Amateurism For Thee But Not For Me
By I’ll take Jim Boeheim’s assertions about how his players don’t merit compensation seriously as soon as he agrees to be paid the average associate professor’s salary and volunteers to coach college hoops for free while teaching a 2/2 of Phys. Ed. classes.
And in addition:
“I believe they are getting a tremendous opportunity,” Boeheim said of student-athletes, who finish each year owing an average of $3,222 on costs not covered by their scholarships, but do get free athletic equipment. Boeheim personally receives hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from Nike in exchange for his players wearing their sneakers.
The next person to advance a decent explanation for why it’s fine for coaches to benefit massively from de facto player endorsements but it’s not OK for players to benefit from them at all will be the first.
Oh, and here’s something Paul will appreciate:
“Nobody got in it” for the money, said Boeheim, who receives about $77,000 annually on top of his base salary to put towards the purchase of a new car.
Ah, America, where the more you’re paid the less likely you’ll need to use that money to actually buy anything.