The Need for Reform: How NCAA Must Improve Student Athlete Priveleges

Attending a school that competes inside of a powerhouse conference, the Southeastern Conference or SEC, one can quickly become mindlessly immersed in the glamour world of college athletics. Students at such universities, as well as fans in general, forget the numerous issues that pose a threat to the current culture.Namely, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA, doesn’t want to extend to student athletes additional privileges of food, shelter, and living expenses.

In order to fully understand the situation, one must know the current and past circumstances that have created these issues.Without this knowledge, the average fan is poorly equipped to form an educated understanding of this topic.

Currently, the world of college athletics is polarized on a single topic: the proper way to compensate student athletes.The debate on whether or not to hand athletes paychecks is a central basis of disagreement. There are numerous opinions on this topic and rightfully so. The story of basketball national champion Shabazz Napier shines light on the fact that there are certain flaws in the system. Shabazz Napier, following his basketball national championship, told reporters that there were nights with no food to eat (Ganim). As the main star on a championship winning team, one might have expected Shabazz would receive enough of the $681 million dollar deal from the tournament’s broadcasting rights to avoid going hungry (NCAA). This instance was quickly put to rest by the immediate change to unlimited meals for student athletes; however, it shows the NCAA’s willingness to admit the problems of the current system.

However, Shabazz Napier’s unfortunate story is all too common; however, there are a multitude of other issues with student compensation in the NCAA. The Southeastern Conference, or SEC, recently announced sport revenues of $309 million dollars for the past fiscal year (ESPN).Enormous revenues like these are seen as troubling when the organizations claim to be non-profit. These revenues are especially troubling when star athletes can’t afford to feed themselves. So, the fact that some athletes find themselves unable to fund their own cost of living expenses is terribly unsettling. Currently, athletic scholarships are not able to cover the full living expense: they do not include parking permits, transportation, laundry and additional rent payments. These unfortunate circumstances are caused by an antiquated system that fails to serve its purpose of enriching the academic and physical well being of the student athletes.

The previous examples show the effects of a broken system,originally meant to serve student athletes. This problem of unfair compensation stems from various causes that have kept the NCAA from further compensating the student athletes. However, the start of the NCAA’s influence began with its inception.

The NCAA, originally a small governing body, had been tasked with the creation of more standardized rules for sports. Shortly thereafter, the NCAA put forth national championships making teams eager to become members.Eventually, most colleges joined the NCAA with the other rules set in place.After this turning point, the NCAA set forth rules governing every facet of college athletics: recruitment, eligibility and amateur status (Faqs).Teams still typically abide by the rules because of the risk of post and regular season bans.

With the power to influence teams in such a way, the NCAA has faced little opposition to these rules until recently.The complete participation of schools gives the NCAA license to enforce the rules as they see fit. However, the participation of all schools in the NCAA isn’t the only reason student athletes aren’t being properly compensated.

One particular cause is how Title IX plays an interesting role in the way student athletes are rewarded. Title IX states that there must be an equal amount of men and women’s sports.Title IX also states equal scholarship opportunities must be afforded to both sexes. If additional stipends are awarded they must be equally granted to sports in both sexes (Title). Therefore, the intricacy of Title IX would complicate the issue making increased compensation less likely, because of the strain this would pit on funding.

Not only would funding have to be moved away to less profitable sports teams, profitable sports teams are forced to spend millions of dollars on the latest in sporting venues, equipment, buildings and coaching staffs. They are currently forced to do this by the demand for usable recruiting tactics like a brand new stadium or a brand new workout facility; however, if these commodities are nowhere to be found, it is likely that highly valued recruits will not be around either. Therefore, the team must stay competitive on and off of the field to stay at the desirable performance level.

Athletics, however, is not the only factor causing these problems.In schools with a focus on academics, the allocation of funds to extracurricular activities falls under a secondary priority. The need to improve the school’s facilities and academics precedes the need to improve the athletics. Namely, the school has to keep students willing to attend if they want an organization to host a football team. Additionally, the student athletes would essentially be professional athletes with the loss of some of the structures put forth by the NCAA.Therefore, the NCAA sets the correct platform for student athletes to learn, but the NCAA doesn’t provide the student athletes with the proper resources to be able to live comfortably there.

The fact that these student athletes in sports like football have to spend around forty hours per week training keeps the student athletes from holding a paying job. Additionally, not every studentathlete is given a full scholarship leaving the student athlete in need of money with no proper way of earning it. With forty plus hours of athletic work and nearly forty hours of academic work, the result is student athletes stuck between school work, athletic training and the attempt to support one’s self financially. Inevitably, there are numerous examples of boosters, who support a team, that illegally provide players with gifts or job hours that are forged. But if an athlete is lucky, the athlete will have sports agents pay to have the pledged allegiance of the athlete to the agent’s firm. The most basic effect of these conditions is that the student athletes are transformed from students to athletes with priorities that reflect the transformation.In fact, the dreams of professional stardom in sports cloud the athletes’ decisions. Sadly, the number of college athletes that become professional athletes is extremely low: football-1.7%, men’s hockey- 1.3%, men’s soccer- 1%, men’s basketball- 1.2% (How).

The effects of this system take a toll on the idea espoused by the NCAA itself. Student athletes more worried about athletic programs find themselves at various academically rigorous schools unable to compete scholastically. Schools like Chapel Hill and Notre Dame, being known to athletes for the prestigious athletic program rather than their academics programs, recruit athletes that would have not have gained attendance without the help of athletics. The unfortunate result of being too academically challenged will often end in academic fraud. The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, or UNC, provides a perfect example of pushing students through school because of their student athlete status. Recently, UNC has been found guilty by the NCAA of letting football players cheat their way through class because of their student athlete status. Additionally, allegations of academic fraud have surfaced against the UNC basketball program as well (Barrett). The overall status of the student athlete as a student is devalued in the current situation.

So where does this leave us? It leaves the student athlete with no way to compete academically, no way to cover living expenses, no way a decent percentage become professional athletes, and no way to share in the wealth of the NCAA.

This situation has left the nation facing many hard questions. Should we pay them? Who should we pay? Is there enough money to pay everyone? How should we pay them? How and when will these changes be implemented?

These encompassing questions are complex enough to have multiple possibilities for the answer. The best way to realize an acceptable answer is to address each question individually.

Should we pay them? On one hand, student athletes can receive the opportunity to attend a university for free where they might have otherwise been unable to receive admission. On the other hand, studentathletes train, the same amount a week as a normal person would work a full-time job, to be financially insecure while the university can make millions of dollars. The obvious answer seems to be that the athletes should be paid.

Well, not every sport makes the universities enough money to justify spending any additional funds on the team; should those student athletes be paid too? Athletes other than the ones participating in the highly profitable sports put in a similar time commitment. Academics should be the priority of the universities, and as such if there is an equal strain on academics, there must be equal benefits. Therefore, if all student athletes sacrifice nearly the same amount of time; shouldn’t all student athletes reviece the same benefits? Additionally, Title IX states equal scholastic opportunities and benefits for both sexes must be provided (Title). So legally, the universities would probably be held responsible for providing the additional compensation to sports in both genders.

With this increase of cost, would there be enough money to fund this change? This is the strongest counter argument for those opposed to an increase of benefits for collegiate athletes. Small universities might not be able to increase the payment without cutting some programs. But on the other hand, the inability of some should not give a reason not to additionally support for those that are able to provide it. There are other solutions to this issue such as profit sharing, which is already used by the NCAA and by individual conferences to send additional profit to member schools. Additional profit sharing could provide a sizable amount of the missing money needed by the smaller universities. Additionally, these profits could be taken from events like the NCAA men’s basketball championship, among other championship tournaments. And these profits aren’t in short supply as the basketball tournament grossed 681 million dollars in broadcasting deals (NCAA). Therefore, there is a strong case for at the very least attempting to extend benefits for all those people deserving of extra support.

If there were additional benefits, what would they be? It could be argued that the athletes making millions of dollars for their school deserve a large sum of cash. This would be wrong because of how the implementation of this method would result in the loss of numerous scholarships for other student athletes. It would result in the loss of total scholarships because the revenue, possibly generated by a single team at a school, is redistributed to other programs at the school. A more plausible scenario might be for student athletes to bring grocery, transportation, rent and other approved receipts to be refunded. Undoubtedly, complications and grey areas will arise and have to be dealt with accordingly. This standpoint seems to be the best scenario because of the way it can be easily applied and overseen. Of course, this is an oversimplified version of the changes to be made but implementation is always the most contentious point.

Implementation is the rubix cube to the problem of whether or not to increase compensation for student athletes. It is a problem that would take a 40-page paper to begin to appropriately cover the topic. However, that does not mean the executives of the

NCAA are not equipped to undertake this task. After all, they must be well equipped to handle pressing matters when the president, Mark Emmert, is being paid 1.7 million dollars as the head of a non-profit organization (President). That being said, different requirements and limitations would have to be set in place for each of the three divisions of college athletics. The reason for different limitations and requirements is that division II and III have different GPA requirements and limitations on scholarships (How). Afterwards, there will need to be a system put in place to enforce the new rules as well as create punishments for each new possible infringement. Most of the infrastructure and personnel needed for creating and enforcing these new rules is already in place. Although this is not a clear blueprint for how to put forth these changes, it is a description of how these rules will be created and implemented. As for the timeline, it could be tentatively set for the earliest date that all the ins and outs of the new rules are worked out.

Also, the problem of academic fraud could be partially taken care of by putting these new rules forth. The student athletes who work in order to make the difference between their scholarships and their living expenses will have more study time. This obviously won’t stop those student athletes incapable of meeting the requirements honestly, but it will offer them more time to work on academics.

If these changes can be implemented, there will be no more stories of the starving superstar, no more complaints of struggling to pay for rent, no more student athletes choosing between school and work. These changes will take place over time and with their gradual implementation it will improve the overall quality of life for the average student athlete. After that the NCAA might be able to justify their abundance of money and their student athletes’ glaring lack of the same commodity.