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Troy Austin
Professor Malcolm Campbell
English 1103
4/5/16
Making it Rain, winning the game but losing their futures.
One shot is all it takes, one shot dropping is all it takes for a team to become a champion.
With the NCAA tournament just coming to its close the greatness that occurred in that game is
still so fresh in everyones minds but with the game over life returns to normal and not everyone
goes home happy. A lot of money was generated in that game and it raises the question of should
the Student-Athletes, young adults who put in an immeasurable amount of work throughout the
year as well as being regular students not be rewarded in some ways for their efforts?

871.6 million, a huge unimaginable number for the average person but that is how much
was generated by the NCAA tournament in just one year. Now with how much money this is
actually is it really does not go very long, the NCAA is a nonprofit organization that uses this
money to pay for things that schools need as well as keeping the tournament going. But having
said this I want to say that at the end of the day the NCAA is not the one who makes the money
off these students and I dont think if our students were to be payed that all the money should
come from one source but rather from multiple. (NCAA)

Student-Athletes are not the only people who play a role in making these tournaments
work like they do. Most schools employ a Head coach, multiple Assistant Coaches, a director of
basketball operations, student managers, and so much more.(Charlotte 49ers) So I myself was

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wondering just how much these positions would pay and I was able to find a couple for our own
school the university of north Carolina at Charlotte. The head coach of our school which is a
division one school and won 14 of its 29 games is payed two-hundred and fifty thousand.
Charlotte also employs three separate assistant coaches whose salaries can be found with some
digging, the coaches are paid ninety thousand, one hundred and thirty thousand, and one hundred
and forty thousand dollars.( charlotteobserver) Now the rest of the salaries paid are less widely
known but I know that most if not all are paid. I have several friends who manage sports teams
and they are paid, although not extravagantly, for their efforts. This to me really raises the
question of why they should not be paid as well as what warrants being paid in this system. This
is also just the salaries from a smaller division one school, studies found that the bigger schools
with focuses on athletics produced much higher salaries for their coaches, one such study found
that The 60 highest-paid FBS football coaches averaged more than $2 million in total
compensation, according to the report, with big guns like Alabama's Nick Saban and Texas'
Mack Brown earning an estimated $6 million and $5.1 million, respectively. The 25 highest-paid
basketball coaches in the 2011 NCAA tournament averaged about $2.4 million, with Rick Pitino
of Louisville taking home a compensation package of $7.5 million. . (Sheryl Nance-Nash)

If there are so many reasons to pay Student-Athletes why do we still hold out on doing
so? A big reason that we have been so reluctant to pay our student-Athletes is because in our
minds we are still treating playing basketball in college as a privilege with its own special set of
benefits. These benefits include being the big man on campus metaphorically and special
scholarships available to the players. This to me is actually hurting more than helping our
students. By providing these scholarships which can only be used on specific things they force

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students to not make any money while earning their education. This restriction has created a
phenomenon in college basketball known as the one-and-done, a one-and-done is when an
Athlete attends college for a single year receiving an experience on the court and allowing them
to bolt for the NBA after a year. This seriously discounts what should be important to a student
athlete which is their education.

This might seem like a small issue to some but to anyone who has gone to bed hungry
because they couldnt afford to eat they can see why the issue of not being payed for working is a
large one. This might seem like a stretch but if you look closer its not, Shabazz Napier who was
a leading player in helping the University of Connecticut win a title not too long ago shared his
story of going hungry because he had no food to eat the night after they won a title.( April
Fulton) Billions of dollars changed hands throughout that tournament but the NCAA cannot even
afford to pay its Student-Athletes making this money. This is not a one player issue either, a
study recently done by the national college players association and Drexel University's
department of sport management recently had these findings The results were none too
favorable for athletes: The average scholarship shortfall -- the student's out-of-pocket expenses -for each "full scholarship" athlete was approximately $3,222 per player during the 2010-11
school year. The report also found that the room-and-board provisions in a full scholarship leave
85% of players living on campus and 86% of players living off campus living below the federal
poverty line. And the estimated "fair market value" of those FBS football and basketball players
to their institutions? $120,048 and $265,027, respectively.( Sheryl Nance-Nash) To me this
result is terrifying, for a player to make so much money for the school and not see any of it back,

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if any one person who argues against paying our Student-Athletes made anywhere near that
much in a year and received none of it they would be raising hell.

This isnt all the costs that come with being a Student-Athlete either. Any person who
plays sports at any level can tell you that injuries are a part of the game but Student-Athletes add
a lot of time and this increased playing time can really have a very negative effect on a students
future. This is true for Basketball but even more so for Football, Concussions are regarded by all
who are involved with the game as being unchangeable until very recently. With all this repeated
reinjuring of players medical bills after their college careers add up quickly experts estimate it
could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars this is for all Student-Athletes even the staggering
eighty-nine percent of students who never see a dollar as a pro Athlete and are on their own
paying for these medical fees.( April Fulton) This is also just if the injuries leave minor and not
more severe lasting effects, in recent years one case that sticks out to a lot of people is the story
of Kevin Ware, Kevin ware was a basketball player in the NCAA tournament playing for
Louisville. Louisville is a staple in the tournament and Kevin Ware had dreams to play basketball
in the National Basketball Association, after his gruesome injury he missed out on winning the
title with his team and eventually ended up transferring after all the unwanted attention and
pressure on him after. His career is almost over now and ending completely differently than how
it started, all because of one bad fall. Something like this is common in college sports and can
happen at any time. Students are forced to restart their entire lives without the thing they had
relied on to get by with little to no help and almost no money.( Matt Norlander)( Thomas Lake)

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Now in my opinion not only are the students missing out by not being payed, we as
viewers of the game and the NCAA is missing out on a lot of opportunities it could take
advantage of if it was more willing to pay its Students-Athletes. Looking back a lot of students
have weighed their options and decided that going to the National Basketball Association was the
best choice for their career but had they had the choice to receive their degree while playing
against players could they have instead of been winning championships in college instead of
chasing them in professional basketball? I took a look at the lists of one-and-done prospects and
students who simply choose the league straight out of high-school and the crazy thing is that
many players like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and even recently Anthony Davis considered
staying four years. Had these players gone and stayed four years in college the amount of money
that they would have generated for their schools and the NCAA is hard to calculate but it would
be an astronomically high number.( Examining the results of college basketball's One-And-Done
Era)( Korey Beckett)

This example of LeBron James is another I want to talk about. Although the first team
that LeBron played for certainty payed him well, a steep four million dollars, most of LeBrons
earnings has come from off court. LeBron signed a seven year ninety million dollar contract with
Nike alone. Through his career he has made much more money through sponsors than he has
with players.( Kurt Badenhausen) This leads me to one of my big questions, if players are not
payed by the NCAA why can they not at least be payed by sponsors? If sponsors are willing to
pay why the NCAA should be allowed to restrict something that any other regular student can
do? I think the NCAA are trying to look out for the students best interests but it has actually
ended up causing more damage to students then helping them.

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After doing all this research I can see as well as many others that something needs to
change and soon. Even if its just opening the way for sponsoring of the Athletes or giving better
scholarships to players to further help our athletes. I also like the idea that the NCPA puts
forward of creating a lockbox inaccessible by students normally but opened when needed. The
point is that if college basketball does not want to see something like the NBA lockout they need
to do something and quickly.

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Works Cited
1.

"N.C. University Salary Database, 2014-15." Charlotteobserver. The Charlotte Observer,

24 Mar. 2014. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

2.

Charlotte49ers. Neulion, n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

http://www.charlotte49ers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?ATCLID=209838251
3.

Berkowitz, Steve. "NCAA Salaries." USA TODAY Sports. Gannett Company, n.d. Web.

12 Apr. 2016.
4.

"Revenue." NCAA.org. Ncaapublications, 22 Nov. 2013. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

5.

"Charlotte 49ers Schedule - 2015-16." ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, n.d. Web. 12 Apr.

2016.
6.

Badenhausen, Kurt. "How LeBron James Has Earned $450M During His NBA Career."

Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 9 July 2014. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

7.

"Chris Johnson: Examining the Results of College Basketball's One-And-Done Era."

Examining the Results of College Basketball's One-And-Done Era. Brendan Ripp, n.d. Web. 12
Apr. 2016.
8.

Beckell, Korey. "Top 15 NBA Players That Didn't Go To College." TheSportster.

Thesportster, 20 Sept. 2015. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

9.

Lake, Thomas. "Kevin Ware Hoping to Be Remembered for More than a Gruesome

Injury." Unbroken: Kevin Ware Rebuilding His Hoops Career Away from the Spotlight. Brendan
Ripp, 20 Jan. 2015. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
10.

Norlander, Matt. "Kevin Ware on His Final Season at Louisville: 'It Was a Bad Year'"

CBSSports.com. Sportsline USA, 1 May 2014. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

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11.

Fulton, April. "Hunger Games: College Athletes Make Play For Collective Bargaining."

NPR. NPR, 21 Apr. 2014. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

12.

Nance-nash, Sheryl. "NCAA Rules Trap Many College Athletes in Poverty -

DailyFinance." DailyFinance.com. asnik Finance, 13 Sept. 2011. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

13.

Berr, Jonathan. "March Madness: Follow the Money." CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 20

Mar. 2015. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

14.

Associated Press. "NCAA President: Not a Good Idea." ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures,

17 Sept. 2014. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

15.

Yankah, Ekow. "Why N.C.A.A. Athletes Shouldn't Be Paid - The New Yorker." The New

Yorker. Cond Nast, 14 Oct. 2015. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.

16.

McCauley, Kieran. "College Athletes Shouldnt Be Paid." College Athletes Shouldnt Be

Paid. Edward S. Condra, 28 Apr. 2015. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.