Student-athletes: Should they stay or should they go now?

Wednesday, 4/30/97 Student-athletes: Should they stay or should
they go now? Compensation main factor in deciding to remain in
college

UCLA’s recent harvest of two of the nation’s top recruits leads
to speculation that they – like many other top recruits before them
– might leave college for the pros after just one or two years. It
is in light of such speculation that I write this column, in which
I claim that there is nothing wrong with leaving school early. And
it is in light of the next five or six paragraphs, which have very
little to do with my theme, that I write this opening paragraph,
telling you what the hell this column is about. Because the next
five or six paragraphs are about "The Simpsons." There’s one
episode of "The Simpsons" where Homer is the star of his nuclear
power plant’s softball team. He takes his homemade wonder bat and
becomes a slugger of Ruthian proportions. As a result, his team
reaches the nuclear power plant softball world series. (I forget if
that’s what they actually called it.) Then sinister old Montgomery
Burns, owner of the power plant, bets $1 million against a rival
power plant owner that Burns’ team will win the championship. "One
million dollars?" sidekick and assistant Wayland Smithers asks.
"That’s a lot of money to risk on our softball team, sir." "That’s
right Smithers," Burns said, "Because we’re going to bring in
ringers, to make sure that our softball team will win." (Note to
Mr. Smithers and Mr. Burns: While I may have paraphrased and quoted
you inaccurately, I assume that you won’t sue because, after all,
you are cartoon characters.) And so Homer lost his starting spot on
the softball team to Darryl Strawberry, while eight other major
leaguers filled out the starting lineup. Of course they would not
become full-time, permanent employees of the power plant – they
were only there to play softball. "Where in God’s name is he going
with this?" you ask. It’s a good thing you asked, because I could
probably talk about "The Simpsons" for an entire column. Let me
start making my analogy. Just as Monty Burns brings major league
ballplayers to the power plant for their skills in the field rather
than their industrial expertise, most universities bring in
blue-chip football and basketball players for their athletic
ability rather than for their academic ability. Just as the
ballplayers joined the power plant to play baseball and not to work
with radioactive chemicals, many athletes go to school to play
their sport, and not for whatever reason everybody else goes to
school (what are we doing here again?). Just as $1 million were at
stake in the nuclear power plant softball world series, a lot of
money is at stake in major college sports, with winning teams
making money for universities through merchandising and ticket
sales. In essence, scholarship athletes in the major-revenue sports
come to universities as ringers. And while they can immerse
themselves in academics upon arrival (much like Mike Scioscia of
the Dodgers immersed himself in manual labor upon arrival at the
power plant), they can also choose to – and are often encouraged to
– focus their energies on the sport they play. The latter type of
the student-athlete isn’t getting paid enough. The only
compensation student-athletes get is a scholarship (i.e.,
permission to play for the university for free). When athletes come
to a university merely to prepare for a professional athletic
career, there is no reason to stay longer than necessary.
Universities pay athletes nothing to play, and on top of that, they
make athletes go to classes. Meanwhile, professional teams dole out
millions to players, because that is how much revenue these same
players generate. What I’m saying here is that student-athletes,
just like any other ringers, shouldn’t feel compelled to stay in
school if they’re not being adequately compensated. And it is up to
each individual player to decide whether he is being adequately
compensated. Someone who values a college degree or the college
experience might think a four-year scholarship is easily worth his
work on the basketball court or football field. Such a person might
claim that basketball and football players should stay in school
for the full four years, because they are being paid adequately
(with their scholarship). To say that, is to say that all people
should assign a high value to a college degree and the college
experience, which isn’t fair to say. And by committing to a school,
a football or basketball player doesn’t show that he values school
– he is merely using the only minor leagues available. So why not
leave early? Incidentally, "The Simpsons" episode I mentioned
earlier ended with all of the ringers (except for Strawberry)
getting injured for the world series, and the team winning anyway –
as Homer was hit in the head by a pitch with the bases loaded to
drive in the winning run. It will be quite a stretch to push this
analogy further, but how else can I end this column? So, just as
Burns’ ringers were not well-compensated for their stay on his
softball team (For example, Ken Griffey Jr. suffered a case of
gigantism and Ozzie Smith disappeared off the face of the earth),
football and basketball players are not well-compensated enough to
stay in school. Leaving early is the perfectly sensible thing to
do. Dittmer is the Daily Bruin Sports Editor and his only goal in
life is to be chosen for Montgomery Burns’ all-star football
team.