Paying Athletes and the NCAA

On my way into work today, I heard that the conversations regarding paying NCAA athletes is heating up again.  Proponents like Ed O'Bannon and Shane Battier point to the billions of dollars flowing into the NCAA and its member schools as reason to pay athletes.  According to their arguments, it is an unfair labor situation when the institution allows other people to become wealthy and denies the athlete any payment on the use of his or her image and name.

As a former NCAA division 2 athlete, I completely agree with their assessment that something is stinky in the way the NCAA continues to operate.  However, I disagree with their assertion that athletes should get paid a stipend by the NCAA or by their schools.  I still believe that scholarship athletes are getting paid already.  When someone is attending a school that can run 50-70K a year free of charge, how is that not payment? 

I think that the NCAA needs to allow student athletes to profit on their name and image: if the school or the NCAA wants to print a jersey or marketing material which use the name or visage of a student-athlete, they should be required to negotiate with that athlete over remuneration. 

Every student athlete should retain the rights associated with their name ad visage.  These are the rights that the NCAA and the schools strip away from the young men and women that they profit from.  I believe that allowing student athletes to retain these rights will also allow the NCAA to control costs and allow for the "trickle down" benefit of Football and Basketball to continue helping with the lower-profile sports operate.

Such a decision wouldn't have helped me: I was a middle-of-the-road athlete competing in a non-scholarship division.  I ran Track & Field, a sport which brought in little or no income to Humboldt State University.  But I understand how a kid from the inner city would feel being at University, surrounded by kids who either have time to work a part-time job or by kids that come from money...sometimes you want to go to the movies or a concert with your friends.  Sometimes you want to take your girl to get a pizza or to a play...and if such a player can market their name and image to make some money, they should be able to.  But let's not go down the slippery-slope of paying athletes.  Let's not begin the never ending discussions about stipend schedules and what constitutes who is getting paid and who should simply be grateful their on the team or happy with their scholarship...If these discussions become the conversation, then all that makes collegiate athletics great begins to fade, and slowly, the smaller sports and good but not great athletes will get pushed out and denied the opportunity to learn more about teamwork, hard work, and perseverance.

Let's have a holistic conversation people, and come up with a fair solution where everyone wins.