rsvman
#1 - you don't have to apologize to me. We're just passing time here with sports discussion, and yeah - on occasion I make the mistake of not researching "the full story." Thanks for clarifying that in one of these instances, regarding Wendell and his decision to declare himself eligible for the draft. That's on me.
And however premature I think his decision is - that's great for Wendell. And great for his mom too, I'm sure.
I don't know what the answer is regarding college athletics and student-athletes being paid (or better yet, athlete-students, since there are many instances in which "academics" come second and "athletics" come first in the most popular collegiate sports (basketball/football).
I just think it would be extremely difficult to figure out a compensation plan equitably. Does a college field hockey player at the University of Maryland deserve the same monetary compensation as that of a star running back at the University of Georgia? And if not - why? Georgia is obviously a very successful college football program, but have they been more successful in football than Maryland has been with their field hockey program in recent years?
Should the NCAA compensate the star running back at Georgia more than they compensate a star field hockey player at Maryland? Track-and-Field, Volleyball, Baseball? The obvious argument is to look at the amount of specific sport-generated revenues for the respective schools and use that as some sort of compensation barometer. But that still isn't completely equitable. And what would likely happen at that point is a situation might develop where a potential star athlete-student picks XYZ college over ABC college because XYZ compensates more. Then you have the beginning of what might become a college draft for promising high school athletes, no different from the professional drafts.
And since the NCAA is already a complete dumpster fire as it relates to their inability to execute their most basic, primary responsibility of managing college athletics, I don't think I'd be alone in assuming that the last thing college sports needs at this particular point in time is having the NCAA themselves being the authority of who or who doesn't get paid, or who gets paid more.
But here's the other side of the coin - these student-athletes and their families are already being compensated via an athletic scholarship, which (as was listed above) is basically $50k/year that a parent doesn't have to spend to send their kid to a place like Duke University.
That's a significant amount of money, UNLESS you're the parent of a promising football/basketball player who is simply using college for 1-2 seasons as a stage for professional stardom, which generally leads to gobs of life-changing money shortly thereafter.
Might be time to reconsider who they're giving these scholarships to. The student who's there to learn, whose parents are both working two jobs and forking over $40k/year so their kid can get a good education and hopefully make a difference in their respective communities post-graduation? Or the kid who isn't focused on academics as much as learning how to hit a 15-foot jumper to elevate his draft potential within 2-4 semesters, who will then probably spend his next 5 seasons glorifying himself on Instagram while riding the bench until either the money runs out or a team decides to cut their losses and move on?