Economics 101

Courtesy of theinsider.com

Buried in a USC blog, ten days ago, was a story on former Trojan and current New Orleans Saint Reggie Bush being ordered by a judge to give a deposition in a civil case against him.  Lloyd Lake alleges, in the suit, that Bush took nearly $300,000 in cash and benefits from him while playing for USC.  If the allegations are proven true, USC could forfeit all of the games that Bush played in (including two National Championships), and Bush may have to return all of his college awards and accolades (including his Heisman Trophy).

Former Oklahoma State wide receiver Dez Bryant, who is a potential first round pick in the 2010 NFL Draft, was suspended for the last nine games of his career for lying to NCAA investigators. This Rivals.com article describes the Bryant situation:

"Bryant, an All-American who is ranked ninth overall on Mel Kiper Jr.'s most recent Big Board, was ruled ineligible by the school after lying to the NCAA when he was asked if he had visited Deion Sanders' home and had worked out with him.
[...]


A person close to the situation said Bryant will tell the NCAA in seeking an appeal of his ineligibility that he did in fact visit Sanders' home in Texas in May, that he jogged with him at a training facility and that they had lunch, for which he paid.

Bryant is planning to fly or drive to Indianapolis to tell the NCAA his story as soon as Monday, the source said. Sanders, with whom Bryant will say he had a personal relationship, told the NCAA that he had visited with Bryant."  (www.rivals.com)

The twist:  from Sanders' detailed account in the New York Times, nothing in that relationship constituted an NCAA violation -- if Bryant had told the truth about it when the Association came calling:

"Sanders said the suspension stemmed from a day he and Bryant spent together last summer.  They met at an athletics center in Frisco, Tex., and later had dinner at Sanders’s home in Prosper, Tex. Sanders said the N.C.A.A. asked Bryant if he had ever been in Sanders’s home and Bryant said no when in fact he had.
[...]


'The kid panicked, man,' Sanders said. 'He panicked. He thought it was a violation to come over to my house and it isn't. He said no, that he hadn't been over here, and I said, yeah, he had been over here. I don't lie and he panicked.'" (New York Times)

An article by ESPN the Magazine’s Seth Wickersham suggests something else was behind the suspension:

"When Bryant returned to Oklahoma State, he started asking his coaches questions about agents and his pro career -- the kind of questions the sophomore had never asked before. His coaches wondered, Why now? Was Sanders helping Bryant out of kindness? Or was he steering a first-round talent to his friend, agent Eugene Parker?

Suspecting the worst, OSU receivers coach Gunter Brewer and then-compliance director Scott Williams ordered Bryant to limit his interactions with Sanders to texts and phone calls. Bryant agreed, but there was still cause for concern; he was notoriously unreliable, and getting him to focus on even simple tasks like attending class was a daily struggle.  OSU officials say they tried to set up a conference call with Sanders, hoping to guard against any rules violations, but they never connected -- although they did exchange several text messages with him.

Over the summer, Williams got the call he feared, when the NCAA asked to interview Bryant.  On July 24, the wideout answered questions about Sanders and Parker for two hours. Bryant told investigators the same thing he says now: 'Deion never talked about Parker.'"  (ESPN The Magazine)

In the recent ESPN series “30 for 30”, former University of Miami football players talked about the “hit club” and dealing with NCAA regulations:

The relationship between these stories is obvious.  They bring up the question:  should college football players get paid to play?  The question isn’t new, and it isn’t going away. 

While Reggie Bush taking $100K a year from someone is an extreme example, players talking about stealing car stereos to get their kids diapers is down right ridiculous.

With big time college football programs making major profits in the tens of millions every year and college players struggling to pay for basic needs, it seems the system has turned into a form of organized slavery. The original spirit of the rules has become obsolete, and players are now entertainers:  they are no longer just students playing against other students.College football has become a year-round full-time job, and the players should be paid enough to meet basic needs like clothing, food, transportation, and other regular expenses. They don’t have the time to have a part-time job and paying for them to just go to school is no longer sufficient.

I believe meeting these needs could go along way in stopping much of the exploitation of players by fringe agents and other people hoping to cash in on the players’ futures.

As the draft approaches, Bryant’s situation worries me the most.  I understand I don’t know all of the details involved.  However, if Bryant only received a lunch and advice about agents from Deion Sanders, where is the harm in that? If he didn’t meet with an agent or receive money, he didn’t do anything wrong except lie. 

The punishment didn’t fit the crime in that case.Making it to the NFL is every college football player’s dream. Apparently, it’s also a way to afford a Big Mac®.

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