“Pay college football players,” says publisher Arnold York. Whoa Nellie! Let’s get the rest of the story. Per Arnold, “Players get very little of the enormous take” and he belittles their free education. It doesn’t take a math major to compute that room, board and tuition for 4 to 5 years ranges from $100,000 to over a quarter million dollars and whether you are the star QB or the last man on the bench your free ride is the same. Not exactly “chump change” for the teenagers.
Texas coach Mack Brown recently noted on ESPN that only 20 percent of College Bowl Division [D1] football teams were profitable in 2009. Texas, USC, Notre Dame were the exceptions rather than the rule. Can you imagine the UC schools asking for more money for football players?
It should also be noted that there are three to four times more students playing college football for free in non CBS/D1 schools, like the Ivy League, MIT, Occidental, etc. In fact, they are happy to pay for play. There is still such an old-fashioned concept as loving the sport, the school, the letter jacket and being a BMOC. That money can’t buy.
Don Garde