Cash, check, or charge?

Sporting News, The, July 1, 1996 by Douglas S. Looney

In general agreement is Val Bonnette, president of a Virginia consulting firm, Good Sports Inc., that helps institutions make sure they are in compliance with NCAA rules. For 15 years, she was employed in the Office for Civil Rights in Washington, D.C., devoting two-thirds or more of her time to Title IX. Although Bonnette says there is "potential for concern" about equity issues should it come to paying players, she emphasizes that there is "flexibility" within Title IX legislation and that accommodation could be reached through "intelligent decisions."

At the NCAA, Janet Justus, an attorney and director of education resources, says any change would have to be "equal or equitable" under Tide IX. Justus says that means it would be essential that women receive the same kind of benefits' as men. That does not, however, necessarily require a dollar-for-dollar match for all sports, she says.

It's clear: At virtually every university, the football coach makes far more money than the golf coach. Therefore, logic sees nothing wrong with a football player getting more money than a golfer; a woman basketball player getting more than a male lacrosse player.

3 Allow scholarship athletes the same freedoms and rights that all other students enjoy--which, among many things, includes the right to have jobs if they wish.

Indeed, athletes should be able to have employment--just like real students. This would be an easy one for the NCAA to ADODL It would look good but would mean little. The truth is, athletics takes up so much time and energy that there is little left for work. And this doesn't even address any academic demands. Still, it would eliminate an obvious inequity that draws a lot of attention. The last two NCAA conventions, however, have turned down the proposal. Steve Morgan at the NCAA says there are two major concerns: that there would be far better-paying jobs in urban areas than in rural areas, which would be unfair, and that the problem of no-show jobs would again become a major problem.

Ergo, cheating.

But if the NCAA washed its intrusive hands of the problem, it would sort itself out. It's called, drum roll, free enterprise. "Athletes," Morgan says, "need to have opportunities and benefits in order to lead a normal campus life." This is a theme on many minds. William Beauchamp, Notre Dame's executive vice president said at the sports symposium on his campus that steps are being taken to "mainstream our student/athletes to allow them to experience college Eke other students..."

That's laudatory and should be put into practice. Says Marvin Johnson: "What has happened is that the players are barred from joining in the feast at the table, and this makes no sense because the feast is provided by the players." johnson and others handed out flyers at an NCAA basketball tournament session in Albuquerque, in support of getting money to the players.

"The thing we most admire and want to teach the most is the work ethic," Ehrhart says. "Everybody wants to recruit a high school player who had a job weekends, helped his mom make ends meet by having a paper route. The very best All-American young man. Then we get him to college and say, `You can't work.' It's antithetical." Ehrhart says it makes sense, for example, to let players work--for pay--for the athletic department by selling ads in the game program; it makes sense, he says, to have football players tutor other football players.