Posted on 02/03/2021 4:56:34 AM PST by Kaslin
Two young men grow up in the same neighborhood and spend four years together at the same high school taking the same classes from the same teachers and playing on the same winning football team.
Both are good students and dedicated, hardworking athletes. But one is a journeyman offensive lineman, while the other is an all-state quarterback.
In their senior year, they both decide they want to attend the same prestigious private university that plays in the Football Bowl Subdivision -- and where the tuition and board and room exceed $60,000 per year.
The university accepts them both. But the journeyman offensive lineman -- who was never recruited to play college football -- needs to find a way to come up with the $60,000-plus per year the school will cost.
The all-state quarterback gets a full ride to play on the university's football team.
Meanwhile, according to the Census Bureau, only 36 percent of Americans 25 and older as of 2019 had managed to earn a college degree. A significant majority -- 64 percent -- had not.
Among Americans who started as student athletes at a Division One college in 2013, 90 percent went on to earn a degree, according to the National Collegiate Athletics Association. Among student athletes who specifically played football at a Football Bowl Subdivision school, 81 percent went on the graduate.
Was that hypothetical high school quarterback who got a scholarship to play football at a Football Bowl Subdivision school where the tuition and fees exceeded $60,000 -- and where 81 percent of football players graduated -- a victim of exploitation?
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey seems to be claiming he was -- at the same time he proves he was not.
"This is one of the few industries in America that is allowed to exploit those who are responsible for generating most of the revenue," Booker told ESPN in December about major college sports.
"The NCAA has exploited generations of college athletes for its own personal financial gain by preventing athletes from earning any meaningful compensation and failing to keep the athletes under its charge healthy and safe," Booker was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
To repair this perceived evil, Booker joined with Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut to introduce what they call The College Athletes Bill of Rights.
What would this "Bill of Rights" do?
"The most ambitious -- and likely the most contentious -- provision," reports The New York Times, "would require colleges to share the profits they make with the athletes who generate them. In sports where revenues exceed the cost of scholarships across an entire division -- at the moment that would be athletes who play football, men's and women's basketball and baseball -- the profits generated in each sport would be shared equally with the scholarship players."
But not with the walk-ons or with the players at schools -- or participating on sports teams -- that do not offer athletic scholarships.
What type of salary would a college athlete on a scholarship get under Booker's bill?
"Using data supplied by universities to the Department of Education, Booker said that would mean payments of $173,000 a year to football players, $115,600 to men's basketball players, $19,050 to women's basketball players and $8,670 to baseball players who are on full scholarship," The New York Times reported.
To make sure these salaries are paid and colleges fully comply with Booker's mandates, the law would also create a Commission on College Athletics. This commission would consist of nine presidential appointees and would have potentially sweeping powers.
Booker's bill states in part: "There is established a commission, to be known as the 'Commission on College Athletics,' for the following purposes: (1) To act for the benefit of all college athletes without regard to receipt of grant-in-aid. (2) To protect the economic interests of college athletes."
"This group, which would receive $50 million in taxpayer funding for its first two years, would take on a lot of the work of policing college sports," ESPN reported.
The New York Times noted it would also have the power to "ban individuals from working in college athletics."
Booker's bill says: "An enforcement action carried out by the Commission shall be construed as an enforcement action carried out by the Federal Government."
The fundamental flaw in Booker's approach to college athletics is that he looks at it as a financial transaction rather than an educational one.
Amateur college football often teaches young men more important lessons than they can learn in a lecture hall. Booker, who played on a scholarship at Stanford, seemed to explain this himself -- even as he was proposing his bill that would convert major college football into a professional game.
"I would not be where I am today without football," Booker wrote in Sports Illustrated last month.
"Football taught me about character, honor, leadership, discipline, grit and so much more," he said. "The men I played with, who coached me, believed in me, taught me and demanded from me, all shaped me in profound and indelible ways. I can never repay them or my sport for what it did for me."
Like other young men who are given a scholarship to attend college and play football there, Booker was not exploited. He was given a great and unique opportunity.
There is also no doubt that the opportunities for college students to learn through athletics would greatly diminish if Booker succeeded in forcing colleges to surrender half their athletic revenues to pay six-figure salaries to students playing those few sports that attract many paying fans.
He was a football player at the school
And he calls himself Spartacus. More like Farticus.
Exactly
That’s really sad.
But it doesn’t require the government nosing into college athletics.
The government needs to get out of restricting uninfected citizens. It is a tyranny.
The suicide had other problems. Obviously.
Unless there’s more to that story, I’m going to suggest that the father was derelict in his responsibilities as a parent if the kid had that kind of idiotic, narrow obsession on a stupid game.
Waving magic wands, picking winners and losers, redistributing wealth all over the place.
These people are out of control.
Thank God we send our children to Catholic School. They had classes most of this year & they had football. It kept my 14 year old sane. He was having a terrible time with online classes. Even though he’s a well adjusted, straight A, popular kid at school.
These lock downs & school closures are child abuse!
What happens to all the other sports and their athletes when the profits from football are taken away? Bye, bye swimming, volleyball, tennis, soccer and wrestling along with everything other than football and basketball.
I have a far simpler solution. End all athletic scholarships for college sports. Make them true amateurs again. If some poor kid wants to play for money, let them turn pro as soon as they can, stop the farce that these college kids are there for an “education”.
At most major universities, the athletic director is the most powerful member of the faculty. Moreso than the president, or the deans of the various schools.
Nationalization craze of the communists reaches out and touches sports. Sports withers and dies,
There are 130 teams in Division I college football. These are schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Of course, there are other colleges that play football in smaller divisions, but the 130 schools in the FBS are what most people refer to as college football. These are the games you see on TV, playing in bars and restaurants.
Caste Football counts a total of 764 white starters, which averages out to about 6 per team (each team has 22 total starters, 11 on offense and 11 on defense). This means whites are 26.5 percent of all FBS starting players. This is 2.5 percent fewer (a drop of 67 players) since 2018. Most of the other starters are black, though Polynesians are heavily represented in certain programs such as the University of Hawaii, Brigham Young University, University of Utah and other, mainly West Coast programs. Hispanics and Asians are rare.
https://www.amren.com/commentary/2019/09/the-vanishing-white-college-football-player/
Gory Booger is an idiot.
Seems to work for baseball and hockey. Revert all college athletics to the club level.
Not only that, notice the discrepancy between female and male athletes. And will Trans athletes have to take female salaries if they play with females?
Know what my kid did at college? He studied and became an engineer. His school was small, very specialized and highly regarded in his field.
He didn’t go to one football game, nor basketball. That’s because the school was there as a school, not a glorified game. They have no athletic program, unless you count the intramural Ultimate Frisbee team.
I have very little respect for people who’s entire lives revolve around a football team where their only contribution is buying a T-shirt.
I don’t care if football completely goes away.
Didnt Kurt Vonenngut write about this in one of his novels?
You don’t think there are scholarships for baseball and hockey players?
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