NCAA president Mark Emmert recognizes there is a growing rift between big-money BCS schools and smaller institutions in terms off compensating student-athletes.
But Emmett is adamant student-athletes who participate in NCAA events maintain their amateur status.
”There’s very few members and, virtually no university president, who think it’s a good idea to convert student-athletes into paid employees, literally into professionals,” Emmert said this week during an appearance at a forum at Marquette University, a non-football playing Division I member playing in the new Big East. ”Then you have something very different from collegiate athletics.”
Emmert and the NCAA have gone through a difficult year, relative to money issues. After Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel was investigated– and cleared– for allegedly receiving money for autographs in the off season. Time magazine put him on the cover along with the headline ”It’s Time to Pay College Athletes.” Oklahoma State is investigating whether rules were broken after a series of Sports Illustrated stories that alleged cash payments to players and academic misconduct. The NCAA is also facing an antitrust lawsuit filed by Ed O’Bannon and a number of other former players who argue they’re owed millions of dollars in compensation for the sale and use of their images and a loss in court could change the landscape of college athletics
“(There’s) enormous tension right now that’s growing between the collegiate model and the commercial model,” Emmert said. ”And, it has gotten greater now because the magnitude of dollars has gotten really, really large.”
One viable option would be to allow student-athletes to turn pro straight out of high school, Emmert said, something the NBA and NFL Pllayers’ Association current will not allow. Other pro sports organizations don’t impose an artificial barrier, he said, “Ballet dancers don’t have to take a detour to college before joining a troupe,” Emmert pointed out.
Emmert also pointed to major league baseball’s seemingly common sense model. “Players can turn pro out of high school. If they choose to go to college, however, they must stay until after their third year or they turn 21,” he said. “‘Why would we want to force someone to go to school when they really don’t want to be there? But if you’re going to come to us, you’re going to be a student.”
While there may not be interest in out right paying players, the NCAA’s Division I Board of Directors twice approved a rules change that would allow schools to give athletes a $2,000 a year stipend to cover expenses not covered by their scholarship – clothes, travel, meals out with their friends. But the full membership has overridden it, with some smaller schools saying they were not interested or did not have the money to pay for it. There will be a day-and-a-half forum at the NCAA convention next year that will give the entire membership a chance to discuss new options.
