The comments seem to be unanimous that the college sports system (Div I money sports at least) is rotten to the core. Suppose that's true.
The question then: If everyone violates the rules of a corrupt governing body, is it unethical to break them? Why?
Because "the rules are the rules?"
Cheating in a sport is unethical because it's a sport.
But taking money to play for a college?
Another point: many commenters are extremely condescending to the athletes.
Reading the comments makes me realize just how most folks don’t understand the INCREDIBLE money in both college and pro sports. And now we’re facing the INCREDIBLE damage done to these athletes.
As a woman MD starting out in neurology we understood that Muhammed Ali and the rest of the minorities who found a way out of the ghetto with the “sweet science” of boxing. There were many more Sugar Rays than Rockys whether Marciano or Balboa. Brain damage!
Football was still very white when Bear Bryant ran the SEC...and ethics? Stories of Bear putting $100 bills in hay bales and having them dropped out of crop dusters where fine white farm kids lived. Then USC played Alabama Crimson Tide in 1970 and Sam Cunningham as back for USC won 42-21.
Today 70% of NFL players are black with my brother Polynesians taking over at QB. My good friend Junior Seau shot himself in the chest so they could autopsy his brain and found CTE.
As with the Sweet Science every contact sport whether football or hoops is being taken over by minorities. Are they that much better? Or are white kids being told to keep their brains intact?
The money is ugly. The highest paid public employee in EVERY state is either football-Nick Saban-$11mill, Urban Meyer $49mill--9 years or hoops like Mike Krzyzewski-$9mill. That’s BASE pay!
Minority players? STILL just tuition, room and board-GONE IF INJURED.
My mom headed the training table at Ohio. I taught trainers for NBA.
Can’t even watch the horror anymore...
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How can Louisville still have a team ?
I mean REALLY!
Coaches only pay players under the table because they're not allowed to do so in plain site. The "illegal" recruiting economy is a direct result of the NCAA's exploitation of players. There's obviously enough money to pay players -- why do coaches and players have to risk their careers in order to share the NCAA's exorbitant profits with those that actually produce them?
The corruption that plagues college basketball is the NCAA, not the money being paid to student athletes.
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Growing up in Philly back in the Day, of course I followed the Big 5, avidly. In those days most of the players on those teams were Philly kids.
LaSalle was banned from the NCAA in 68-69 because 2 players had a No-show job at an alum's car dealership for 40 bucks a week. LaSalle had a great team that year. Three guys made the pros.
the best player was a sophomore named Ken Durrett- a terrific player. He hurt his knee his senior year and never made it in the pros. He could have been a Doc type player. Before Doc.
Of course, a friend of mine went to laSalle and said that Durett never showed up to class and passed.
Anyway, I never watch any more. The whole One-and-Done thing has just made it too much of a joke. The idea that colleges and universities should provide minor leagues for the pros is absurd. So is the risk that these young men take of getting seriously injured in college while playing for free.
How about the good part of the story? Basketball and football recruiters don't just bring black kids to white schools. They bring more poor inner city black kids to college than any other recruiting program. And there are plenty of miracle stories. Kids whose fathers were shot. Kids whose mothers were hopelessly addicted. Kids who drew the community together to keep gangs away from them because they were college material. I read a lot more about these kids in Sports Illustrated. I find the Times' coverage to be overly negative. Scandals need to be balanced against miracles.
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Ever since James Naismith attached a bottomless peach basket to a wall and started up the Kansas team people have bet on outcomes.
The wealthy and connected will always find a way to make money and suppress players similar to slavery.
Forty years ago, I remember sitting in 17,000 seat Huntsman Arena at the University of Utah in 1979 at the Final Four of Michigan State with “Magic,” Indiana State/Larry Bird, DePaul/Mark Aguire and Ivy League Penn. We were able to walk up on Saturday and buy tickets at face value--Mormons would only buy at face value. This was the penultimate year when hoops was actually played in a basketball arena...not 103,000 seats where the Dallas Cowboys played.
Penn lost, as expected, to the Spartans but I’ll always remember their cheer as they were being beaten: “That’s all right; that’s OK, you’re all going to work for us someday.” Funny until you remember who POTUS is.
In 1979, it was still a year before the NBA Jazz came to town. We had less that 1/2% African-Americans in Utah...I’m not a Mormon, but The Church didn’t accept black people until 1978.
As we walked around the arena and sat low in Section E, I remember CLEARLY that the stands were filled with all white folks in furs and Armani suits while Magic, Special K-Greg Kelser, Mark Aquire played for tuition on the floor. It felt EXACTLY like watching gladiator movies in The Coliseum.
40 years later black athletes are the majority in hoops and football. Ethics? Morality? HA!
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I saw the coach for Villanova doing a Lowe's commercial on TV. The commercial is repeated multiple times. Any money he received from that commercial should be divided equally among his players. Perhaps if he spent more time coaching and less "commercializing, his team would still be in the running.
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There is little if any overlap between the life of a basketball player at any of the main contenders in the NCAA and genuine students at the same institutions. It is true that the competition is fun to watch. However isn't it way past time to have colleges and universities go back to what should be their focus, education, and have the NBA run their own nursery clubs for post high school young men, who might justifiably profit from their own natural talents and hard work? Such a decision would take real leadership from the universities and that's a quality that's in real short supply currently.
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Sports in general has followed a path of corruption. And yes, I know the "amateurism" of the early Olympics was biased to the moneyed elite. However amateurism is the soul of sport, professionalism is the corruption of that soul into "bread and circuses" to distract the masses.
If you play locally you are amazed and inspired by the great plays and players you experience. Sport is a training ground for life, not an industry. The idea that we need ever more incredible athletes and so heap ever more resources into this effort is a grand delusion.
I personally despise the quote "winning isn't everything, it's the only thing". In my mind this is the antithesis of the soul of sport and yet this is what professionalism sells.
And yes, while the athletes don't get paid (wink wink) the mere fact that the schools profit from these sports establishes the underpinning of professionalism.
On the plus side, most of the athletes playing any sport at the college level really are doing it for love of the game and to get an education. But no industry generating billions of dollars in revenues can claim amateur status.
Thank you for the article. It asks questions that need to be asked even if there is no easy answer.
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I saw Dean Smith win his last NCAA div I men's basketball championship with Eric Montross and George Lynch while a graduate student at UNC.
I saw Grant Hill play for Duke. In Chapel Hill college basketball seeps through everything.
I now no longer watch NCAA games or tournament. I no longer give money to UNC. Until players have a union and payment for their work. I cannot condone an organization making 1 billion per year USD with unpaid labor.
My understanding is the NCAA was created to avoid paying workers compensation to an injured player. Of the few like Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons who make it, many are left with injuries and pain with no recourse.
I understand that most will see my retreat as futile. It does help me remember to value the work of everyone around me, which will have to be enough for me today.
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On rare occasions I can be coaxed into watching a game. Rarely the entire game, but a part of one. Oh, I watched plenty in my younger days and even went to some. Mostly high school and local college games.
But with age comes wisdom - and the ability to see the "magic of marketing", which focuses not on the things that matter but on the things that give more impetus towards taking my meager earnings and concentrating them into the hands of those who are already wealthy beyond my dreams.
Thus I turn away from "sports" and spend more time in my garden and reading more library books.
March Madness? It is insanity, that's for sure.
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My position has long been that the players in all major college sports should get paid, and in fact not required to enroll. They can enroll if they want to AND meet the same qualification requirements as other students. I.e. no "special admissions" for athletes. Leave the available classroom space for those academically prepared and who want to learn. True students get an education, athletes get a share of the income, and schools get their profits from sports.
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One possibility not discussed in the article is that there is no ethical quandary because there is nothing wrong with players profiting from a multi-billion dollar industry from which they get only a fraction of the value they produce. Since the NCAA prevents athletes from earning a fair share of the profits they produce, why should some other group not step in and fill up the gap. Even if it is Nike (boo hiss).
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Maybe if fans did walk away, schools would lose money and be forced to perk up and make changes. Unfortunately, getting sports fans to stop supporting their unethical teams is probably as futile as trying to convince Trump fans that their leader is immoral and unethical. Irrationality eclipses rational thinking nearly every time, usually with negative consequences.
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