58 Percent of College Coaches Believe Players Should be Paid

[HMFFL]

CBSSports.com recently surveyed nearly 100 college coaches, getting their thoughts on some of college basketball’s current issues. One question asked was, “Should college basketball players be paid, and if so, how would you compensate them?” The coaches spoke—anonymously, of course—and 58 percent believe college basketball players should be paid, while 42 percent disagreed. Some coaches had ideas for compensation—for example, providing the student-athletes with an end-of-semester stipend—while others simply wanted a change but didn’t have a solution.

Below is a complete breakdown of the poll, followed by some adamant opinions, all courtesy of CBSSports.com:

YES – 58 percent

NO – 42 percent

http://www.slamonline.com/online/colleg ... d-be-paid/

[Josephpaul]

Agreed they should be paid to play

[BossHoggin]

just let them skip college

[[RCG]]

just let them skip college

Agreed. Rather have them be able to skip then "pay-to-play." Let college be for students & student-athletes. Right now they are basically being paid anyway. In all honesty these kids are not students. They are only in college to play basketball and are given scholarships under the guise of "student-athlete" when they simply are not.

[Kaelin]

I'm inclined to accept "paying" players under one of these conditions:

1) They skip college and are treated as the pro athletes they want to be (even if they're stuck in essentially a minor league system until they build their skills).

2) Contingent on making satisfactory academic progress, they can receive a stipend to reflect the work they do for the university. Much like TAs work for a university by grading or teaching classes in order to either receive a salary or to cover their academic costs plus receive a stipend, basketball players essentially work as entertainers for their universities (in order to generate brand recognition and/or enhance the college experience for students).

3) This pertains more to 1), but colleges/universities could sponsor their own minor league pro teams. The players need not be enrolled in said colleges/universities, although they could possess the option and receive compensation to do so (just as many employers will pay for some or all of an employee's tuition when good progress is made towards a degree). College/universities can still maintain their present teams on top of having minor league teams, since many athletes (and nearly all outside of football and men's basketball) are still primarily interested in earning a degree.

The main thing that needs to end is students just taking classes for the sake of maintaining their scholarships without concern for taking interesting/relevant coursework and (in their final semester) without regarding to passing. It is both a waste of school resources and the time of the athletes, and such a charade reinforces the wrong values for everyone involved: the athletes, the universities, and the fans.

[Dragic13]

What ppl dont understand about paying student athletes is you have to pay every athlete in every sport big or small...

That means each student athlete would get like 100 bucks a month....