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.
Many college football and basketball players cannot read at an 8th grade level. They don’t belong in college period.
How does he plan on attracting viewers...?
Or will this be like PBS?
The NFL, like Deep State, doesn’t hire fer brains.
‘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.’
I’m going to suggest you suggest that to the kid’s father, rather than to us...I’m sure he’d appreciate the input...
Firstly, that most did not get into college is a good thing. They avoided the postmodernism brain-washing and went on to do honest work at an actual job — like from a trade school.
Secondly, letting an organization diddle with profit calcs will go the same way that selling your book to Hollywood for a movie deal. Your contract will award you %age of profits — which will be calculated to never exist.
Socialists all want the Feds to control everything, Ask any Cuban, Venezuelan, Russian or Chicom and, for that matter, Central American.
uh, NO
I watched a little of the Northwestern bowl game. The announcer mentioned how tough the NW players had it because they had to eat boxed lunches while they stayed in Florida.
About ten seconds later, he altered his statement by saying others had it worse. Maybe someone told him the statement needed to be clarified.
Yup, a free trip to Florida in December-January, staying at a hotel likely, getting free tuition at a prestigeous college while getting national TV exposure to play a game. But forced to eat boxed lunches
Very sad about the HS student, but of course not having a football season would be just the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back in such a situation.
Cory wants to take the revenue stream away from the Universities.
When you have billionaire and millionaire boosters pumping in large amounts of private money because of athletics, of course the athletic director will assume a lot of weight around campus.
No, he wants a lot of fragile emotional buffoons with no idea about economic repercussions to vote for him. This is just another way to expand his “ ignorant electorate market”.
I didn't even see this on TV. I was simply making an observation based on a comment posted here.
Fox News is aimed at an audience with an IQ of 90, so I guess a lot of people eat that sh!t up before they tune into whatever misfits are on morning network TV after that.
He can’t think of something more important to deal with? How about doing nothing?
More laws, more commissions, more giverment. Just stop.
quit sending people to the district of corruption. All they do is screw things up.
“Federally Controlled” sounds kinda like prison. Maybe these will be prisoners playing. That should expand the African-American talent pool.
Instead of Alabama-Notre Dame, we’ll have San Quentin-Leavenworth. Instead of what “class” they’re in, reporters can comment about how many years they’re in for. “The tight end, DeLa’Niq Jones, is in for 10-20 for armed robbery and drug dealing...”
It is great that systemic racism has not prevented black football and basketball athletes from reaching their full potential in college or in the NFL or NBA.
No kidding? Wow, never heard that before. Never had guys out of my high school go straight to the minor leagues. No sir.
Yet nearly half of all MLB players came out of college.
Aside from the fact that Booker’s plan would only reward scholarship players and not walk-ons (why?) there is this little nugget: “$115,600 to men’s basketball players, $19,050 to women’s basketball players”
How long do you think that would be allowed to stand?
Of course by the time this would be implemented, all of the women’s basketball players would be men, so I guess the point is moot.
Proof again that if you want to TOTALLY screw something up you gotta get the government involved.
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