"This is my stage!" yelled Anthony Davis, University of Kentucky's freshman basketball phenom, triumphantly into the crowd at the Louisiana Superdome. His Wildcats had just advanced to the national championship game, and Davis, a behemoth man-child with a unibrow,, already has a presumed virtual lock on the number one selection in the 2012 NBA draft.
Until then, though, Davis won't see a cent - even though during his time at Kentucky, the university made millions from his services in the form of prestige, advertisements, ticket sales and television contracts. There is plenty of rightful indignation when these student-athletes accept illegal benefits - but it is instead time for the NCAA to stop pretending to protect the sanctity of the "amateurism" and pay their student-athletes.
Reggie Bush and Terrelle Pryor, two former college football superstars, were mired in controversy after claims that both had received improper financial benefits, which the NCAA prohibits on the grounds that they are detrimental to the standards of amateurism. The NCAA policy states that collegiate amateurs should not receive benefits when other, more average students - and student-athletes - have no access to them.
We find this logic misguided. A recent Atlantic article mused that the phrases "amateurism" and "student-athlete" are "cynical hoaxes ... propagated by the universities so they can exploit the skills and fame of young athletes." The term "student-athlete," at least in large state-funded institutions like Ohio State University, means absolutely nothing to these institutions. At these colleges - where athletics compete with academics for top billing - student-athletes are not recruited to play at their highest level while also obtaining a degree. They are brought to the university as cash cows.
Ohio State's priority for Pryor was not for him to become a high-achieving student. Rather, the school intended him to be an instant moneymaking machine. Indeed, these sports-crazed institutions have been shown to let student-athletes retake exams over and over, illegally mark higher scores on their tests and allow some student-athletes take exams for other student-athletes. Perhaps it is time to stop pretending that these future millionaires are just students like the rest of us and allow athletes to receive just pay for their exorbitant services to their schools.
Yet the human cost of the self-serving "amateurism" myth is found in the vast majority of college athletes who don't play professional sports and therefore don't make the millions that come with them. Those who desperately cling to notions of the sanctity of "amateurism" note that college athletes receive scholarship money. However, once these athletes retire, their universities do not have to foot their medical bills or support them in any way. Three-hundred-pound offensive linemen, many of whom develop diabetes from their weight and brain trauma from football's physical toll, are left to pay thousands in medical bills after college ends. While Davis and Pryor will make their money back in the pros, former student-athletes often struggle financially after college, while their universities pocket millions in revenue without remorse.
We urge all universities to take a second look at their priorities regarding student-athletes and make a serious reconsideration of their commitment to serve all of their students, athletes or not. It is disappointing that we must affirm that universities were established as institutions of learning, not disingenuous, profiteering corporations.
Editorials are written by The Herald's editorial page board. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.
