Paying Players for Performance in the Classroom?

[JDCrimson]

There has been a lot mentioned on paying players since they generate so much revenue for their schools. For the record, I am not in favor of it because that is what their scholarship covers.

We have seen well-documented woes for trying to punish players and schools alike for lack of student-athlete performance in the classroom. Now we have this whole underworld in how to keep players eligible - See Auburn and Tennessee and probably any other competitive school in the NCAA.

Most people are motivated by incentives and rewards instead of the threat of punishment or discipline. Now why can we not reward our student athletes in the classroom for superior performance?

My granddaddy used to give $5 for every A and $2 for every B and a whupping for every C. Worked real well for me. Now add some zeros behind that and it can get interesting.

I have no problem giving our student athletes some money for performing in the classroom. It should not affect their eligibility because universities out bid one another all the time for the whiz kids to come to their university. Many times the kids end up with more money than is needed for their scholarship. The schools do it for the publicity.

This idea is bound to do some good - meaning they will actually learn something. And too, it would give us something else to bragg about and be competitive with other schools.

Now, I know some arguments like grade inflation (we already have that to deal with) can be made against my idea but I am sure as with any idea they could be worked out.

I think most schools could afford it and I think we would be surprised with the results. Kids will surprise you if you challenge them in the right way. Better yet, let the NCAA kick in some of the money they make from the tournaments, etc. if they are really serious about improving classroom performance with student-athletes.

 

[moorav]

I think if one wants to have a career as an engineer he must study hard - sometimes when they'd rather be at a social event they have to study. In order to make it as an engineer you HAVE to graduate college with the right courses.

If one wants a career in professional football you have to go to college study football, practice football, sometimes they would rather be studying but their career goal is proifessional football so that is what they need to study.

My point is WHY should an aspiring professional athlete be expected to study and make decent grades if his career choice in professional football

The colleges do not require the engineering students to play football then why should they require football players to pass their classes..? Should be required to play football UNLESS they prefer to be a student also.

That's just the truth & there is no shame in wanting to be a professional ahtlete - unfortunately FB players have to attend college a couple of years before going to the NFL.

Don't give me that if they don't make it in football then they have something to fallback on, what if the engineer can't mkae the cut what is he gonna fall back on, football....?

 

[jeremy]

The problem with the idea of paying players is that its a slippery slope. Once its considered ok to do that, then whats next? Your parents or grandparents paying you for making A's is not the same thing as a booster or the university paying you for grades. Why would you only want to see football players get paid for making good grades? Because you are not being honest with yourself. You just want to use that as the excuse to pay football players. You said most people are motivated by incentives...the opportunity to get a 4 year degree absolutely free is quite an incentive. Its worth thousands of dollars. This should be enough. Oh yeah, and whether or not the university can afford it is a non-issue.

 

[Pachydermatous]

One supposes the primary reason for opposing payments is that the name of this institution is "University of Alabama," not "Football Factory of the South." But I like the idea of paying potential Nobel winners for high grades and awards. If you want UA prestige to skyrocket, that's the way to go. We don't pay math whizzes for good grades in football, do we?:rolleye2:

 

[Ldlane]

What happens when Linebackers start threatening professors for an "A"?

 

[jthomas666]

What happens when Linebackers start threatening professors for an "A"?

Or, more likely, what happens when football players start offering professors kickbacks?

 

[i_live_4_bama]

Why should they get paid? 98% of them are already going to school for free. That's the same thing as giving them money. On average, tuition is about $13,000 a year times 4 years is $52,000. So with that said. They should not get paid because they are already getting the same thing

 

[IH8Orange]

Don't give me that if they don't make it in football then they have something to fallback on, what if the engineer can't mkae the cut what is he gonna fall back on, football....?

Actually:

lim ENG = C&BA
GPA->0

 

[JDCrimson]

Well, some interesting comments so far.

I think it would be fair to say that oftentimes the value put on money buy individuals does not directly correlate to the actual dollars received or saved. The reason is there is an emotional component to your money that you cant quite put a value on. If you dont believe me, look at your credit card bill see what's on it. A lot of people spend money and have nothing to show for it. Well, I think the reverse is true as well. Most people will expend more effort to get a certain dollar amount than maybe what is considered "worth it". Petty thiefs do it all the time.

My point is you quite likely would get benefits far in excess of the costs incurred with a potential rewards based program.

jthomas - I dont think kickbacks from players would be a problem unless the dollars got high enough. Now, kickbacks from boosters would probably still be a problem but I would still wager I would rather fight this enforcement battle.

Ld -A linebacker would only have to beat up a professor one time and then after CNN and Fox got a hold of it. We would be hypersensitive to that ever occurring again and create some national policy and infrastructure to prevent it.

Pach - You are right we dont pay math whizzes for good grades in football. But is the math whizz going to put food on the table with football?

Jeremy - I think rewarding student-athletes for academic performance is less of a slippery slope than paying a player for the sport for which his scholarship is based. Besides, no one specifically mentioned football players if you go back and read my original post. This program would be available to all student-athletes. No this is not an excuse - this is creating a reward system to elicit a positive behavior. A full scholarship should be enough incentive along with making your parents proud but unfortunately today is not especially in this "instant" society. As mentioned above, there is nothing like the feel of spending cash in a kids hands.

Moorav - As much as we would like to think so, society is not built upon football. There is no shame in wanting and pursuing to be a professional athlete. Conservatively, a kid probably has less than a 5% chance of becoming a professional athlete. Therefore, it makes sense for him to learn math, language, science, business etc to make him a better professional athlete off the field and in the likely case he does not make it he has more options. Trust me what you learn as an engineer is more valuable in other career paths than what football offers. I wonder how the art history majors are fairing now if they dont work in the art history industry.

 

[IH8Orange]

I wonder how the art history majors are fairing now if they dont work in the art history industry.

What do you do with a Masters degree in Art History? You get a nose ring and pour coffee for a living.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

I must be missing something. I thought they were already being paid, just not a sliding scale...

 

[Pachydermatous]

....Pach - You are right we dont pay math whizzes for good grades in football. But is the math whizz going to put food on the table with football?....

....Trust me what you learn as an engineer is more valuable in other career paths than what football offers. I wonder how the art history majors are fairing now if they dont work in the art history industry....

1. Even if the math whiz comes up with a new system for betting on football games and makes a bundle?

2. Correct on the engineering bit. That reminds me: Jerry Kramer (the old Green Bay Packer guard) mentioned in one of his books that in college he was bitten by the bug to become an engineer. But a prof whom he discussed it with poured cold water on the idea and steered him back into the old safe, crip courses. Wonder how much of that still goes on today?

3. How fares the art history major? Well, like the philosophy major and the fine arts major and the history major, he will probably starve unless he gets a job teaching. There is an ancient idea once popular in universities that one should get more than a living out of an education. It is much out of favor these days in a rush to get degrees which will enhance the gross national product, contribute to a political career, fatten Wall Street, make possible a landing on Mars, or open the floodgates to a cascade of rewarding litigation.

 

[JDCrimson]

Very clever response, Pach. I like it.

 

[jeremy]

Jeremy - I think rewarding student-athletes for academic performance is less of a slippery slope than paying a player for the sport for which his scholarship is based. Besides, no one specifically mentioned football players if you go back and read my original post. This program would be available to all student-athletes. No this is not an excuse - this is creating a reward system to elicit a positive behavior. A full scholarship should be enough incentive along with making your parents proud but unfortunately today is not especially in this "instant" society. As mentioned above, there is nothing like the feel of spending cash in a kids hands.

Yeah, no one did...except you when you created the thread title.

Paying Players for Performance in the Classroom?

 

[moorav]

>Moorav - As much as we would like to think so, society is not built upon >football. There is no shame in wanting and pursuing to be a professional >athlete.

I never implied society was about football - I just said if someone has a career goal they should pursue it including pro sports. I see no reason for a football player or other athlete be required to learn math, english..etc when that is not their 'major' nor reason for attending college.

I know very few make it in professional sports but like I said just cause you got a degree in law doesn't mean you can cut the mustard. Saying athletes need something to fall back on is like saying med students should also get a botany degree in case they need to fall back on landscaping.

Universities should be proud to be football/basketball..etc factories & quit pretending they are not. Educating the athletes Is bogus 99% of the time & we all know it so they should quit the charades. It promotes grade fixing and cheating activities at many, many universities.

You see interviews with the players - it doesn't take much brain to figure out that they didn't pass English without some serious help/fixing.

In a perfect world they would have time to study & play sports but college is hard enough on the average student - add in sports at a major college & it's double-triple hard.

 

[Bama-94-00]

.. Don't give me that if they don't make it in football then they have something to fallback on, what if the engineer can't mkae the cut what is he gonna fall back on, football....?

There are opportunities for someone with a degree. Some places require that to be an Asst. manager whether the degree is related to the business or not. What can a football player do with his football ability/knowledge if he doesn't make the cut? He'd most likely need a degree to coach.

 

[Big tide fan forever]

I say pay the players. They deserve it. most these guys have one or two kids and can't work during the football season. This is why nu will see more and more players leave early for the draft.

 

[Pachydermatous]

....I know very few make it in professional sports but like I said just cause you got a degree in law doesn't mean you can cut the mustard. Saying athletes need something to fall back on is like saying med students should also get a botany degree in case they need to fall back on landscaping.

Universities should be proud to be football/basketball..etc factories & quit pretending they are not. Educating the athletes Is bogus 99% of the time & we all know it so they should quit the charades. It promotes grade fixing and cheating activities at many, many universities....

The first part of your assertion does not adequately fit the picture. Anyone with a med degree can find a number of alternate career paths, from lab worker, to medical supply salesman, to hospital administration, to doctor's assistant, and on and on. The degree itself is a powerful wedge in getting hired. I know one fellow, a music major from Montevallo, who joined the police force and immediately was paid a higher salary and got more preference in promotion on the strength of that music degree.

It is your second assertion that is most painful: whether or not to give up the pretense of turning athletes into educated members of society. Agreed, it is hypocrisy to the Nth degree. But to do otherwise would go against the very reason universities were founded in the Middle Ages. And to do otherwise would condemn a great many bright football players like Jerry Kramer to a life of hod-carrying, hamburger-flipping and tire-changing. Kramer was dissuaded from becoming an engineer by an ignorant faculty advisor, but he used his learning after football to make himself a successful author and businessman.

Sorry, I have no easy answer. Perhaps the course we are on is the best possible.:conf2:

 

[jeremy]

I say pay the players. They deserve it. most these guys have one or two kids and can't work during the football season. This is why nu will see more and more players leave early for the draft.

Bottom line: The reward for studying hard is good grades, not money. The money will eventually come once they graduate and prepare to move into whatever career they have chosen.

What kid age 17-21 has time for a full time job and a full load of college courses even without football on their schedule? As for them having kids, thats a totally seperate issue. Thats a player's personal responsibility, not the university. I wont get into personal beliefs on having children at such a young age and/or out of wedlock, I'll just say that they should have taken the proper precautions to avoid this sort of thing if they were not financially capable of raising children.

 

[BamaFanTraeInGeorgia]

I say No. They get a schollie and a chance at a degree of their choice.

My wife graduated college in Dec. She worked two jobs, studied all hours of the night, and we stayed in the red with everyone we owed money to. Now we are much better off financially speaking because we have student loans to pay back. She didnt get a free ride and graduated near the top of her class (prior time at college/socail life prevented her from being an honor grad). For this reason, I dont care about how many hours a student/athlete has to put in. I dont care that he/she has no money, and I most certainly dont care that they may have a kid. My wife and I did it with all of the above distractions of life and we did it with no schollie to help.

Another factor to add in...

While this does not apply to all student/athletes, it does for a lot of them. If the athlete is recognized out in town at say Applebees, he probably wont have to pay for his food that trip. Most likely, a booster or fan will pick up the tab. The two times my wife and I got to go out and eat, no professor picked up our tab.

I submit this as an example of why a student/athlete shouldnt get paid for grades on this basis because I know it happens. I have a friend that played at Valdosta St who told me that the football players would purposely dress in football shirts and the like so people would recognize them at bars/eating places, etc and they would not have to pay.