Recently in the press the topic of a supplemental cash payment to players has been discussed. I have one simple question, why shouldn’t student athletes be paid? For those of you who haven’t heard, the NCAA is discussing increasing the athletic scholarships by $2,000 to $3,000 per year ($167 to $250 per month). Current scholarship money covers the fundamentals of college, tuition, room, board, and books, while the proposed increase would go to covering accessorial expenses of the student athlete such as soap, toothpaste, cleaning materials (if a college kid chooses to cleanse), telephone calls, and the occasional pizza or night out on the town. Right now the student athlete incurs these costs themselves.

The question is, how does a student athlete attend school full-time, study, attend practice, and travel the country to play games while still trying to earn the needed money to pay for phone calls home to mom and dad, go out with friends, and the essential products of day-to-day life. The student athlete already has two full time jobs (1. a student and 2. an athlete).

Unlike my time in school where if I didn’t feel like going to class or had something better to do I could just skip class, the student athlete is REQUIRED to attend class. Otherwise, you see their name at the bottom of the box score saying “John Doe DNP due to breaking unspecified team rules.” The second job of being a student athlete requires spending every day of the year preparing themselves for game day. Whether it’s weightlifting two days after the final game of the season, playing a summer league basketball game in June, conditioning in August, or participating in two-a-days in late October, playing collegiate sports at the highest level requires a commitment many of us can’t imagine.

No wonder kids are tempted to take money from boosters (Maurice Clarrett), take artificially high paying jobs during the summer, or make unauthorized phone calls from university phones (Villanova). Not all kids come from wealthy families. Many kids come from single parent homes. Mom can’t afford to send $250 a month for extra spending money. As a matter of fact, a lot of the kids in major collegiate athletics may have never attended school if it wasn’t for the scholarship they received for playing a sport. So why would does the NCAA tempt a kid to cheat by only giving them a part of the benefits needed to achieve an average life?

[Originally written by Aaron Miller]