One and Done, Student Athlete Stipends, and NCAA Championships

Congratulations to the University of Virginia Basketball Team.  The Cavaliers have won the 2019 NCAA Championship by defeating a valiant Texas Tech Red Raiders team.  If my Kentucky Wildcats could not win it, then Virginia is just fine with me…as would have been Texas Tech.  I must say, the players and coaches performed far better than the officials.  The administrative clown show that is the NCAA must be recruiting from within to get the level of incompetence we saw out of this year’s referees.  I do not know what must be done to improve the performance of NCAA basketball referees, but it sure needs to be done before next season.  I will note one more thing regarding this year’s tournament…it is probably not smart to pick Virginia to repeat as champion next year.  If they were a cat, they would have used up about seven of their nine lives by this point.

Whether or not your team did well this year, there is no denying that the NCAA Basketball Tournament is an exciting event.  We can all disagree about the selections and the seedings; but at the end of the day, there is one team left standing and they are there because they have not lost.  This is how you decide a championship.  You can quibble about the last four in and the first four out, but with this many teams  from this many conferences all across our nation; there is no doubt that this tournament is one worthy of crowning a national champion.  Now…if only the NCAA could get its act together and come up with a bonafide NCAA Football Tournament that is equally worthy of deciding a champion.  Dan Wetzel presents the solution: https://www.yahoo.com/news/college-football-playoff-plan-132100316--ncaaf.html

With the shoe company questions swirling about college basketball these days, there is much discussion about how the sport at the collegiate level needs to be revamped.  The one and done (OAD) phenomenon in college basketball has been an evolution of the sport that has outrun the administrators.  It has made wealthy individuals out of several young men; but it has also cost the sport in fan allegiance and public support.  Without addressing the ongoing argument about the competitive value of an older, more seasoned team versus a group of freshmen, there can be little debate that the OAD process has made it difficult for college fans to develop a solid relationship with their school’s players when they are only on campus for one year.  Factor in the inordinate influence of shoe company dollars and AAU teams and we have a dynamic and explosive situation surrounding the sport of college basketball.  The mix of financially and socially immature kids with corrupt, devious, and ambitious adults is a deadly brew.  It appears that the NCAA, after consulting with the NBA, is going to address the OAD rules.  We can only hope that the solution does not exasperate an already bad problem. 

Part of that problem is trying to redefine the term student athlete.  Without wandering into the weeds for specific statistics, let us simply acknowledge that a very small percentage of those young men who participate in college basketball will end up with an NBA career.  I can assure you that if you were to examine the optimism of incoming college freshman basketball stars, you would be led to believe that an overwhelming percentage of those college basketball players would be successful professional ballplayers one day.  Just as college basketball fulfills and creates many wonderful dreams come true; it is equally devastating to the unrealistic expectations of many high school athletes. 

There is a fundamental and dual question that must be addressed in any discussion about current college sports.  That question is the value of the star athlete to the university that the athlete represents.  Equally important is an examination of the fact that the athlete is given a free ride in pursuit of a college degree in return for their participation, and performance, in a particular sport.  So we must ask…Who’s zooming who?  Is the whole thing a joke because most of the star players fail to get their degree or even legitimately pursue an academic career while at college?  Or, is it a case of a university unfairly profiting from a gifted individual that they choose to showcase while confining them to non-profit status on the basis of their amateur stature?  Somehow, someway, we need to reestablish a true and authentic link between the athletic pursuits and the academic pursuits of a college student. 

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There is something terribly wrong with this picture.  We have so many young adults in our society carrying monstrous post-graduate financial debt into their early careers because of student loans.  At the same time, this farce about providing free room, board, and tuition to athletes who are using the school as a springboard to the professional ranks is rendering the college system little more than a developmental league for professional sports teams.  It is easy to see to see that the obligations between the universities and the student athletes flow both ways.  It is much more difficult to determine what might be a fair and equitable solution that addresses this equation. 

Regardless of how much we all love college sports, there is really no persuasive argument that supports the function of college sports as a training ground for the professional leagues.  It is equally clear that the obscene amounts of money being circulated in and around college sports by those entities who have a vested interest in the young athletes is creating a culture of corruption that is anathema to what we should all consider the proper role of higher education. 

I believe any solution to this issue must contain at least two components.  First, there must a tangible obligation of the incoming athlete to college in terms of commitment and academics.  There must be a pragmatic and enforceable GPA requirement for all student athletes and it must be uniformly and transparently enforced by the NCAA.  There must be legitimate progress towards a degree. That obligation should be more than one year.  It might be two, it might be three, and it will likely be coupled with a change that will permit a high school graduate to move directly to the professional league at a minimum age.  At the same time, we must all come to grips with the unrealistic scholastic demands placed upon many student athletes in today’s college sports.  If their scholarship depends on their athletic performance and if that sports participation is going to take a huge swath of their personal, non-classroom time; then we must acknowledge that it is not realistic for them to pursue part-time employment.  There must be some type of formula arrived upon to furnish student athletes with a modest stipend that compensates them for not only the profits they help earn for the university sports programs, but also for the time and dedication they are mandated to devote to their sport.  This stipend does not need to be calculated to allow the athletes to live like royalty on campus.  They simply need sufficient pocket money, comparable to a part-time job paycheck, that will permit them to lead a normal student life.  This arrangement will also diminish, not eliminate, the opportunity of outside interests to financially influence the athlete in an improper fashion.  

The breathing space between the NCAA, the nation’s colleges, and the professional sports leagues has become far too small.  It is impossible to know at any moment who is whispering in whose ear.  A realistic reassessment of each one’s primary purpose and function should give us a guide as to how their mutual future dealings should be handled.