All the top, top high school basketball players know the value of their work. It's impossible to not know how good you are. If they pick college for a year they know the trade off. You could drop out of high school and start selling merchandise from your YouTube mixtapes if you want in 2018. You could go overseas. You could train. You could get an agent to try to market you. You could focus your anger towards the NBA, David Stern, the owners, etc. who felt like properly scouting 17 and 18 years old for professional basketball was tough so they wanted a 20-year old age limit and settled on 19.

College is there for people who want it. No one is forcing a player to go. As soon as someone is ready to be an employee, go ahead and be an employee. It's not difficult if a person is set on doing it and they are confident in themselves to succeed. What will happen though is a lot of people will have second thoughts that maybe, just maybe, playing with peers in a pretty cushy environment while working towards two career paths isn't pure evil.

The president of OSU makes about 1M a year. A coach should be underneath that amount if we were truly talking about an amateur endeavor. We are not. Sing no sad songs for a kid that gets a scholarship. It's not about that. If said kid gets a career ending injury his freshman year he gets nothing. He is not an employee of the university, even though the coach and everyone else is making money off of him.

https://www.quora.com/What-happens-to-a-NCAA-D1-scholarsh...

I agree that the O$Us of the world (and others) vastly overpay their coaches. The disparity there between them and most others is cavernous. I'd be all for an NCAA cap on head coach salaries - but that would never happen.

The trite argument of the media talking heads is that the system must be changed to benefit the "taken advantage of" student-athletes. Conversely, I'd argue that the system must instead be changed to create competitive balance and slim the division between haves and have-nots. Paying players, endorsements, etc. run completely counter to that.

Perhaps someday there will be someone to take this torch and run with it. That would benefit a heck of a lot more student-athletes than getting Nick Bosa a Nike contract.

As I've argued before, those pushing for student-athlete compensation are carrying water for "the 1%". Let's instead make things better for the 99% of student-athletes that aren't going pro.

Are the players employees or students? Are they amateurs or professionals? Look at the money and the hours and you tell me.

Yes, I know. I'm not sure why that's relevant. I'm not insisting all NCAA athletes be paid or even suggesting that the school's play any role in paying them. I'm just suggesting that the NCAA loosen Draconian eligibility rules that limit a player's ability to earn beyond their scholarship. For instance, that New Balance wants to guarantee that Syracuse commit $1 million dollars doesn't seem like a valid reason for the NCAA to rule him ineligible.

When when Phil Night decides that Nike will give...errr..sponsor every single Oregon basketball player at $2 million per year? And, nobody else in the PAC12 has some alum controlled business doing that? Where are we?

If/when this happens, I'll vote for OHIO to drop to division 3 and walk away from this madness.

Olympic athletes are amateurs and are allowed to receive endorsement money. What's the difference?

Used to be, but not anymore. I lament the allowing of pro athletes in the olympics. I much more enjoyed it when the USA basketball team was basically a college all-star team.

That's true across certain sports (basketball, soccer, etc.) but if I recall there are also sports where the amateur status is maintained despite endorsements (swimming, gymnastics, etc.).

Ridiculous, Matisse would have been found ineligible to play due to his deep friendship with his controversial rival, Pablo Picaso, and the fact that his wife attempted suicide after suspecting him of cheating on her. (She was not successful by the way and would later return to his side.) Should the two have both ended up playing for Ohio State, their contrasting styles would have been detrimental and would have cost Ohio State the Big-10 Championship. Matisse would have also come into question due to Hitler's leniency toward him during the Nazi Occupation of France during WWII, and Matisse's willingness to take an "Aryan" oath in order to continue to display his works in France. That and Picaso's close relationship with Stalin would have been even more difficult to overcome than Urban Meyer's current issues. Besides, I don't believe that Matisse was known for his jump shot.

So you just got mad at the NBA (the league responsible for the current age limit) and say I'm the one with the twisted logic? Do you or do you not realize that the NBA used to offer millions of guaranteed dollars to 18-year olds, took it away for over a decade, and now offer $125K and are being billed as heroes during a crusade to kill the NCAA forever?

You were an athlete. How many hours a week did you practice? How much time was spent on the road and game days? Do you think your scholarship and what you got out of it, in restrospect, was inordinately inequitable with what you should have made to compete for Ohio University? You are very outspoken on the subject but have never given your personal feelings on how you felt about your compensation relative to what you gained and gave. I am not familiar with your career so I am assuming you were in the 95% of athletes that we are NOT talking about getting paid.

I played D1 men's soccer for O.U.
I also wrestled D1 for F.D.U.

I was a walk-on at O.U.
We had something like 2 scholarships,so we were pretty much all walk-ons.

At F.D.U. we had I think 3 scholarships,so again,we were pretty much all
walk-ons.

So,at both universities ,I got the privilege of paying to compete.
At O.U., we even had to pay for our own housing and food for summer preseason camp.

Practice for both sports was about 3 hours a day,every day,except Sunday.

In addition to "formal" practice,wrestling had early morning weight training,3 days a week.
We also had to do a pre-practice run of a few miles.

Home games/matches were like another practice,as far as time.

Weekday away games/matches were out and back the same day.
That meant missing some classes and trying to study on bus.

Overnight trips were always on weekends.
Leave Friday after class,come back Saturday night.

You needed pretty good time management skills to keep up with your class work.
I was a double major (engineering /pre-vet) so the course load was pretty intense.

I loved both sports,which is the reason I competed.
Thought it was an honor to wear the green and white for Ohio and the red and blue for F.D.U.

I finished my B.S.in engineering after the first semester of my senior year.
That let me start my masters second semester.
I finished that up at night,after I graduated.

I also came out with one knee that's held together with prayer, and second knee that's not quite as bad.

Thanks to a teammate separating my right shoulder at the end of my senior season,actually,that's what ended my senior season,I can now predict the weather.

Would I do it all over again? In a heartbeat.