Winston and JSA

[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.

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.

[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.

[packs]

True. I just can't help but think the education aspect is forgotten. A free education is more valuable over a lifetime than whatever payment you're going to get for playing 4 years of college football. Just because more players don't take their education seriously doesn't mean that they aren't receiving something in return for playing football. If things were to shift towards compensation I'd like to at least see some strict academic guidelines fulfilled in order for you to qualify. You are at a college after all.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by packs

True. I just can't help but think the education aspect is forgotten. A free education is more valuable over a lifetime than whatever payment you're going to get for playing 4 years of college football. Just because more players don't take their education seriously doesn't mean that they aren't receiving something in return for playing football. If things were to shift towards compensation I'd like to at least see some strict academic guidelines fulfilled in order for you to qualify. You are at a college after all.

Yes, but there are plenty of non-athletes who are in college who do not appreciate the education they have the opportunity to get. You can't make people appreciate it, and there are plenty of football players who DO appreciate it - there are probably as many 'good' stories as 'bad'.

The "strict academic guidelines" is never going to happen. I taught football players at Texas A&M who were dumber than a stick - nice guys, but they really weren't intelligent enough to be in college. The best they could hope for was to get four years of 'growing up' in a structured environment, which is a great thing, along with a few bits of education that they would have missed if they had been somewhere else. You learn from being in school, even if you try not to. Same for life - old people with more years 'put in' in life have learned things just from existing longer than young people. Most young people don't respect or understand that.

[earlywynnfan]

I can totally see both sides of the "pay college athletes" arguments. What I cannot get out of my head is that college FB player last year who was on the cover of the Madden video game, yet couldn't afford to buy the game. There is NO WAY you can convince me that something isn't wrong there.

Ken

[chaddurbin]

i was under the impression big time college programs i.e. SEC schools already pay their football players <wink><wink>.

to the original point i see nothing wrong with what JSA is doing. people want them to turn down business? they exist to give opinions on autographs, nothing more. if anything it's on the stupid autograph dealer who needed to submit 1000 winston autos at the same time. they probably have proof shots of winston signing also, no way jsa would cert that many w/o any proof.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by chaddurbin

i was under the impression big time college programs i.e. SEC schools already pay their football players <wink><wink>.

to the original point i see nothing wrong with what JSA is doing. people want them to turn down business? they exist to give opinions on autographs, nothing more. if anything it's on the stupid autograph dealer who needed to submit 1000 winston autos at the same time. they probably have proof shots of winston signing also, no way jsa would cert that many w/o any proof.

Really, you think the only problem is that the autograph dealer was stupid enough to get caught?!? And you think that it was okay for JSA to cert them, knowing that they were potentially helping a second college player get screwed? simply because they had proof that Winston signed, so that let them off the hook?

It's hard to give an example of anything comparable, because I don't think anything exists.

You have a college player who cannot legally sell his autograph, or sign for someone who will sell them for profit. But it happened, meaning the player will be in deep shit if he gets caught. Then those items are sent by a dealer to a TPA, both of who are dead certain that the college player has done something illegal. But neither are responsible in any way. And please don't tell me that JSA didn't know - think 'Gurley'.