Death of the student athlete

Ahh the joys and agonies of March Madness are endless.  Young student athletes competing for a national crown makes one go all warm and bubbly inside.  Until you see something like this.  The “this” in the link is an undecipherable less than 200 word “college paper” by a University of North Carolina athlete that earned him an A-.  Really?  A minus?  As if there is just something a bit off with this piece of work?  If they'd have given him an A+ they could claimed it was a parody or sarcasm.  Now they are just screwed.  An A- for this piece of crap is like giving the Captain of the Titanic a "nearly prefect" for his almost crossing of the Atlantic.

Geez, for crying out loud, take a hint from Slow Joe Biden and just rip off someone else’s work.  Photo copy it.  Put your name at the top and hand it in.  If you get caught, claim a footnoting error.  That strategy will set you up for a long career in Demo-Dope politics.

I have to ask, who is being served by a policy where “student” athletes do not have to be students?  Is it the athlete?  No.  They are provided scholarships to attend a university like UNC to earn a college degree - for free.  In return, they agree to don athletic equipment that proudly displays the university’s logo.

If they do not earn that degree they are being screwed.  If there is no degree at the end of their university stay, they have essentially provided services to that university for minimum wage.  Sure they get a few classes, free meals and place to stay, but they miss the big payday that the university can provide.  It’s like filling up on salad at the all-you-can-eat Sunday buffet.  You miss all the really good stuff.

A recent “labor grievance” brought by football players against Northwestern University was settled by the National Labor Relations Board  by allowing the players to take a vote to unionize if they so desired.  The NRLB judged that the players were more “employees” of the university than students of the university.  Weird huh.  So is the term “student athlete,” long ago reduced to an oxy moron, going to go the way of the term “enlightened liberal” -  from oxy moron to a term so utterly devoid of believability that it just disappears from use?

It is hard to see where about 98% of college athletes benefit from such an arrangement.  There are no big TV contracts for lacrosse, diving, field hockey etc.  The big pay off for the 98% is a degree.  A degree is the currency of college scholarships.

So if the college athlete is not the benefactor of dropping the “student” from student athlete, it must be the university.  In the short term the universities do rake in a lot of money on successful athletic programs.  I’m absolutely sure the people at UNC thought they were doing a great service to the university when they allowed an athlete to receive an A- for what anyone past the 8^th grade would call a POS paper.  Now that they have been exposed they may be recalculating how much of a service they were providing either the young man or the university by endorsing second-rate, nay, third or fourth-rate work.  The university is a laughing stock.  The young man who did the “work” would be as well were his name known.

Besides, universities are between a rock and a hard place.  If they try to hold the football and basketball teams to the same academic standards as the university chess team, they undoubtedly will be called raaaaaaacists for doing so.  And it will not make one bit of difference if the chess team is made up of 100% backs.  Hell, if they even try to require minimum academic standards for college athletes Revs? Jesse, Al, and Jerry descend on them like locus.  So which is the more raaaacist position – requiring predominately black student athletes to meet the university’s minimum academic standards or saying that those athletes cannot meet or shouldn’t have to meet those standards?  And seriously, I attended The Ohio State University, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that the minimum is not all that difficult a hurdle to clear.

Maybe athletes should be required to sign a legally binding letter of intent to attend a university for four years or until they receive a degree – whichever comes first.  The revolving door for college football and basketball players who enter an institution with zero intent on graduating is an open scam on the NCAA, the universities and the students who have pay their own way.

College athletics have become a joke.  It’s more like club sports with taxpayers, donors and paying students footing the bill.  Not so Lex, one home game in the “Shoe” at TOSU pays for all of the other university sports programs, all the scholarships and a new science lab to boot.  Yeah, and that’s why nothing will change.  There’s too much money in it.

So cut the pretext.  No classes for athletes.  No special treatment.  If a kid should show up for class and turns in a POS paper like the one in the link, he gets an F- and a 10,000 word essay from his professor back on why his work is sooooooooo F’d up.  See how that product sells when the kids have no affiliation with the university other than playing in the local stadium.  Then they become nothing more than mercenaries paid to wear a college jersey.  See how long it takes for the bloom to come off that rose.