Ralph Nader: Stop Giving Athletes Scholarships

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Fan is short for Fanatic ,... we are a clever primate that thrives on group violence , we worship the warrior ,... every Civilized group / nation goes to war about once a generation , some more ,... we civilians get excited as a group ,... without sports we would pop a cork .....

I'm an alum of the University of Oklahoma, and a lifelong fan. I love Coach stoops. However, the obscene amount of money involved in College football and basketball, especially, is beyond what anyone could have imagined 40 years ago. When I was a high school student, you could go to an OU game and sit in the south end zone for $1 per ticket with your student ID. Now, the cheap tickets are about $60, and if you want season tickets you will be lucky to get them within a 10 years time period, and if you want decent seats, you will also need to become a "donor." I guess that's part of supply and demand, but it pretty much locks out the poor high school kids from attending the games. You pay $3 to $5 for a coke or hot dog. And about 85 of the 120 or so kids on the football team can get a scholorship, which enables many of them from poor backgrounds to get an education. The other 35 get nothing as walk-ons, unless they happen to qualify for academic scholorships. When I was young, the late great OU coach Bud Wilkinson made about $70,000 per year, which was a little more than the governors salary. Now, our governor makes, I believe about $150,000 per year, and Coach Stoops makes about $5 million per year, and I don't begrudge him for making all he can, but I think no coach should be paid anywhere near that amount. If the top coaches made say, $500,000 per year, if the other $4.5 million could be channeled into scholorships for no more than the athletic department, a lot more student-athletes might be able to afford college. My son was an all-state soccer player and would have loved to have attended OU, but they have no men's soccer team due to budget constraints. When I was at OU, I worked at least 20 hours per week to help meet my living expenses. Athletes are prohibited from holding jobs during the school year. They are bringing in tens of millions per year to every major university, and only a small percentage of them will play in the NFL. Of those, many will have careers of only 2 or 3 years due to injuries, so it's not like college football players will inherit a "golden goose" if and when they graduate. Many will suffer major injuries while playing college ball, and they won't receive any compensation for the reduced opportunity to play in the NFL if they have a major kneee injury, for example. Heisman Trophy winner Jason White is a perfect example. Jason blew out a knee his Junior year, rehabilitated remarkably to win the Heisman his senior season, but was badly injured early in the Big Xll Championship game against Kansas State, and heavily favored OU lost the game. 3 weeks later, Jason was still crippled with a knee and shoulder injury and was battered again in the National Championship Game against LSU, but almost pulled out a win at the end of the game. About 3 months later, Jason couldn't pass the physical to enable him to compete in the NFL. Here's a guy that gave his all for the school for 4 years, never received a dime in pay despite helping to fill an 85,000 seat stadium every week. The athletes need to be PAID under a strictly controlled system to at least the level that they can afford to buy gas, take a girl out on a date once in awhile, and maybe buy a few clothes. Any booster caught "subsidizing" the set stipend should be banned from the campus, future contact with any athletes forever, and even banned from attending the football games as spectators. If it's possible to criminalize under the table payments, then I would be in favor of that also. I know at OU, much of the football revenue does go into supporting a lot of other sports for men and women which don't produce enough revenue to be self sustaining, and that's a good thing. There is no doubt that boosters around the country have for many years paid star players under the table. It's time to end the hypocracy called "amateur sports" The players need to be paid an equal amount at every school in the country. To maintain the attitude that college athletes don't need money to survive on is ridiculous. The money could come from such a source as a team's arrangement with Nike, Pepsi, or a corporate sponsor. It's already there, it's just not "trickling down" to the people who put the as.es in the seats.

What about "title IX"? And, just my opinion. We should put less emphasis on education and more emphasis on apprenticeship programs for a wide variety of careers.