Jay Paterno on paying college athletes

• gorocks99

  

  Good article:
  
  http://www.statecollege.com/news/columns/jay-paterno-pay-studentathletes-theyre-already-getting-a-great-deal-766175/
  

  At the last meeting of Big Ten coaches, athletic directors and administrators, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delaney threw out an idea that has been tossed around the NCAA for decades: paying college athletes. In light of the recent situations involving players at numerous schools selling personal memorabilia, some have advocated paying the players as a way to avoid such problems in the future.
  The idea is that paying an athlete's "cost of attendance" – in some cases up to $10,000 on top of their scholarship – would be fair since big-time football and basketball players generate so much money for their schools.
  Let me start the argument by making a proposal to parents and students alike. I am going to ask you to work no more than 20 hours a week for 21 weeks – with at least one mandatory day off every week. For another 23 weeks you'll work no more than eight hours a week. You'll get eight weeks off. (These are all NCAA-mandated time limits).
  You will receive fall, spring and both summer sessions of education, plus room, board and all fees paid. For the 604 hours you put in, you'll get an education valued at $33,976 in state and $50,286 out of state (using last year's numbers from Penn State, the latest available). Keep in mind that number does not include several hundred dollars per semester for books and supplies, which are covered under the NCAA scholarship.
  At those rates, the student-athlete on full scholarship to Penn State will earn $56.25 per hour if he is an in-state student and $83.25 per hour if he is an out-of-state student.
  As a bonus, this full scholarship allows you access to tutors and computer labs and player lounges – all free to you, the student-athlete. Any medical costs incurred beyond your insurance are covered. You can be flown home at the school's expense for funerals or family emergencies. There can be bowl gifts of several hundred dollars as well.
  If you and your family have financial difficulties, this scholarship also allows you to receive any Pell Grant money you are qualified for up to the federal maximum of $5,550 per year. There's also a needy student fund allowing for several hundred dollars a year to buy clothes.
  When it comes right down to it, this pay package looks pretty good to most of America. An opportunity to attend some of the top universities in the country and graduate with no student loans to pay off looks good when you consider the average college student in this country starts off with $24,000 in debt the day they graduate.
  We haven't even begun to discuss the hundreds of thousands of extra earnings you can realize over your lifetime with a college degree that you wouldn't make without one.
  Lest we forget, the "job" you'll have is playing football or basketball – a sport you love. If you have the ability and the drive, you will have a chance to play professionally after graduation at a starting salary better than anyone else in your graduating class.
  But forget the NFL or NBA for a moment. If I offered that deal to every parent in this country, how many would grumble and say that it isn't enough? But no one discusses this side of the argument. Even members of the media will say this whole thing isn't really about education.
  There is the rub. There is the problem. No one sells the student-athletes on the idea that they are getting paid more than $80 an hour for a part-time job. No one tells the student-athlete to go talk to other students on campus who work 30 or 40 hours some weeks and will still owe tens of thousands of dollars when they graduate.
  It is all about perspective. The reality is that a few hundred more dollars or even a few thousand dollars to help cover the cost of attendance isn't going to erase the cheating that goes on. The cheating that's going on is for a lot more money than the cost of attendance.
  The problem is what society sells to big-time athletes and their families. Society sells lights, camera, the NFL or NBA. Those are sexy products. What isn't being sold is education, studying and a chance to enrich the mind and get rich in the classroom.
  While I applaud the idea of evaluating what we can do to help student-athletes, the truth is that the package they are getting is a strong pay structure. Schools, athletes and their families need to be reminded of what they are getting and how they can get the full value of the pay package they're receiving.
  If a student-athlete demands the educational opportunity he is entitled to for his work on the field or the court, then he has received the most valuable pay he could get. Ultimately they control how much value they get from the university.
  If they fail to see it, they should walk through campus and ask around to see how many other students would gladly take the deal that the full-scholarship student-athlete is getting.

• Falcons53

  AMEN!!!!
• bobby815

  Well said. sir.
• Footwedge

  That's all fine and dandy. But why do we have a governing body like the NCAA that prohibits people from getting paid for what they are worth? Or what the free market will bear? Makes no sense to me.
• Tobias Fünke

  

  Perhaps because the free market decided these guys weren't good enough to play in the NFL at this age? They are free to enter the CFL if they wish, they choose to play in the NCAA.
  
  Football players get an incredible deal. That article fucking nailed it.
• killer_ewok

  

  Fuck right, Jay. Fuck right.
• believer

  

  Spot on
• derek bomar

  

  #winning
• Footwedge

  Tobias Fünke;790547 wrote:Perhaps because the free market decided these guys weren't good enough to play in the NFL at this age? They are free to enter the CFL if they wish, they choose to play in the NCAA.
  
  Football players get an incredible deal. That article fucking nailed it.

  The free market decided no such thing.
• 2kool4skool

  

  Wonder if Paterno would be willing to coach in exchange for a full scholarship to get doctorate degrees? After all, this is a non-profit organization, and it's not about how much money you bring in, but about whether you're being paid a decent hourly wage.
  
  He should step up and set an example since he's clearly so passionate about all of this.
• HitsRus

  

  Perhaps because the free market decided these guys weren't good enough to play in the NFL at this age?

  It used to be that you could not play in the NFL unless you played all four years of college or your HS class was out 4 years. There was none of this leaving early stuff or declaring for the draft...until somebody sued.
• CCwinCC

  Looks as if Tressel and a few Columbus businessmen didnt wait for the NCAA to vote on a pay the player plan.
• Falcons53

  2kool4skool;793635 wrote:Wonder if Paterno would be willing to coach in exchange for a full scholarship to get doctorate degrees? After all, this is a non-profit organization, and it's not about how much money you bring in, but about whether you're being paid a decent hourly wage.
  
  He should step up and set an example since he's clearly so passionate about all of this.

  
  So now you want to compare students to employees at the University? Perhaps they should just separate from the university and have team Nike play Team Adidas and Team Reebok. Scrap the whole college thing. If you can not see the value of what that education brings in exchange for playing a game, then I hope you never have a kid that has that opportunity, you will only cheapen it by selling valuable items for drugs and tatoos.
• Al Bundy

  2kool4skool;793635 wrote:Wonder if Paterno would be willing to coach in exchange for a full scholarship to get doctorate degrees? After all, this is a non-profit organization, and it's not about how much money you bring in, but about whether you're being paid a decent hourly wage.
  
  He should step up and set an example since he's clearly so passionate about all of this.

  
  It is very common for coaches to spend their first few years coaching as graduate assistants where they are bascially coaching in exchange for going to graduate school and a small stipend to live off of. This normally is used for a masters degree, but there is nothing that says that it couldn't be used for a doctorate.
• queencitybuckeye

  Falcons53;794325 wrote:So now you want to compare students to employees at the University? Perhaps they should just separate from the university and have team Nike play Team Adidas and Team Reebok. Scrap the whole college thing.

  
  Not the worst idea in the world.
• queencitybuckeye

  2kool4skool;793635 wrote:and it's not about how much money you bring in,

  
  It isn't at all. If I hire a programmer for $75K, the deal we have is that for doing a defined job, he gets $75,000 per year. Whether that work generates $80K or $800K for my company is not relevant to the conversation.
• FatHobbit

  

  Falcons53;794325 wrote:So now you want to compare students to employees at the University? Perhaps they should just separate from the university and have team Nike play Team Adidas and Team Reebok. Scrap the whole college thing.

  queencitybuckeye;794458 wrote:Not the worst idea in the world.

  I don't really hate that idea either. Why is athletics tied to education? (Other than the schools/NCAA make a butt-load of money)
  

  queencitybuckeye;794461 wrote:It isn't at all. If I hire a programmer for $75K, the deal we have is that for doing a defined job, he get $75,000 per year. Whether that work generates $80K or $800K for my company is not relevant to the conversation.

  
  I imagine if the work generates less than $75,000 per year that you would no longer continue to pay that programmer.
• Tobias Fünke

  

  ESPN has a poll about whether college athletes should be able to make money off of their star status. It's 47/53 right now (against paying), but the states that think they should be able to:
  
  California (USC)
  Ohio (Ohio State)
  Alabama (Auburn/Alabama)
  Florida (Florida, Florida State, Miami)
  Maryland (?)
  ...and the NE states in which professional sports is the lifestyle.
  
  Apparently Ohio citizens have a weak backbone and have shifted towards the SEC school of thought. How pathetic.
• 2kool4skool

  

  queencitybuckeye;794461 wrote:It isn't at all. If I hire a programmer for $75K, the deal we have is that for doing a defined job, he gets $75,000 per year. Whether that work generates $80K or $800K for my company is not relevant to the conversation.

  
  If his work regularly contributed 800k to companies, he wouldn't do your shitty 75k job in a free market.
  

  Falcons53;794325 wrote:Perhaps they should just separate from the university and have team Nike play Team Adidas and Team Reebok. Scrap the whole college thing.

  
  This sounds like a fantastic idea to me actually. I'm on board!
• Manhattan Buckeye

  "This sounds like a fantastic idea to me actually. I'm on board! "
  
  It would go over like a lead balloon - how many 20,000 seat stadiums does the summer basketball leagues sell out now - none. Even though it is the same players who play in college. Ever see an NBA d-league game on tv, they often play in front of fewer people than a junior high game.
  
  The colleges provide the infrastructure and the fanbase. You can't just create that out of thin air, particularly for a sport as expensive as football.
• 2kool4skool

  

  Manhattan Buckeye;795430 wrote:"This sounds like a fantastic idea to me actually. I'm on board! "
  
  It would go over like a lead balloon - how many 20,000 seat stadiums does the summer basketball leagues sell out now - none. Even though it is the same players who play in college. Ever see an NBA d-league game on tv, they often play in front of fewer people than a junior high game.
  
  The colleges provide the infrastructure and the fanbase. You can't just create that out of thin air, particularly for a sport as expensive as football.

  
  That's fine, the feeder system to the NFL doesn't have to be a billion dollar industry. Just a place where young talent can develop, and be scouted for the next level, while earning a salary based on what the free market decides. If the countless low-level football leagues can exist with the current set up, this one should be a success in comparison.
  
  Minor league baseball is a sustainable, and clearly better product, to collegiate baseball.
  
  And I'm not responding anymore until you learn to use the quote feature. It's tough love, but it will be for your own good
• queencitybuckeye

  2kool4skool;795330 wrote:If his work regularly contributed 800k to companies, he wouldn't do your shitty 75k job in a free market.
  
  

  
  Actually he would. That I can generate 800K for his work doesn't mean he can. Same with the athletes. The idea that they bring in all this money is absurd. The schools are the product, particular players are just the flavor of the week.
• 2kool4skool

  

  queencitybuckeye;795708 wrote:Actually he would. That I can generate 800K for his work doesn't mean he can. Same with the athletes. The idea that they bring in all this money is absurd. The schools are the product, particular players are just the flavor of the week.

  
  Then OSU should just start recruiting only 4.0 students, why bother taking risks on these less than savory characters if people will pay to see whatever they put on the field?
• queencitybuckeye

  2kool4skool;795975 wrote: why bother taking risks on these less than savory characters if people will pay to see whatever they put on the field?

  
  Who said anything similar to this? Wasn't me.
• FatHobbit

  

  2kool4skool;795975 wrote:Then OSU should just start recruiting only 4.0 students, why bother taking risks on these less than savory characters if people will pay to see whatever they put on the field?

  queencitybuckeye;796003 wrote:Who said anything similar to this? Wasn't me.

  I think he was referring to this
  

  queencitybuckeye;795708 wrote:The schools are the product, particular players are just the flavor of the week.

  If the players don't matter, then why not recruit people who aren't going to get in trouble but suck at football.