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.

As stated previously it's mostly college basketball players who are leaving school early especially after playing for one year at the school. Even most recently Brandon Jennings chose to go overseas instead of playing the one year at the University of Arizona.

In 2003 the Nebraska legislature decided to look into paying college athletes with stipends. A stipend is similar to a paid internship. Now if the legislature actually was able to get the stipend to exist it would create problems for schools in Nebraska. The reason being is that if these athletes are being paid other schools from out of state might not be able to compete in recruiting of athletes and therefore creates an unfair advantage.

A reason for paying an athlete is if the player comes from a family that is living in poverty. A player is more than likely going to take the fastest way possible to make money. Part of the reason for a player leaving so fast is that they do not have the time to fit everything in their schedules. The player may have only time for practice, games, travel time, and then finding time to study.

The best reason for paying an athlete is too keep them away from sports agents or boosters. The issue with boosters and agents are that a player may get too involved with them meaning that they may take gift or money from them.

O.J. Mayo who was of course as most spots fans know was heavily recruited out of West Virginia and ended up going to USC, but has been most notably known for receiving up to $30,000 from an agent. Mayo of course is now in the NBA and doing very well.

While Mayo is doing fine in Memphis, USC could be in major trouble for Mayo's alleged taking of money. If it is true that he did take $30,000 from an agent it is USC that gets punished. USC may be forced to forfeit games and have scholarships taken away, while Mayo is perfectly happy playing in the NBA.

One argument on why athletes should not be paid is because an athlete by definition that is paid is a professional. So, if a player comes in with a full ride scholarship they get free rooms, classes, books, meals, and tutors.  

Since full scholarships are basically the same thing as taking a payment. Full scholarships should actually be a need-based financial agreement between the athlete and the school allow for the athlete not only to play their specific sport, but too also allow them to discover other opportunities at the school.

If the athlete chooses to say stop playing and instead decide to become a doctor the athlete would still get the same benefits as before. Take into the fact that the most difficult sport to get into is basketball. For a player to actually get involved at a NCAA school only 2.9 percent actually go onto make a basketball team in the NCAA and to make it to the NBA the percent is at .03 percent.

Beyond school-issues scholarships the NCAA is funneling $750 million dollars over 11 years into funds that will directly benefit athletes. During the 2004 school year 11.33 million dollars worth of funds was available to need athletes and the money went towards clothing, emergency travel, educational and medical expenses.

During the 2004-2005 school year there was a fund that included any of the athletes another $19.2 million dollars that can be used for an array of personal needs, and lastly the NCAA spent an additional $10 million dollars on catastrophic-injury insurance.

Another fund that isn't really known about is the Special Assistance Fund which was etablished in 1991. It was designed to help athletes cover basic or emergency expenses. An athlete is allocated $500 per year. Yet, for other "essential expenses" such as academic supplies, medical, dental costs not covered by insurance, and family emergencies there's no actual limit from the fund.

The Student-Athlete Opportunity Fund which was established in 2003 is avaliable to all athletes regardless of financial need and whether they are still eligible for their sport or no longer playing due to injury. The fund can be used for traveling home, comptuers, other school supplies, clothing, medical expenses for spouses or dependents, summer school, degree-completion porgrams, and professional development.

A Division One board of director chairman and also the Chancellor at the University of Kansas has been quoted as saying "even if born of the best intentions, pay for play is the worst of ideas, ranking right up there with the Edsel, Enron accounting, and the Vientman rationale, 'we must destroy the village to save it'...If we begin to equate a student-athlete's play recompense pocketed every month, we have skidded to the bottom of a very slippery slop."

The reason why Hemmenway called it a "slippery slope" is because how would the system be setup to pay the student-athlete? Would each player be making the same amount of money? Would role players make less? What about the other sports that may not get as much attention as the major sports would they get paid the same too?

Myles Brand also is quoted as stating "the NCAA historically has been against pay for play. I couldn't agree more with that position. If you start paying athletes (other than assisting them through financial aid), you esentially ruin the integrity of the college game."

Brand's meaning is that if athletes are going to be paid the actual play is going to suffer and the passion that is seen in the college game will be gone. The passion and the effort is what makes March Madness so great. When the 65 teams converge to get to that one final place the National Championship game.

One of the key elements is wathing the "Cinderella" or smaller schools that may not get a lot of national exposure and watching to see if they could knock the bigger schools out of the tournament or make a game of it. An example of a team like that is Davidson's run with Stephon Curry leading Davidson making the Elite Eight.

Even with that when thinking of passion in March Madness games was the Gonzaga vs UCLa. UCLA rallied from a nine point deficit with three minutes to play and ended up winning the game with the rally.

When the buzzer sounded many fans of college basketball remember Adam Morrison falling to the floor with tears flowing down his face ending one of the best finishes for Gonzaga men's basketball program.

During the celebration of the victory celebration both Ryan Hollins and Aaron Afflalo helped Adam Morrison up from the floor where he was spread out at midcourt. Morrison definitely has a lot of respect for the UCLA's program and went on to say this about Hollins and Afflalo "that's just a sign of a great program and great people. The had enough guts as a man in their moment of victory to pick another man up off the floor. That's more than basketball and I would than them if I could."

The NCAA shouldn't look into paying their athletes. The NCAA could look into expanding the scholarship to allow for a certain amount of money per month for a player that doesn't have any restrictions on it like a fund would.

By also putting up he statistic of the actual percentage that make it to the certain sport the athlete participates could be used as motivation to stay in school to get a degree. The would also help with the athlete not being at the school for just the one year in the case of basketball.

With the specific funds in place that are setup by the NCAA to cover travel, educational expenses, computer, and emergencies the NCAA could do a better job at educating athletes about their abilities to use the funds.

Lastly, by not paying athletes the integrity of the game is not ruined and the passion that the NCAA is known for from their athletes will still remain. Meaning the examples of sportsmanship shown by Ryan Hollins and Aaron Afflalo will continue to be shown.