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Rhett Bomar stirs up an age old controversy

By steelerfn8286, Section College
Posted on Fri Aug 25 2006 at 11:01 PM EST
More on: Rhett Bomar, J.D. Quinn, Oklahoma (all tags)

   Quarterback Rhett Bomar, whose potential was sky high; potentially end his football career by taking money he didn't earn. This brings up the age old question should college athletes get paid?  

Now, I'm not saying we pay them like we pay pro athletes, what I'm proposing is giving the players a monthly allowance. Everyone gets the same amount of money no matter how good you are.

When you're a college athlete, you don't have much free at all. You have practices and games to go, and when you're not participating in your sport, you have to balance studying and a social life. There's not much time in there for a job and playing a sport in college is now becoming a year-round commitment. Since all the other students have the opportunities to get jobs and get paid, then athletes should too.

Since most schools booster clubs give money to players already, whether you want to believe it or not, they can raise the money for the team's allowance. All the players would have to do is fill out a form and agree not to get a job outside of the sport they're playing.

The players' allowance get also help keep the players in line. If a coach finds out that a player is skipping or failing a class, they can take their allowance away for that month or however long it takes for that player to start going to class/passing the class. For more serious offenses, such as Bomar's two underage drinking incidents, the coach can take away the allowance for several months or the full season. With money involved, most players will be smart enough to realize that going to class and getting paid is better than skipping class and not getting paid.

An allowance will help put an end to rumors that college sports are corrupt. Many people believe that many college athletes are already getting paid; the allowance would minimize the number of incidents where players are getting paid from outside sources, because the players wouldn't be allowed to have real jobs.

Sure, paying college athletes may break the long standing tradition that college athletes aren't paid and just play for the love of the game, but how many of today's players are really just playing just to play? You play hard in college to get paid as a pro. That's how it works, whether anyone wants to admit it or not.