I am taking on all comers. You can read how it started here, and comments here, here, and here. And here's the latest:
It's true that we should hold the "student" more accountable for his education, and there have been steps taken in some areas to do just that. For example, the state of Florida adopted the "Deion Sanders Rule" forcing college athletes to actually take their exams.
And as a conservative, I have never been happy with Maurice Clarett's decision to sue a private organization (the NFL) to force them to hire him. I think the courts made the right decision even as I think the NFL made the wrong decision in not allowing Clarett to declare himself elgible for the draft.
But let's be realistic. The days of the Joe Paternos pushing every kid to graduate has all but vanished in the push to win, win, win, with the accompanying increases in revenue for the universities.
Big time college sports has become an mega-dollar industry made more "efficient" in it's production because the main product is produced by laborers who are compensated less than the laborer that stitched their athletic shoes. If the kids were picking cotton instead for the university, there would be more of an outcry but ironically there would be less chance of injury.
So here's my proposed solutions. Let's allow the student athletes to form a union. Let's break up the NCAA monopoly. Let's allow student athletes to earn money from endorsements as long as the endorsement deals are done in the open. Let's have the universities, instead of adding time to the college athlete's "eligibility", guarantee the athlete that once he's been granted an athletic scholarship that the athlete will be allowed to have a scholarship as long as necessary to complete their degree.
And here's a novel idea. Let's have every newspaper sports department, radio and television media "donate" a portion of their advertising revenue to a fund to provide for injured student athletes and their families.
