Or they will kick you out of the club...
Way out of the club.
Let's face it. There's no bigger lie in this world than the one told by the NCAA regarding "amateur athletes". Heck, even the Olympics (that bastion of honest amateur athletic competition *snicker*) has seen the writing on the wall and is admitting pros now. If, for no other reason, than to keep revenues up.
Here's the deal: For years, baseball was not considered a "revenue sport" in College because most of the top talent was leaving High School and heading directly to the Minor Leagues in order to get paid for playing sports at an earlier age. Only recently has the emergence of the College World Series as a television event started to turn that worm. Despite this, most (not all) top prospects still leave high school and proceed directly to the Rookie leagues. It hasn't been the same in College Basketball & Football, which have always profited by the lack of developmental pro leagues in their respective sports.
Because of this the NCAA has been able to apply all kinds of silly restrictions on so-called student-athletes forcing Universities to spend un-told amounts of money on compliance alone. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, and the NCAA laughs all the way to the bank.
What I'd like to see is the entire system turned on its head. There's now a D-League in the NBA, wouldn't it be nice to see them get players right out of High School? And how about this UFL in football? Let's drop the minimum draft age and turn it into a full-fledged NFL D-league and get all of the top talent in the so-called "revenue" sports out from under the revenue-averse-for-athletes NCAA. Let's bring College sports back to what they were before the advent of big-time pro athletics and let the kids that want to be professional athletes be professional athletes.
The NCAA is determined that we don't lie to it. That we're forthright and honest, well OK. I'm honest when I say I'm sick and tired of the NCAA putting schools like SMU on the death penalty while other schools get off with a slap on the writs. I'm tired of the NCAA treating college athletes like second-class citizens while coaches and schools make Millions. In a recent survey College Presidents stated that they felt College Coaches earn too much money, while it may be that much of this is driven by jealousy over home size, there's some truth to it as well. College coaches do make too much, considering they're working with what basically amounts to free labor.
Let's tell the truth to the NCAA and set up professional developmental teams in Football and Basketball in all States. We want our athletics with a little less hypocrisy if you please, and a healthy side of "stop making mountains out of molehills."
