. We get more and more scandals involving players getting loans from agents, coaches giving players extra benefits (financial and otherwise), players selling memorabilia for cash and parents trying to milk money from universities for their kids' signatures to play there every single year.

Corruption and under-the-table dealings are commonplace in the college sports world, and anyone who doesn't think so is either blind or not paying attention. Most of those scandals involve payments to players to help them subsist during their time at school. With the rigors of modern football and basketball practices, which essentially run all year long, players can't get real jobs on top of practice and class. 

This system would give them the ability to support themselves, as well as helping to eliminate the temptation of cash from illicit sources. Suddenly, an agent giving a kid a few hundred bucks isn't nearly as tempting to that player. By giving the player a bit of spending money to use on things like transportation and clothes, you're eliminating the need for under-the-table payments. You're taking the need for illicit payments from boosters out of the equation and ensuring that these guys don't need to take the money. 

On top of that, you're not doing anything that thousands of college students aren't already doing: You're giving them an internship, a means to keep themselves afloat while they get an education. 

Is the theory perfect? Hardly; with payment out in the open, there's a good chance certain schools (I'm looking at you, SEC) would try to pay more than the allotted amount or could throw other, under-the-table incentives into the deal. Agents could simply up the ante on their payments, and parents could still demand cash for their kids' commitment.

On top of that, smaller conferences might not be able to afford to pay full stipends, tilting the tables even further in favor of the big boys in the power conferences.

But even those issues could be closely checked and monitored by giving athletic departments set budgets to use on stipends and monitoring those budgets closely. Small schools could get help from the NCAA as a whole or seek alternative sources of funding.

Would I trust anyone to be the test case for this experiment? No way. The SEC hasn't shown itself capable of behaving, and while the Big Ten has had its issues, most of them have been directly tied to spending money and transportation for players.

This plan already has the backing of NCAA president Mark Emmert, and while there's certainly a risk of other issues arising, it's one that has to be taken. 

College basketball and football need something to help rein in their corrupt recruiting practices, and setting a flat stipend for programs goes a long way toward fixing many of the problems. We're not at a point where all of the temptations, dangers and corruption in college athletics can be erased (and given what we've seen from athletics over the years, the corruption and rule-breaking will never completely go away), but giving players a living stipend could be just what college sports need to bring themselves back from the brink.

Will it work the way we hope?

If the Big Ten's plan is put into effect, we'll find out soon enough.