Jim Delany (Big Ten Conference commissioner) recently spoke in front of the media and offered up several reforms he'd like to see instituted in the NCAA in the new future. I'll highlight them below and offer my take on each proposition.
1) Commitment to Education
While the subject of this point sounds fantastic and seems to be what college athletics is (or should be) founded upon, Delany's actual message here is quite different. He believes institutions should, without hesitation, reinstate athletes who drop out or turn professional prior to graduating, at no charge to the athlete. While I don't have a problem with this point in general, I do believe it undermines the original intent of college athleticism: Go to school, get a degree, and represent your school on the field/court/etc. By allowing athletes to return to school after dropping out or turning pro early without consequence, aren't we just exacerbating the problem? It seems like this idea would help encourage student-athletes to not finish their degree knowing they have a safety net to catch them. Especially in an era when the NCAA has graduation metrics that will result in post-season bans if a school hits a certain threshold of non-graduating student-athletes. Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor Delany pitch here in a vacuum, but with the current rules set by the NCAA, I believe this could have adverse effects on universities.
2) Student-Athlete Schedule
Jim Delany emphasized reducing the student-athlete training time burden to allow the students to put more focus into their academic degrees. Currently, athletes are allowed to spend 20 hours per week training with their teams. Jim points out that more than 20 hours are accounted for when you factor in student-run "voluntary" workouts, and calls for coaches and athletic directors to change the philosophy and help regulate students' time.
3) First Year Option
Not too long ago, freshman were not eligible to play college contests... they had to wait until their second years to begin competing even though they were recruited right out of high school. Delany didn't exactly call for reinstating this rule, but he would like to see an option in which "at-risk" student-athletes could sit out their freshman year and get acclimated to college, focus on their studies, and be better prepared to handle academic work on top of their sport for the rest of their collegiate career, all without losing a year of eligibility. That sounds fine to me. It doesn't seem unreasonable for a kid to choose to wait a year to get his studies in order prior to beginning his athletic eligibility. But don't we already have that? Red-shirt?
4) Pay the Kids
Delany proposed to give the athletes a stipend "up to the cost of education." So, this would essentially be a paycheck to the students potentially as large as a year's worth of tuition. I'm not going to go off on this topic too much here (because I have a future blog post planned on this topic alone), but I will briefly summarize my point of view. I'm against paying the student-athletes. The universities are already providing them with a free education and a free platform to showcase their skills to the professional world. And to Jim's specific plan mentioned above, tuition costs vary from school to school, thus creating an unfair advantage to schools with higher tuition costs.
While the subject of this point sounds fantastic and seems to be what college athletics is (or should be) founded upon, Delany's actual message here is quite different. He believes institutions should, without hesitation, reinstate athletes who drop out or turn professional prior to graduating, at no charge to the athlete. While I don't have a problem with this point in general, I do believe it undermines the original intent of college athleticism: Go to school, get a degree, and represent your school on the field/court/etc. By allowing athletes to return to school after dropping out or turning pro early without consequence, aren't we just exacerbating the problem? It seems like this idea would help encourage student-athletes to not finish their degree knowing they have a safety net to catch them. Especially in an era when the NCAA has graduation metrics that will result in post-season bans if a school hits a certain threshold of non-graduating student-athletes. Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor Delany pitch here in a vacuum, but with the current rules set by the NCAA, I believe this could have adverse effects on universities.
2) Student-Athlete Schedule
Jim Delany emphasized reducing the student-athlete training time burden to allow the students to put more focus into their academic degrees. Currently, athletes are allowed to spend 20 hours per week training with their teams. Jim points out that more than 20 hours are accounted for when you factor in student-run "voluntary" workouts, and calls for coaches and athletic directors to change the philosophy and help regulate students' time.
3) First Year Option
Not too long ago, freshman were not eligible to play college contests... they had to wait until their second years to begin competing even though they were recruited right out of high school. Delany didn't exactly call for reinstating this rule, but he would like to see an option in which "at-risk" student-athletes could sit out their freshman year and get acclimated to college, focus on their studies, and be better prepared to handle academic work on top of their sport for the rest of their collegiate career, all without losing a year of eligibility. That sounds fine to me. It doesn't seem unreasonable for a kid to choose to wait a year to get his studies in order prior to beginning his athletic eligibility. But don't we already have that? Red-shirt?
4) Pay the Kids
Delany proposed to give the athletes a stipend "up to the cost of education." So, this would essentially be a paycheck to the students potentially as large as a year's worth of tuition. I'm not going to go off on this topic too much here (because I have a future blog post planned on this topic alone), but I will briefly summarize my point of view. I'm against paying the student-athletes. The universities are already providing them with a free education and a free platform to showcase their skills to the professional world. And to Jim's specific plan mentioned above, tuition costs vary from school to school, thus creating an unfair advantage to schools with higher tuition costs.
For more reading on Jim Delany's statements, check out the ESPN Big Ten Blog Post.
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