NY TImes examines NCAA rules - Sarah Anne Semke

I found an article in the New York Times that examined the rules in the NCAA on college athletes and paying them, specifically recent changes in how scholarships are granted. In 2012, Mark Emmert, the president of the NCAA looked at some of the NCAA rules and found that the academic standards could be raised a little higher and that the scholarship process could be changed somewhat. Originally, NCAA scholarships were given out on a one year basis, each player had an assessment with their coach at the end of their season and the coaching staff decided if their scholarship should be renewed for the following academic year. With Emmert’s changes, schools can give athletes a guaranteed four year scholarship, this was put in place to increase graduation rates as a scholarship for the entire college career was already paid for.

Another aspect of these changes was the ability of division one schools to give their players a $2000 stipend each year. Some people were outraged by these changes saying that we were making students subcontractors and tuition money by regular students was being given to the wrong group at colleges and universities. However, Emmert fought off those accusations with this: “If we move toward a pay-for-play model — if we were to convert our student athletes to employees of the university — that would be the death of college athletics, Then they are subcontractors. Why would you even want them to be students? Why would you care about their graduation rates? Why would you care about their behavior?” No, he insisted, the extra $2,000 was an effort to increase the value of the scholarships, which some studies estimate falls on average about $3,500 short of the full cost of attending college annually.” However over 100 universities sent in “over ride requests” for this stipend on the grounds that they could not afford it. With high numbers like this the NCAA decided to suspend this stipend amendment. I thought this was an interesting article to look at because it showed how the NCAA has in fact tried to pay athletes and schools simply cannot afford it. Schools not being able to afford paying their athletes is an aspect I believe is somewhat overlooked in the argument of paying athletes.