NCAA officials are considering a proposal to pay college athletes in certain revenue-producing sports such as football and men’s basketball. Legendary college football coach Steve Spurrier, who coached the Florida Gators to a national championship in the 1996 season and currently serves as head coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks, is a leading advocate for the proposal.
“We’re trying to get extra money for living expense, academic expense, game-related expense to our players because of the tremendous amount of money — billions — they’re bringing (in).”
Spurrier said he proposed giving more than the $2,000 stipend the NCAA is still mulling over. He’d like to give football players and other athletes in revenue-producing sports, such as men’s basketball, “approximately $3,500 to $4,000” for the entire year to cover most college expenses.
“We as coaches believe they’re entitled to a little more than room, books, board and tuition,” Spurrier said. “Again, we as coaches would be willing to pay it if they were to approve it to where our guys could get approximately get three-, four-thousand bucks a year. It wouldn’t be that much, but enough to allow them to live like normal student-athletes.
“We think they need more and deserve more. It’s as simple as that.”
Like Spurrier’s proposal last year, in which he wanted to pay players a $300 stipend for each game, there would still be hurdles his idea would have to leap over and it’s unlikely that it will get much further than talks during spring meetings. For starters, there would be obvious Title IX implications and not every school nationally would be able to pay student-athletes as much. Plus, football and basketball couldn’t be the only sports to pay student-athletes. It would have to be a national plan and it would have to be a plan for all collegiate sports.
The Title IX hangup here is that women’s sports (like most men’s sports) don’t produce any revenue.
Would it be appropriate for athletes who are bringing in millions of dollars in many cases get paid something for their efforts? What do you think?
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