Winston and JSA

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by packs

You are misreading what I'm saying. These athletes want to get paid to play football. But they are already being paid to play football: they receive a full ride scholarship so they can attend the college and play football.

If a student on academic scholarship started to demand to be paid for studying, then yes, take that ungrateful student's scholarship away and let some benefactor step in to pay him to study.

Bottom line for me: don't look a gift horse in the mouth. You are receiving a free education at a top flight school which your athleticism has allowed you to experience. So you either accept that you've been given a free education or you can demand to be paid and have your scholarship be taken away.

And then when your NFL career doesn't pan out, like it won't for the majority of these guys, you can look forward to crushing student debt like everyone else. At that point you'd probably wish you could go back in time and accept your free ride for what it was.

Those are good points, but I think the majority of college athletes realize that they aren't going pro. We are confusing Winston and Manziel with guys that are barely getting by, and we are confusing schools like USC and Alabama with the smaller ones where virtually no one is first round draft choice material.

Not sure what the affect of paying them would have - it might suck all remaining talent out of the small schools, rendering their football programs useless. On the other hand, paying them AND allowing them to sign autographs or do anything else they want for money, might provide a new source of revenue for smaller schools - they might be able to draw some decent players who could be a well-paid 'face' for the football team, at least locally.