College Basketball Roundtable: Should NCAA athletes get paid?
By Ed Stein
Its our fist College Basketball Roundtable of the year. We asked our experts: In light of the recent “pay for play” scandal, do you believe college athletes should be paid?
Scandals are nothing new to NCAA basketball. From the New York City point shaving incidents of the 1950s to the current Adidas Pay for Play Federal fraud investigation, it’s been an unfortunate part of the game. Should the status quo be changed?
We asked our ECS roundtable experts the following: In light of the recent “pay for play” scandal, do you believe college athletes should be paid?
Matt Barry
This has been an ongoing debate for years. Corruption is college basketball’s middle name. Improper benefits are handed out like candy on Halloween. Because of this, athletes typically suffer when caught. It is hard for an 18-19-year-old to pass up money when he or his family have never had any.
That being said, I do not believe athletes should be paid. And it isn’t because they have over $200,000 worth of scholarships to get a free education. Some of them do not value that. I think it is because amateur sports are just that, amateur. If you start paying athletes there are too many layers to it.
Who do you pay? Does the walk on, or last scholarship make what the best player makes? Does the pay really make a difference? Will it be enough not to take other benefits? There are too many intangibles and it would be difficult to manage. I would rather have the NCAA work to clean up the illegal activity.