MARCH SADNESS.
Posted March 17, 2015
on:- In: Basketball | Football | Sport Psychology | Sports
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I was watching John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” show on HBO and one of the subjects he covered was the fact that NCAA basketball coaches are making millions of dollars and some of the athletes they coach are going to bed each night hungry. Mark Emmert, President of the NCAA, was quoted saying: “They (the athletes) are not employees, they’re students.” A number of years ago when the NCAA was first formed, they would not allow for workman’s compensation (because they are college students) and that’s when the phrase “student athletes” first became part of the NCAA vocabulary. And because they do not receive workman’s compensation if they get hurt while playing, they have nowhere to turn for medical treatment and medical expenses. But what really seemed preposterous was when they showed Clemson’s head football coach, Dabo Swinney, saying: “Professionalizing college athletics? That’s when they lose me. I’ll go do something else because there’s enough entitlement in this world as it is.” Swinney, by the way, makes $3 million a year. I wonder where he would go to do something else? I’ve been an advocate of paying college basketball players for a number of years now and who better to help pay them than the National Basketball Association? After all, college sports provides a free farm club for every professional basketball team in the NBA. So it only seems right that they should participate in the payments.
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