College Basketball Roundtable: Should NCAA athletes get paid?

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Rick Pitino, Louisville Cardinals, NCAA. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /

Ed Stein

No, college athletes should not be paid. There is an inherent flaw in the logic of paying college athletes. It means that there is no value in a college scholarship. As someone who busted his tail to pay for school that really ticks me off.

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I’m also a parent. My son wanted to go to the same school my wife and I did, the University of Tennessee. For him to attend UT as an out of state student, it would cost over $40,000 per year, all in. To say there is no value in the education and that athletes should get paid on top of a scholarship is ridiculous. $40K isn’t chump change and remember Tennessee is a public school. I’m not even going to bother looking up how much it would cost to go to Duke, or Stanford, or Northwestern.

I realize that the life of a student-athlete isn’t easy. As a matter of fact, it’s downright difficult. It’s like having two jobs and going to school at the same time. Well, there are plenty of people out there, going to school, that need two jobs to pay for their tuition and expenses.

There is the argument that the schools make so much money off what the athlete’s do that it’s unfair to those who are playing. That is a bunch of crap because that doesn’t take the whole picture into consideration. Yes, Texas A&M rakes in a ton of money from football. How much do schools like Miami of Ohio or San Jose State make?

Kentucky and North Carolina make millions and millions on basketball, what about Nichols State and North Dakota? In terms of the big picture in each sport, there would be a greater divide between the haves and have-nots.

Then we can go further how much does a football or basketball player get as opposed to a wrestler or rower. Most college baseball teams don’t have enough full scholarships as it is for an entire team. Many players are on partial scholarship, even at big schools.

Finally, there is Title IX, which is the part of the law. Title IX prohibits federally funded educational institutions from discriminating against students or employees based on sex. So when Player X on the men’s basketball team gets his paycheck, Player Y on the women’s team has to get the same. There aren’t very many athletic departments anywhere that can afford to do that.

Finally, athletes can and get money. Read this article from CBS Sports if you want to see how much.

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