Day Seventeen: Paying Student-Athletes

This week, one of my students asked me why I didn't like college sports.  I admitted to him that I didn't always dislike college sports, but I have lost faith in many of the colleges who simple want to create national championship teams at any cost.  Why?  I'm an educator.  I have taught many talented athletes in all types of sports, but I also realize (even though many of them do not) that less than 1% of graduating high school seniors will win a Division I Scholarship in any sport.  I tell my senior student-athletes this every year.  I remind them if they get a scholarship, please take advantage and get a real education. I say this because in our hometown in 20 years, there have been approximately four players to make it to the pros.  Of those four, three played for a Division I school. 


People always comment that schools make a ton of money off the football and basketball teams, and that the players should get a cut of the action. They say a scholarship is not enough. If it is not enough, why accept it? They believe they should get a stipend for playing, because the scholarship is not enough.  Uhmmm, okay.


I have no problem with players profiting from jersey sales or their image on a video game.  I have no problem with that at all.  According to Darren Rovell, they would not make nearly as much as they think they would.  They definitely would not get rich.  Based on Rovell's research, if they received a 5% royalty, they would walk away with about $2.25 per jersey based on an average price of $60 per jersey.  Rovell used a player who was reprimanded for selling his own jerseys for profit. He stated that the student would have made more selling his jerseys himself than taking a cut from the profit (I don't really have a problem with selling something that personally belongs to you. I get that the NCAA has rules, and I even kind of, sort of understand why they have it, but this is one of those stupid rules they need to do away with and redo). He stated that if they sold 300 of this student's jerseys he would have profited $625. Their meal ticket is probably more than $625.  FYI, even the top schools average about one million dollars per year profit in jersey sales.  That makes a huge (sarcasm) dent in the average thirty million dollars per year they spend on the teams. 


I'm going to use Louisiana State University as an example.  In 2013, LSU spent $24,049,282 on its football team.  LSU made $68,804,309.  That is a profit of $44,755,027.  That's a lot of money made off football, but do you know what the expenditures for LSU as a university was over all in 2013?  It was only cost about $447,396,923  to run the school.  The state paid the school $124, 590,470.  They self-generated $315,730,227.   $217,420,493 was spent on salaries for the various employees of the school. Les Miles made a base salary paid by the school of $300,000 (third-party donations make up the rest of the 4 million dollars he makes each year).  LSU President and Chancellor F. King Alexander had a salary of $600,000 in 2013.  Technically, the football coach makes more per year than his actual boss.  That makes sense.  By the way, base professor salary is $145,000.


I think the main issue I had was a quote by Richard Sherman,

I would love for a regular student to have a student-athlete's schedule during the season for just one quarter or one semester and show me how you’ll balance that. Show me how you would schedule your classes when you can't schedule classes from 2 to 6 o'clock on any given day. Show me how you're going to get all your work done when after you get out at 7:30 or so, you've got a test the next day, you're dead tired from practice and you still have to study just as hard as everybody else every day and get all the same work done [...]Most of these kids are done with school, done with class by 3 o’clock. You’ve got the rest of the day to do as you please, you know? You may spend a few hours studying, then you may spend a few hours at the library checking out books and just doing casual reading. Then you may go hang out with friends and have a coffee. When you’re a student-athlete you don’t have that kind of time. You wake up in the morning, you have weights at this time, then after weights you go to class and after class maybe try to grab you a quick bite to eat, then after you get your quick bite to eat you go straight to meetings and after meetings you got practice and after practice you got to try to get all the work done you had throughout the day that you got from your lectures and from your focus groups. And those aren't the things people focus on when talking about student-athletes.

See, I have a problem with this quote for this reason. I have never played football, and I am aware it is a very difficult and grueling activity, but seriously, Richard.  You had a tough schedule?


Don't laugh, I was in marching band in college.  We showed up the exact same week the football team did in the summer.  We would eat breakfast with the football team every morning.  Then, they would do field work while we did field work in the morning.  They would go in about 10, as would the band.  I don't know what happened in the field house, but over in band land, the instrument players and dancers would work indoors until about 12.  In marching band, I was in color guard.  We practice outside in the Mississippi summer all day. You can't do color guard routines in a building. If it were raining, they occasionally let us used the gym.  At 12, we would see the football players again at lunch.  At 3, we were all back to practice, until about 5.  We would meet in the cafeteria for dinner, and then, back for film or whatever they did in the field house, while the band would work field drills until we could not see.  (While I was in grad school, we could hear the marching band practicing during our classes. Those kids were often still practicing when we were on our way home as late as 9 pm.)


Once school started, we practiced every afternoon from 3-5 and then, from 6-8.  We were still expected to show up to class on time.  We went to practically every game the football team went to, performing during the game and during half-time, usually with a half quarter to wolf down food from the concession stand and take off the uni to go to the bathroom, before traveling back.  After football season ended, we didn't stop practicing, because we had the multiple Christmas parades to perform  and the Christmas concert.  In the spring, most of us were in the two additional bands concert and jazz.  Two different sets of practices, two different performances, Mardi Gras parades, concerts for the school, two major concerts of our own, touring different high schools to perform, and the occasional basketball game.  Oh, once, we had to miss class to travel to play for the governor.


The point of my little band story, don't dump on other students when you really don't know what their schedules are like, and how much extra work they put in often with less scholarship money.  By the way, I was also on the school's hospitality and recruitment team, Student Government Association, a member of the schools drug awareness acting troupe, held offices in two other clubs, and belonged to a couple more-and received no scholarship money for either.  As a matter of fact, during homecoming, I spent the morning taking alumni and visitors to tour various locations on campus before changing that uniform to my band uniform to perform at the game.


I can guarantee most of these band students and cheerleaders are not getting the same scholarships the football team is getting.  I can almost guarantee, the basketball, baseball, soccer, tennis, golf, etc. are not getting it either.  If you are going to pay the football players, pay them all, but most of the pay for pay proponents are only for football and basketball.


I am for the NFL and the NBA creating minor league teams for these students who only need about 2-3 more years to be field ready.  How many cities would love to have a minor league NFL team?  I know Mississippi loves its Mississippi Braves franchise.  I am for giving these scholarships to students who want an education, but happen to be good at sports-students who are college good, but may not be headed to the NFL.  I know there are those who disagree with me, and that's fine.  This is just my opinion.  Thus, I don't buy college products (except when I am attending the school), I don't go to the games, I don't watch the games, and I don't plan on working at a Div. I school.  [Grad school costs a fortune, and there are too few scholarships.]


As for the NFL, it's a business. I get why things are done the way they are done there, too. I don't always agree with that either. These, however, are not student-athletes.


Until next time, "The student athletes are the ones the kids look up to. The younger kids really look to them for guidance. We have to have high expectations of these kids. Participating in athletics is a privilege and with that privilege comes certain requirements." — Bob Wilson  

The Gatsby Complex, Part 2: The Tom Buchanans

Welcome back, everybody. Last week, I decided that I was going to start my first blog series on Diana Dishes. This series is focusing on three of my favorite things: literature, sports, and entertainment. Last week, I focused on the correlation between F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Lost Generation to today’s celebrities and athletes. This week, I will begin actually looking at the novel The Great Gatsby itself. The first character I’m going to discuss is Tom Buchanan.

The narrator of The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway describes Tom Buchanan, his college classmate, as having been

“[. . .] among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven-a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterwards savours of anti-climax. His family were enormously wealthy-even in college his freedom with money was a matter of reproach [. . .]. [He] drifted here and there unrestfully [. . .], but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.”

Tom Buchanans aren’t always rich, privileged students. Some actually come from poor backgrounds. They are the ones who feel entitlement. They have always been the best looking, the most popular, the most talented, the best dressed, and do not care who they have to step on to get it. Things have always come easy for the Tom Buchanans-until they had to work for it. Tom Buchanans go to Yale because of connections, but even making the Yale football team requires work. Even though, Tom is talented enough to make the team and get National recognition, the pros are not in the cards. He is rich enough that he does not have to work (even though he does), but like the narrator says, he is directionless. He has no idea what to do with himself. Tom marries Daisy, but she is not enough. He has a daughter, but she is not enough. He has polo ponies, homes all over, and a mistress, but none of these fulfill Tom. Nothing like the glory he felt on the football team.

There are many Tom Buchanans in sports and entertainment. They have been told from a young age how great they are. So, from early youth, they have been getting privileges. They develop an air of entitlement-the belief that because they are who they are they have rights that aren’t deserved by the “peasantry.” Help in school, underage entrance into clubs, “jobs” from boosters, they are given everything except a plan.

With their success comes a type of high, an adrenaline rush, it is a natural high that they chase forever, because they fail to realize that there is an expiration date on that talent. Tom Buchanan peaked at age 21. He can’t seem to find a direction from that point. He’s a 30 year old man who can’t get past age 21. Since Tom Buchanan is a football player, let’s deal with football shall we.

There are 26,407 public and 10,693 private high schools in the United States of America. That’s a little over 37,000 sets of seniors in the country. Let’s just make it a given that there is 1 great quarterback, 1 great WR, 1 great RB, 1 great LB/DE on each team. You are looking at about 148,000 football players looking for a position on a Division 1 football team. Here’s the bad news, there are only are 120 NCAA Division 1-A football schools and 109 Division 1-AA football schools. There about 200 Division II and 200 Division III football schools and about 75 NAIA football schools. That’s 704 schools. The NCAA only allots 85 scholarships per team (give or take a few they may have lost because of violations), but teams have on average about 125. Let’s just focus on the scholarships, because let’s face it, most want to play college football because of the scholarship. That is about 60,000 scholarships available for 148,000 students (that’s only if a school has 4 great senior players).

According to the NCAA’s website,

• According to recent statistics, about 2 percent of high school athletes are awarded athletics scholarships to compete in college.
• Approximately 5.8 percent, or less than one in 17 of all high school senior boys playing interscholastic football will go on to play footall at a NCAA member institution.
• Approximately one in 50, or 1.8 percent of NCAA senior football players will get drafted by a National Football League (NFL) team.
• Eight in 10,000, or approximately 0.08 percent of high school senior boys playing interscholastic football will eventually be drafted by an NFL team
  

So, Tom makes it to college football, but he fails to get drafted, what next? Tom Buchanan had money to fall back on, but what about the poor Tom Buchanan’s? What do they fall back on? What other skills have they developed? Some have spent four years in college and graduated with a BS degree that’s not worth the paper it’s written on. Some will become high school coaches, some will become college coaches, and some will not. Some will be trapped at age 21. The one’s who couldn’t even make it to the college level-trapped at age 17. Could you imagine how horrible it would be to peak at 17 stuck with a coulda, woulda, shoulda? The climax of his life takes place before he can truly appreciate it, and there, he will wander directionlessly pursuing a moment that has past. You’ve seen them; the ones who come back to high school reunions bitter about the present living the Glory Days…So, what is a Tom Buchanan to do?

Well, our guy Tom floated from city to city, lived the good life, and committed adultery. Some try to find that elusive high in illicit affairs. Some try to find the high in drugs, alcohol, gambling, and hard living. Some learn from their mistakes and make a fresh start changing their lives for the better (Drew Barrymore), some make mistake after mistake (Dwight Gooden; Darryl Strawberry; Amy Winehouse), some die (Corey Haim; River Phoenix; too many musicians to name). They don’t know what to do for a second act. Some hang on long past their relevancy (Bret Michaels; Flava Flav).

One of the greatest Tom Buchanans is Michael Jordan. To quote, Ouiser Boudreaux, “[He has] I have more money than God,” six rings, two gold medals, 5 NBA MVPs, beautiful kids, nice homes, a different girl every time you see him, and he has even bought his very own NBA team. Yet, he never appears to be satisfied. Don’t believe me…Check out his hall of fame speech. For some reason he seems to be unusually bitter and for no apparent reason.

Sometimes, we do these athletes a disservice when we only focus on the athletics, musical talent, or acting skills. You can place emphasis, but you should not entirely focus on anyone thing. All careers (even teaching) have an expiration date, don’t be afraid to move to act II.

Next time-The ladies of The Great Gatsby

"Glory days well they'll pass you by/Glory days in the wink of a young girl's eye/Glory days, glory days" -Bruce Springsteen sings me out until next week...

The Gatsby series was inspired by a conversation with my Twit Bro. Kimani "Deja's Daddy" Holmes. Check him and my buddy Rob Reed on their podcast the Atypical Sports Show .