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Message: [QUOTE="All4SU, post: 789282, member: 381"] I believe we, as a society, will be doing a great disservice to these young men (and future student athletes) if we start paying them. Rather than just trying to throw scraps of money at them to placate them, we should be trying to fix the system. Call me a blind optimist if you like, I don't care. This is my reality: Paying kids simply perpetuates a system which is flawed. Sure, we as fans think it's great. But these kids deserve a chance to get a real education. Most D1 athletes believe they will make a living playing their sport...cash in on the big money. The vast majority will NEVER see a dime from the NFL or the NBA. 99% of them. If you throw some peanuts at them in college -- enough to keep them from suing your a$$ for example, all you will be doing is prolonging the inevitable. They will graduate (or not) with no legitimate education, and no career potential. You'll just keep them in sneakers and McDonalds for a few years, and then back they will go from whence they came. "Thanks for your time. Don't let the door hit you on the way out." If you try to FIX the system, you just MIGHT be able to change the was our society views college sports, and more importantly, education. Help the pros set up their minor leagues for basketball and football. Let kids who want to play for pay go there and earn a few bucks for a year or two. Make a scholarship a legitimate road to an education for a kid who will likely never see the big money of the NBA or the NFL. Stress the value of the education. When those "pros" are back in their neighborhoods in 2 years, with nothing to show for it, the message may start to get through to people: Your athletic abilities are a road to an education, a career, and a LIFE. Not to the NFL or the NBA. I don't want to introduce race into this discussion, but it's there, so I will. A majority of the athletes we are talking about here are minorities. If I was a part of the black leadership in this country, I would be screaming to everyone who would listen, that paying these players is just another form of indentured servitude -- perhaps even more than it is now. We are using these kids, and we have to break that cycle. The answer is not to throw them some scraps, simply prolonging the inevitable. The answer is to get them on track to an education. And we, as fans, can just $&% off. It doesn't matter if we get big TV contracts for our conferences, or if we get prime time ESPN games. Our schools will not shrivel up and die. College sports will not go away. It may look a little different, but it will survive. Fix it. Don't just grease it up. [/QUOTE]

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