I disagree strongly that NCAA just allow athletes to be paid or cash in on their status...

A local editorial joins the ranks of those saying what the Ohio State kids did and what they got is trivial and harmless and that we should allow it ...
But a very serious slippery slope would then exist - and where do you draw the line.
I like the concept of no athlete being able to gain financially because of his status as an athlete -- otherwise if you just allow them to sell their autographs, then how would anyone ever conceivably police that?

Then anything they get - even the proverbial free car, flat screen TV, female companions, or bag of cash -- would all be OK by your new rules -- after all that's just what they might ask or receive for their autograph!

Here are my rebuttals...and it's pretty funny that the editorial focuses only on the sale of their autographs as if that's all they did --
when it's clear they sold equipment and got freebies from local businesses...among other violations...

http://cgi.ebay.com/TERRELLE-PRYOR-SIGNED-AUTOGRAPHED-OHIO-STATE-HELMET-JSA-/180681064067?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a116e3e83

http://www.10tv.com/wwwexportcontent/sites/10tv/teninvestigates/stories/2011/06/01/image-pryor-car-280.jpg


-Scholarship athletes already get plenty -- education & tuition, room and board, lots of extras, warmups, travel, food and lodging on the road, notoriety and the chance to develop and go pro and make millions...and much more.

-Now, we are saying let them sell their signatures for whatever they can get and sell their equipment and get special deals buying cars??

-Their equipment really isn't theirs. If it's given to them and they sell it then they should give the $$ either to the benefactor who gave the $$ for their scholarship or if it is a state school - give it to the taxpayers.

-If we allow them to sell their signature -- then any time money changes hands in an unmarked envelop (OJ Mayo) or a player gets to live in a luxurious condo for free (Reggie Bush) or any player seems to benefit from money given to him (POB) then the player can simply argue - that was the allowed reimbursement for my autograph....so where will it end? There'd be absolutely NO way to police this and money would be flying everywhere for all the best athletes.

-Historically NCAA has always nailed even the tiniest programs for the tiniest violations of impermissible benefits (see below) -- REMEMBER Rick Majerus got cited and penalized for buying a hamburger for a player and Bradley got penalized because one booster took one player to dinner at Mt. Hawley Country Club.
Where was our local editorial writer standing up for the Bradley kids when NCAA hammered Bradley for impermissible benefits? Isn't this a sudden hypocritical change of directions?

-The OSU players also got lots of other freebies....some apparently even got cars for free or special reduced prices -- how can you police that?? Obviously the bigger BCS schools have more wealthy donors and boosters, those guys would go hog wild giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to kids to land the best recruits....hey, I guarantee it is already happening -
http://deadspin.com/5606455/sun+times-going-hard-on-uks-pay+for+play-recruit

The non-BCS schools would never get any decent recruit since the BCS boys would simply buy them all up -- who could stop them if their simple defense would be "they just gave me some money for my autograph!"

-The bigger NCAA violation here is NOT what they did -- it's that they knowingly broke the established rules then were enabled by the coaching staff and nobody ever did a thing -- this is rampant cheating and loss of institutional control over the rules-breaking. If Bradley was hammered with a major violation because they should have known POB was INADVERTENTLY getting paid more at his summer job that he was working even tho it would have been next to impossible for BU to know -- then how does Tressel and OSU get away with knowingly letting their kids break the rules and cheat...and actually encouraging them to by guiding them to the booster-car dealers who are slipping them freebies?

I say leave the rules as they are -- stop trying to make professionals and highly paid ones at that out of college athletes, and simply enforce the rules equally -- at the big schools every bit as much as you go after the guys at the little schools!


-which brings up the never ending question -- why does the NCAA endlessly go after smaller schools like Bradley for trivial impermissible benefits like paying Anthony Webster for a phone call, a few hundred dollars to POB & WF, and a guest dinner at Mt. Hawley?? We all know the BCS schools do this kind of freebies endlessly and 100 fold more than the little guys.

Here's YET another example of how the NCAA makes a major case out of virtually NOTHING --
just last month they hammered Samford (a school that is a threat to nobody) with a MAJOR VIOLATION (!!) for giving free books and schools supplies to non-scholarship athletes!!!
These were WALK-ONS doing summer school!!!
http://ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/ncaa/ncaa/media+and+events/press+room/news+release+archive/2011/infractions/20110513+samford+university+coi+rls?pageDesign=old+news+releases+template

http://www.bgsfirm.com/college-sports-law-blog/the-ncaa-committee-on-infractions-has-spoken-samford-university