Today, it’s easy to watch shows like MTV’s “Cribs,” BET’s “How I’m Livin'” and ESPN’s “The Life,” to see how professional athletes spend their millions. Who doesn’t dream of having all those material things?
Young boys idolize men like Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett and Lebron James – players who went straight from high school to the NBA – and figure they can just as easily replicate their success.
It’s obvious these boys need an incentive to go to and stay in college. The only one that will truly work is to pay them.
Opponents of paying college athletes say although they are representing the school, so are other students.
They also say that college sports are already tainted enough due to the amount of money associated with it. Another question is how much to pay each athlete. Which athlete deserves more than the others?
I have an answer to these questions.
Athletes do an incomparable job for the school seeing as how at major Division I-A schools, the top revenue-earning areas are found within the athletic programs.
Deciding how much a certain athlete receives can easily be determined: split it evenly. It eliminates the favoring of players and allows all athletes to have the same standard of living.
College athletics being contaminated is an inevitable occurrence. The NCAA will continue to be a big business as long as people continue to enjoy college sports. Paying college athletes would simply better prepare them for the cutthroat business deeply enthralled in the professional leagues.
But a degree is most important.
So what happens when the dream is over and the big money runs out? These players must have something to fall back on.
I’m not saying that paying college athletes would get them to realize this but it would give them a good reason to stay in school and give them an opportunity to figure it out.
Lauren Armwood, 18, is a freshman newspaper journalism student from San Antonio. She can be reached at l_arm15@hotmail.com