Show Me The Money!

I am sick and tired of all the stories about the "poor college athlete." Not a month goes by that I don't hear some story about Johnny Linebacker. Poor Johnny can't get a job because he has a scholarship. He is forced to eat mac and cheese, drive a broken down old car and cannot afford new clothes. The issue is whether college athletes should be paid. Of course, the undertone provided by the media is that the greedy NCAA money machine should share a piece of the pie with it's athletes. A recent series of events has really brought new perspective to this issue.

First up is A.J. Hawk, star linebacker for Ohio State, our upcoming opponent in the Fiesta Bowl. Of course, everyone by now has heard that he is dating Brady Quinn's sister. So how does this poor schlob get our QB's sister to go out with him? A recent incident in Columbus may shed some light on this issue. Hawk, center Nick Mangold and another roommate lost $3000 and other items worth thousands of dollars when their rented campus-area house was burglarized last month. The stolen items included two laptop computers worth $3500, DVD movies worth $1425, video games worth $750 and a $500 watch. Not to mention they had $3000 CASH sitting around! Must be tough to be a football player for the Bucks!

Next is a story about Section 8 housing. We all know it as "the projects." A recent law was passed closing a loophole by which college athletes qualified. You see, these poor athletes can't get jobs, so they have no money. Of course they qualified for Section 8. So why in heaven would they want to live in the projects? Because they still got paid a stipend for room and board by their university! I don't know what room and board costs these days, but when I went to school, it was upward of $12000. That's a nice little paycheck! You might ask, why is this so wrong? Well, when players from such schools as Virginia Tech and Nebraska applied for housing, local poor families were put out on the street! Good work guys.

Another good story revolves around college Bowl season. Remember when we were in school (ND) and the players came back after the Holidays sporting all their awesome Bowl gear? I used to be so jealous of the awesome sweatshirts, hats and gear with the Bowl logo on them. Well, the NCAA upped the ante. Bowls are now allowed to give $500 worth of gifts to each player. PSP, iPod and DVD players are now standard gifts. Wondering about the Fiesta Bowl gift package: Sony PSP, Bulova watch, commemorative football, Fiesta Bowl dart board and snack-filled duffel bag.

Finally, the main issue for me is that these athletes get a free education! Do you know what I would do to not have student loans? I still rememeber working at least 40 hours every week during the summer in college, sometimes 16 hour shifts. At the end of the summer, I would write Mom and Dad a big fat check for school. They then took that check and wrote an even bigger check to pay for the rest! These athletes have it made! Some of them get it, and take advantage of their opportunity. But if I have to listen to one more media talking head say that college athletes should be paid...