SEC Commissioner Mike Slive is Open to Fixing Problems in Backwards Ineffective Ways

Mike Slive told CBS sports today that he was willing to discuss athletic scholarships that cover a students "full cost of attendance."   This would mean the athletic scholarship would be able to cover incidental living expenses beyond the usual room, tuition, meals, and books for students.  On the surface it sounds like a decent enough idea, kids need money for transportation, phones, and other incidental expenses that are common to every student.  Yet, having a job while trying to keep your grades up and participate in a major college athletic program is tough.

There is a second unspoken reason behind Mike Slive and Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany's interest in covering incidental expenses for college athletes.  Some believe that if the students were given this little bit of extra money there would be less incentive for colleges or boosters to illegally pay them on the side.  But this line of thought ignores some basic facts about the situation.  Boosters don't give kids extra money because they feel bad for their situation, they do it to make the kid want to come to their school.  This extra money won't stop player payments from boosters and schools.  It may keep some kids from breaking NCAA rules in regard to selling memorabilia, but do we really think these kids were selling this stuff so they could make ends meat?  Mot of the Ohio State group were selling their memorabilia for free tattoos, not daily expenses.


The payments could actually make the cheating problems worse.  If we are honest about the current situation in college sports, especially football and basketball, we know that pay for play occurs most often at big institutions.  Most of the studies done on this problem say kids would need between 3,000 and 6,000 dollars a year to handle all incidental expenses.  How are the smaller schools going to afford this?   The smaller schools won't be able to offer this incentive to their athletes, so it will be one more advantage that the big schools will have on them in regards to recruiting.

Another question will be who receives these benefits?  You can't offer this sort of incentive to the football players and not the basketball team as well.  What about the Women's Crew team, they work just as hard and face the same challenges juggling grades and athletics, why should they be left out?  The financial implications are large if we are going to be fair and even handed about this.

If Mike Slive and Jim Delany really wanted to fix the problem of cheating in college sports they could, but they don't.  They could have meaningful punishment for those players, coaches, and institutions that break the rules.  Set up real academic standards for your athletes, and enforce those standards.  If athletes were forced to truly take academics seriously the amount of cheating would decrease exponentially.  Because it wouldn't be about going to the NFL or NBA , it would be about getting a degree.  But Delany and Slive would rather talk about over signing and money for incidental expenses that really fix any problems, because from their point of view their aren't any real problems to fix.


Better in 3-D.



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