Paying Athletes

Jason Lewis wrote a fantastic article in the Los Angeles Sentinel entitled “Paying College Athletes is Nothing but Trouble.” I would have to agree with him on this main aspect. He makes many valid points in this article. He first brings up the recent Reggie Bush scandal that took place at USC where he accepted gifts illegally and now USC is suffering a 2 year bowl probation and a loss of 30 scholarships. Many believe that paying student athletes would stop this under the table stuff from taking place, but not Lewis. He then jumps into the situation. If a star running back is paid money, does his backups get paid the same amount, and if he doesn’t could he just transfer to another school where he could play and receive more money. This could present a huge problem if the NCAA would even think about letting schools pay their players. And all schools aren’t going to have an equal budget, so schools like USC and Texas can pay players more money. That means big time universities would just be able to buy out the best players, kinda like the free agent market in baseball. Why would a kid go play football at a school like Colorado State when he can go make more money else where. So schools like Boise State could never compete like they do now since they do not have the funds like schools like Texas, Ohio State, and Florida. Where is all the money coming from. Do the smaller sports also get paid along with the big boys like football and basketball. Not to mention where the money is going to come from when talking about paying division 2 and division 3 athletes. These kids are getting their tuition and meals paid for, is that not enough. And a large percentage of these kids are never going to play professional sports, so they need these scholarships to better themselves for what lies ahead. A lot of players think that they should receive money when they see their jerseys sold on campus, but if they are that good they will see profits from jersey sales in the NFL or NBA. These kids need the college more than the college needs them. Could Bush have signed a huge contract without playing college football I think not.

He constructs it very well, and provides very good points in his argument. I think it is very convincing because it has hard to argue where all the money would come from to pay these kids, so that is definitely one thing I will cite when constructing my paper.Also, saying that big time programs could just buy the best players, which would be terrible for the world of college football and basketball. I will use most of this information, because I agree with him is saying paying these athletes is a bad idea and they receive enough in scholarships and meal plans. Also, kids are still going to accept gifts from agents, so paying players really wouldn’t solve the problem.

Lewis, J.. "Paying college athletes is nothing but trouble. " Sentinel 29 Jul 2010,Black Newspapers, ProQuest. Web. 3 Nov. 2010.