The Professional Amateur Athlete

     As a college student abroad in Spain I had to explain the concept of college sports to my host family.  For them the idea of having major sporting events by amateur college students was incomprehensible.  They asked if the athletes got paid a salary or if they recieved any of the profit the university got.  For them an academic scholarship seemed to be insufficient to cover the major profits universities made.  I explained that amateur athletes do not get paid a salary for it they did then they would be professional athletes.  Yet for them amateur athletes play in small venues and not in front of 90,000 on a Saturday afternoon.  They were in their eyes professional amateur atheletes.  In reality can we blame this Spanish family?  Probably not, we see these athletes on the covers of video games and their jersey numbers throughout the campus on gamedays.  It's no question the higher powers make lots of money on their names.

     The recent situation of the Univeristy of Southern California and Ohio State Univeristy have once again brought to light how we should classify our college athtletes, especially those of major revenue producing sports such as football and basketball.  We know that Reggie Bush's family got a new house, that Terrelle Pryor got numerous tattoos and used cars.  Yet what do we not know about?  Joe McKnight was seen with a nice new car but he claimed it was his girlfriend's car.  I remember seeing the now defunct SI on Campus publish an article on Matt Leinarts "campus crib" in downtown Los Angeles.  Nifty pad for a college kid. 

     These stories may be superficial but are they really?  The truth is that both Southern Cal and Ohio State have nothing to complain about.  They cheated and they got caught plain and simple.  Whether or not other schools do the same is not a defense for your own faults.  Who ever uses this argument and believes it is simply a diehard fan whose team can do no wrong. 
     Southern Cal cheated and it probably did more than it got caught for, the same goes for Ohio State.  It is greed that drives other mostly proper programs to consider the temptations of buying amateur athletes.  The solution is simple, set a standard and follow it.  Punish those who cheat and punish them severely so they are not tempted to cheat.  Programs cheat because they know the present glory overrides the future punishment, unless programs realize that the future punishment will be so severe that it will be similar to the SMU death penalty.  Require an increase of the compliance department in each university and let them know that the "i didnt know" excuse is no longer valid.
     The day the incentive to cheat is no longer greater than the punishment of being caught will be the first day university programs stop giving improper benefits to athletes.  I will not be naive and assume that every program is perfectly clean, because they are not.  The purity of college sports is at stake and the NCAA has taken a good first step with the punishment of Southern Cal.  The NCAA punishment on Ohio State needs to be even greater.  Universities who get caught in the next few years need to blame no one but themselves and take the medicine they deserve.  Punish these schools severely and let them know that college sports do consists of amateur athletes and not professional amateurs.