ESPN: Sources: NCAA investigating Manziel

[Section2]

There are many ways to force someone...one is with rules and laws, another is to create a situation where there is no other option but to comply and the NCAA and NFL have created this type of situation. And who benefits from this...the NFL by having a reliable stream of talent forced to enter the league through a draft after they age of 21 or 3 years out of high school and the NCAA who have the only place in the US to play football while awaiting the draft. The NCAA and it's members make billions off this system and the NFL saves millions each year by not having the develop these young talents like the NBA, NHL and MLB do.

The NFL didn't create the situation. It came after the system existed. Players are not victims. There is no law against someone creating a minor league football system. The tiny amount of money they'd make would pale in comparison to the value of a college education for their long term earning potential. Not to mention all the other benefits college athletes get, including many of the intangible benefits. Go ahead and create a minor league system that pays $30k and see how many choose that over playing in front of 100k fans, being celebrities, getting first class training and an education.

 

[everybody knows my name]

There's no truth to the suggestion that college is the only route to the NFL. It's just the most reliable route, because the market hasn't embraced the alternative.

But there are amateur and semipro football leagues all over. We have them here in the Upper Midwest, and they have them in much greater quantity and quality in other parts of the country.

Eric Swann had a successful 10-year NFL career without ever playing college football.

 

[dpodoll68]

The last two posts have it nailed. No one has the right to tell the NCAA how to run their business. If you don't like all the money they're making, create a competitor and do it better. No one's stopping you. No one is forcing any young man or woman to play collegiate sports. If there were a better alternative, they would take it. They want to take the best option available and sweeten the pot for themselves. It's not the NCAA's fault if the student athlete doesn't value the six figures' worth of services/goods they're receiving.

 

[bleedsmaroonandgold]

The last two posts have it nailed. No one has the right to tell the NCAA how to run their business. If you don't like all the money they're making, create a competitor and do it better. No one's stopping you. No one is forcing any young man or woman to play collegiate sports. If there were a better alternative, they would take it. They want to take the best option available and sweeten the pot for themselves. It's not the NCAA's fault if the student athlete doesn't value the six figures' worth of services/goods they're receiving.

Spot on Dpod. These kids are given an education that most of us on this board paid a lot of money for, given additional tutors and academic help that many of us didn't receive, given an opportunity to become local celebrities/heroes on campus, and given the opportunity to showcase their hard-earned talents for an outside shot at making a high-paying career playing a game they love. Despite all of this, some people are talking about the student athletes as though they are working in a sweatshop making pennies a day rather than athletes being compensated with a world class education.

I don't think that the life of a student athlete is an easy or perfect one, but do I think these kids have a pretty fair deal. They have to work hard and hold themselves to a higher standard of conduct than their peers, and in exchange, they get college, room, board, and tutors paid for.

 

[Ogee Ogilthorpe]

For argument's sake, let's take away the element of a 100% free education at a major academic insitution, and specialized tutors, traveling across the country, world-class athletic trainers, access to weight-lifting and training facilities that put 24-Hour Fitness to shame, etc.

Let's put all that aside for a minute.

College athletes still signed on to abide by a certain set of rules. Period. Complain about the rules, b!tch about the rules, you can even try to change the rules. The rules are the rules. Period. They've been in place forever.

Manziel, and those that fault the NCAA, are complete morons for defending him. He signed on the dotted line to abide by a certain set of rules of conduct and behavior and he's not living up to his end of the deal. End of story. What in the world ever happened to personal accountability??

 

[short ornery norwegian]

A few years ago, I covered a Volleyball team that made it to the state finals in Iowa. 3 girls from that team signed D1 scholarships - and all 3 left the team they signed with after 1 season. I ran into one of the girls the next summer and asked her what happened. Her response (paraphrasing): "It was like a job. They wanted you to devote 100% of your time and attention to VB, and I wanted to be a regular college student and do other things, so I left."

This anecdote offered to make the point that it goes both ways - the athlete does receive a real value in room, board and tuition, but in return, that athlete is making a committment to that program, and they do give up some freedom in return. As the saying goes, "let the buyer beware." D1 is not the answer for all athletes.