2. #em#Pay Dirt: College Athletes Deserve the Same Rights as Other Students#/em#

2. Pay Dirt: College Athletes Deserve the Same Rights as Other Students

Frank Deford

The following viewpoint piece was posted on SI.com in May 2003.

Last month at the Masters, a senior at the University of Arizona, Ricky Barnes, played with Tiger Woods and not only outshot Woods over the first 36 holes but also finished the tournament only three strokes over par. Barnes should have pocketed a nice paycheck, but instead he had to settle for a pat on the back.

That is, Barnes played the same course as Woods and all the other PGA players—he even beat most of them—but while they got paid, he didn’t. That’s because, of course, Ricky Barnes is something called an amateur—and while we have reached the 21st century, American sports still have these antiquated 19th century rules about amateurism.

Essentially, we can thank the British upper classes for amateurism. They wanted to keep sports to themselves, so as long as they made it so poor people couldn’t afford to take time to play without reward, only the rich could practice and compete. Then, when we adopted Victorian amateurism in many of our sports, we covered it with the veil of the Olympics. Only it wasn’t so. The old Greeks didn’t waste their time running and jumping just to get a laurel wreath. The Greeks paid their Olympic champions handsomely. But the myth persists.

When the NCAA was established, amateur rules were ironclad, and it’s awfully hard to break them because we in America have big-time sports tied up with academics. In most sports, American players have little chance to compete unless they go to college and play by the college rules.

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I think good arguments can be made that Division I football and basketball players should be paid by their schools. I’ll grant, though, it is an expensive and debatable proposition. But, pray tell, what are the arguments that say an athlete such as Ricky Barnes should be denied compensation when he is not competing for his college? If Barnes wants to accept a scholarship to Arizona and play for the Wildcats for free, fine, but why should Arizona deny him remuneration when he is only competing as Ricky Barnes?

The NCAA is, simply, a cartel when it disallows athletes that right. Why should a college student who happens to be a good athlete be denied the same rights as a college student who is a good musician or a good writer or a good actor? The kid who has those talents is, in fact, encouraged to get a paying summer job in his specialty to improve his skills. Why should a college basketball player be denied the same rights as a college piano player?

And the answer, of course, is because the NCAA adopted Victorian rules a century ago and maintains them today because it has the power to do so. The irony is, too, that if the NCAA lifted those old-fashioned regulations it would help college sports. The NBA, say, could draft a college player who is not yet quite good enough for the league, pay him and let him stay in college, where he would get good coaching and develop while boosting the popularity of his team and his sport.

Why should the NCAA care—or bear any authority—about where or how a college player makes money outside of college? Amateur is supposed to be about the love of the game. In truth, it’s about how the NCAA loves the way it controls our athletes and denies them the same rights our other talented young people enjoy.