Oh, for the "Good Old Days ".
DonDiego has no dog in this fight, so please no name-calling or yelling, . . . OK? [Actually, this post is mostly just musings on the issue, . . . which may spark conversation.]
Perhaps a definition of the problem is the first step.
DonDiego suggests that the basis for the problem is the "size" of college sports. Limiting the discussion to Big Schools, . . . and by "Big" DonDiego means money, . . . it turns out the highest-paid employee in most States is a College Football or Basketball Coach [Ref: . Dallas Morning News]
Collegiate sports have just gotten out of hand.
The primary function of a college should be to educate its students, . . . not to entertain students and alumni with outsize amusement, . . . even outsize amusement which results in tremendous revenue for many universities.
In the Good Old Days colleges were more focused on education, . . . but money changes things.
And Big Football and Big Basketball generate revenues and promote gifts from wealthy alumni. So it's not likely to change.
So should college players be payed? Should college players be permitted to unionize?
DonDiego would prefer not, he likes the idea of amateur sports on college. But what poor old DonDiego prefers has been overcome by the bulldozer of Big Money in college athletics. In the Big Sports at the Big Schools there are few amateurs anymore.
Maybe it's time to be more honest about the whole college athletics business. Why even require the players to be students? Some of these "students" come out of college as functional illiterates anyway. So just be honest about it, . . . the schools can hire players to represent them in ritual combat much as Medieval European communities would hire knights for real combat.
DonDiego suspects the popularity of sports on campus would fall somewhat, . . . but things gotta change.
Maybe the NFL could chip in some funds; after all colleges function much as the "farm clubs" in baseball.
But there will be impacts:
__The true college amateur athlete will be forgotten. Unless he is worth paying, he won't be worth playing.
__The "pay" for the players is a cost for the college, . . . likely resulting in less funds available to subsidize other real amateur sports on campus.
__And what about small schools, . . . schools represented in Division III conferences like the American Southwest Conference and the New England Football Conference? [note 1] Schools where amateur athletics still exist. They cannot pay their players, . . . so exactly where does one draw the line.
__Or middle-sized schools in Division II?
__Would all players on a given team have to join the union? What about in right-to-work States?
__Would all teams in a given conference have to be union or non-union? What about schools that simply cannot or will not budget for it?
__And what about impacts on the sports gambling industry?
note i: DonDiego attended a school now in the NEFC. At the time DonDiego matriculated, the school had no intercollegiate football team, because sometime in the early years of the 20th century, . . . AKA the Good Old Days, . . . a football athlete had been injured, so the school dropped the program altogether.
