English Notecards

-Many people today still believe that college athletes are amateur athletes. -College Athletes have a huge role in earning their university big business.

-Their is much corruption involved with college athletes, in which boosters try to give athletes benefits that violated NCAA rules. -The NCAA is a broken system, in which everyone but the athlete is receiving money.

-An average full division one scholarship is about $25,000 per year. -Many athletes on average spend a year or two at an university before transferring elsewhere.

-An athletic scholarship seems like a lot, but only covers the basics such as: unknown university fees, tuition, housing, a meal plan, and multiple hundred dollar textbooks. -Being a college athlete is a full time job. An average day can involve waking up before classes to get a workout or conditioning session, then go to class until 3 or 4 p.m., go to practice, go to a mandatory study hall and then finish homework or study.

-Even though scholarships do help take the burden of of paying for college it doesn't translate to money in player's pocket. -Many College athletes are typically broke.

-There are many people who make money off of these near professional athletes. -Coaches many over hundreds of thousands of dollar of these athletes. NCAA executives make millions of dollars a year. Also the NCAA signed a 14 year agreement with CBS worth 10.8 billion dollars.

-Universities bring in hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to their athletic programs each year. Through donations, ticket sales, media rights, advertising, and anything else with a price tag, these athletes are symbols for their school and their program. If a school makes a huge scientific achievement, they will be in the newspaper for a few days. The athletic teams, however, are in the newspaper the entire year.

-Not all sports are profitable. Sports like swimming tennis, volleyball don't earn the university much money and bigger sports make up for the lost revenue.

-Athletes earn their schools hundreds of thousands of dollars, increase enrollment, and if they do well, provide a recruiting piece for generations. Top NCAA executives are getting $1 million per year while an athlete can't earn $50 from signing a few autographs because it violates NCAA rules.

The hypocrisy that permeates big-money college sports takes your breath away. College football and men's basketball have become such huge commercial enterprises that together they generate more than $6 billion in annual revenue, more than the National Basketball Association.

Powerful conferences like the S.E.C. and the Pac 12 have signed lucrative TV deals, while the Big 10 and the University of Texas have created their own sports networks. Companies like Coors and Chick-fil-A eagerly toss millions in marketing dollars at college sports.

Still, advocates of a \"pay-for-play\" model remain the most vocal, pointing to the discrepancy between a free-market employment system within athletics departments, in which universities can hire coaches and administrators for salaries reaching millions of dollars, to a capped economic system for athletes, whose earnings are limited to the value of scholarships,

\"It's laughable, but it's not funny,\" ESPN analyst Jay Bilas said. \"They pay the scholarship, which is the amount the school pays to itself. They're not out a nickel. The athletics department pays the school. Then they claim that they're poor. Then they pay themselves these outrageous salaries that are market-based, but they say they don't have any money to give to the players, but they have $8 million to give to a football or basketball coach and $1 million to give a baseball coach.\"

According to the poll, critics like Bilas are in the minority. Only 19 percent indicated they strongly support paying salaries to college athletes. No demographic or political group, except for non-whites, had more than 25 percent expressing strong support for the idea .

A national college athletes' advocacy group and a sports management professor calculate in the report that if college sports shared their revenues the way pro sports do, the average Football Bowl Subdivision player would be worth $121,000 per year, while the average basketball player at that level would be worth $265,000.

However, in the NCAA's history, one practice has remained constant: Student-athletes play for free. Each year, more than 400,000 student-athletes compete on nearly 18,000 teams at over 1,000 schools across three NCAA Divisions (DI, DII and DIII). The schools involved bring in huge sums of money each year from their athletic programs, especially those schools that advance to national championships.

It's easy to think that since these schools make so much money that the athletes—the actual performers in the athletic competition—would be entitled to a share of the earnings. But as it stands, the NCAA views student-athletes as non-professionals who represent their school, not themselves, during athletic contests.

Right now, that is not what the College Athletes Players Association (CAPA) is arguing, they want players to have a higher safety standard,and current and former players to have guaranteed health insurance.

Full ride scholarships cover tuition, fees, room, board, and books. However, not all athletic scholarships are full rides, especially if an athlete plays a \"non revenue\" sport (which is anything other than football or men's basketball.) If an athlete has as a full scholarship, it is not four years, the scholarship has to be renewed every year.

The other thing to consider is who gets paid how much. Should the fourth-string nose tackle get paid as much as Jameis Winston? Should the star point guard be paid more than the 14th man?

Elsewhere, University of Georgia star wide receiver A.J. Green was suspended four games after selling a game-worn jersey for $1,000. Five Ohio State University football players, including potential Heisman candidate Terrelle Pryor, are facing five-game suspensions in 2011 for selling memorabilia and receiving discounted services from a tattoo parlor.

The University of North Carolina's football season was derailed almost before it began after several players were suspended for receiving improper benefits from agents. And the University of Southern California was forced to vacate wins in football and basketball after an NCAA investigation concluded that Heisman-winning running back Reggie Bush and basketball player O.J. Mayo had each received benefits from agents. The violations cost USC its 2005 BCS title and prompted the school to return Bush's Heisman Trophy.

\"Yes, of course. My initial reaction is to cover the costs of tuition and living expenses and to offer them a stipend commensurate with the sport and relative danger (e.g. students at risk of a concussion should be paid more). That said, I'd be open to other systems — provided that they ensure students who play sports do not have to take out loans to pay for school or living expenses.\"

\"Regardless of direct compensation, college athletes should receive workers' compensation, life insurance and medical care for injuries sustained while engaging in college athletics.\"

If you added up the revenue that college each player would make almost $1,000 if you divided it up among student athletes. But would the starting quarterback and the back up kicker be paid the same, even though the starting quarterback has more jerseys sold.