On Tuesday the FBI dropped a bombshell on the college basketball world by announcing an investigation that led to 10 arrests including 4 college basketball assistant coaches. As the names of head coaches, assistant coaches and schools get named, don’t lose focus on who is really on trial… it’s the NCAA.
For years, the NCAA has made anything that they can’t profit off of an NCAA violation. This overbearing, corrupt process of crushing the soul out of an unpaid labor force has finally caught up with them. You see, they won’t get the same benefit they had when SMU was considered a rogue program that eventually received the death penalty. Nah… we’re smarter now. We’re more informed. The NCAA was the problem then and they’re the problem now.
For as long as I can remember, recruiting had been where the violations lie. Lose out on a top recruit within your state? Call the NCAA and whisper about possible violations by the school who signed the recruit. It is a seedy process that involves shoe companies, AAU, parents, agents and anyone else who thinks they can somehow profit off of the talent of the young men the claim they’re protecting. Does the NCAA do anything about it? Of course not. Why do anything when all of the seediness means profitability and the assurance that the unpaid labor continues to be unpaid.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not in favor of college players being paid by the university. I am in favor of college players earning income. That means if they want to do an autograph signing? Have at it. A booster wants them to endorse the company that they own? Cool. In other words they should be able to profit off their name just as much if not more than the school. Don’t tell me that’s unfair when Louisville’s soon to be former Athletic Director got his daughter a job with the shoe company that pays the university millions of dollars. How did she get that job? Yeah. Exactly. But, the NCAA doesn’t care because that has nothing to do with getting maximum profit from the unpaid labor. It’s why we are where we are.
The unpaid labor isn’t dumb. They see a billion dollar machine profiting off them and being told to be happy with a scholarship. News Flash. You can’t spend a scholarship. The scholarship has no street value. It’s only value is a sheet of paper.
So what do you think is going to happen when the over-regulated unpaid labor is being wooed with handouts from boosters, shoe companies and coaches whose jobs depends on wins and losses? You guessed it… widespread corruption. The NCAA has asked for it for years and now they’ve gotten it and if enough people talk, the FBI can blow the top off of the whole scam called college athletics.
The NCAA needs this. They need to be exposed. They need to be investigated. They need reform that means less financially obtrusive rules when it comes to athletes earning an income. They need to be saved from themselves so for once the unpaid labor can be treated like their more than a name and number.
