packer involved in miami scandal

[mraynrand]

Everything is driven by greed, dear. I can see them not wanting the schools to pay athletes, but to say that they can't hold a job while they're in school is ridiculous. If there is a company that wants to hire them, it is their prerogative to work while in school as long as they keep their athletic eligibility.

Your argument presupposes they need, have time for, or have any interest in a part time job. What are you smoking? So these guys are supposed to attend classes, work out all the time to stay in shape for football, and then work a part time job? Ever try it? I know I will get the stories from all of you who worked your way through college with full time employment, etc. etc. I get it. I worked in college too. But I didn't spend however many hours a day in exhausting physical training so I could play a brutal contact sport. Many of these guys - who are serious about their studies - finish their days physically spent and struggle to stay awake getting their course work completed. I'm talking the reasonably serious students - the pre-med guys, the business school guys, etc. Just pay them from what they earn for the University on the field.

[Patler]

The grad students and post docs do the bulk of the grunt work - by far.

Not in the many research programs that I was directly involved in for 20 years. Typical staffing for our multi-year programs was something like this:

1 prof to sign off, carry the headlines and do little direct work
2 doctoral candidates and post docs who did the analytical work, designed follow-up tests, supervised, etc.
4 or more undergrads and students in straight masters programs who did the tests and gathered data.

[pbmax]

I think the University of Miami (indeed, all schools) should give the value of their free education is wholesale dollars, or their cost. Whenever I see those public figures, I am reminded of police confiscations of drugs, always valued at millions of dollars in "street value" at press time. I would love to see the chart they use to convert it at the Police Station.

The comparison is not between the scholarship athlete and someone off the street. The comparison is between what the athlete helps the University earn versus its costs.

[pbmax]

By the way Bretsky, you should be penalized with a 2 week suspension of your anti-homer title.

[sharpe1027]

If it is such a bad deal, why do any players bother with playing college sports? They should either just pay for school on their own and not play sports or work straight out of high-school. That is, unless either they are all idiots, or perhaps it really is a good deal for most of them.

Many/most people are greedy and will always want more even if it is against the rules. Pay the college players more and they'll still want even more. Unless you de-reglate the entire thing and make it an entirely professional game, I don't think you solve underlying the problem.

[pbmax]

If it is such a bad deal, why do any players bother with playing college sports? They should either just pay for school on their own and not play sports or work straight out of high-school. That is, unless either they are all idiots, or perhaps it really is a good deal for most of them.

Many/most people are greedy and will always want more even if it is against the rules. Pay the college players more and they'll still want even more. Unless you de-reglate the entire thing and make it an entirely professional game, I don't think you solve underlying the problem.

Because for football, the only tried and true route to the Pros is through college. Look at what happened in basketball when they were able to skip college, many of them did. Given the chance, many players who aspire to be pros would skip college and go to a minor league system, as in baseball, basketball and hockey.

[Upnorth]

Not in the many research programs that I was directly involved in for 20 years. Typical staffing for our multi-year programs was something like this:

1 prof to sign off, carry the headlines and do little direct work
2 doctoral candidates and post docs who did the analytical work, designed follow-up tests, supervised, etc.
4 or more undergrads and students in straight masters programs who did the tests and gathered data.

This may all be true, and I believe you are right. The difference is there are many more undergrad and masters students who can do this work than there are football players who can play at that level. By default pay should reflect this. Once you get to the PhD level stipends begin being paid as there are far fewer able to carry out this work, but there are more doctoral students than there are football players. Do you see where I am going with this?

[mraynrand]

Not in the many research programs that I was directly involved in for 20 years. Typical staffing for our multi-year programs was something like this:

1 prof to sign off, carry the headlines and do little direct work
2 doctoral candidates and post docs who did the analytical work, designed follow-up tests, supervised, etc.
4 or more undergrads and students in straight masters programs who did the tests and gathered data.

I'm more in the biological field, so maybe it's different in certain technical, engineering or other specialties. However, in the biology, biochemistry, chemistry, biomedical engineering, physics, and other departments with which I'm affiliated or aware of, undergraduates do very little in the way of key experiments. In fact, in many ways they can be a drain on the current productivity of the lab they're in. Even highly talented undergrads carrying out honors theses tend to extract more in training than they give back in productivity. In the highly focused undergraduate teaching institutes, you can sometimes parlay the efforts of a crew of undergraduates to generate a study, with the intense oversight of a highly involved professor. If you look on Pubmed, I would expect the papers you see published in the journals there probably have as lead authors 95% graduate level or above. Graduates get a stipend and post-docs a salary for a reason - they are expected to produce - and produce a lot. Undergraduates are expecting to get trained for their chance at graduate school. They are paying the school, with their tuition, for this training. It's not the other way around.

[sharpe1027]

Because for football, the only tried and true route to the Pros is through college. Look at what happened in basketball when they were able to skip college, many of them did. Given the chance, many players who aspire to be pros would skip college and go to a minor league system, as in baseball, basketball and hockey.

Very few players in any sport go straight from high-school to the pros. Even if you include all players that eventually make the NFL, that only accounts for a tiny fraction of all of the players. Is it really a good ideal to revamp the entire college system because a handful of players that might otherwise go straight to the NFL are being "forced" to go to college for a few years?

[Patler]

I'm more in the biological field, so maybe it's different in certain technical, engineering or other specialties. However, in the biology, biochemistry, chemistry, biomedical engineering, physics, and other departments with which I'm affiliated or aware of, undergraduates do very little in the way of key experiments. In fact, in many ways they can be a drain on the current productivity of the lab they're in. Even highly talented undergrads carrying out honors theses tend to extract more in training than they give back in productivity. In the highly focused undergraduate teaching institutes, you can sometimes parlay the efforts of a crew of undergraduates to generate a study, with the intense oversight of a highly involved professor. If you look on Pubmed, I would expect the papers you see published in the journals there probably have as lead authors 95% graduate level or above. Graduates get a stipend and post-docs a salary for a reason - they are expected to produce - and produce a lot. Undergraduates are expecting to get trained for their chance at graduate school. They are paying the school, with their tuition, for this training. It's not the other way around.

What I was involved in was industry contracted research, for both chemical processes and mechanical equipment. For a lot of schools, that is the bread and butter of their research income. Funded, pie-in-the-sky research for the sake of research gets a lot of the headlines, and probably most of the journal articles, but industry sponsored and industry directed research brings in a lot of the money. Basically, it's specific research projects that a manufacturer (typically) is not staffed or equipped to handle themselves. In one of my "lives" we used several universities who had very specialized grad schools to either duplicate our own research as a verification, are to piggyback with ours to reduce development time and get new processes or equipment introduced to the industry in a shorter time period. Upperclass undergrads did a lot of the grunt work, which often entailed babysitting equipment and gathering data. Their names rarely appeared on anything.

[pbmax]

Very few players in any sport go straight from high-school to the pros. Even if you include all players that eventually make the NFL, that only accounts for a tiny fraction of all of the players. Is it really a good ideal to revamp the entire college system because a handful of players that might otherwise go straight to the NFL are being "forced" to go to college for a few years?

Yes, because the interests of the colleges and the pros are conflicted and it is the individuals who suffer. Players who do not want to be in school are forced to be in school which causes many of the problems under discussion. And those who would be willing to go to play in a minor league system are subjected to a system that compensates them for their work in only one manner and it is non-negotiable.

The problem is that no one wants to pay for the minor league system when there is already a system available. If the NCAA only needed to worry about actual student-athletes, its job would be easier and less hypocritical. As it is, the NCAA (joined by the NFL on occasion) is the hammer that keeps the minor league system in place and its a role it should not play.

[mraynrand]

Upperclass undergrads did a lot of the grunt work, which often entailed babysitting equipment and gathering data. Their names rarely appeared on anything.

So relevant to this comparison to football players - were they ostensibly getting training, were they essentially being exploited for grunt work, or both? Even with the potential money involved for industry, the undergraduates you describe are clearly not the 'attraction' itself, that brings in the money like the college football players people watch on Saturdays. They are most likely working like indentured servants, hoping to be a graduate student then post-doc, and eventually the prof in the university or the team leader in industry pushing the buttons. Unskilled labor working up the ladder - far different from college players, dontcha think?

[sharpe1027]

Yes, because the interests of the colleges and the pros are conflicted and it is the individuals who suffer. Players who do not want to be in school are forced to be in school which causes many of the problems under discussion. And those who would be willing to go to play in a minor league system are subjected to a system that compensates them for their work in only one manner and it is non-negotiable.

The problem is that no one wants to pay for the minor league system when there is already a system available. If the NCAA only needed to worry about actual student-athletes, its job would be easier and less hypocritical. As it is, the NCAA (only recently joined by the NFL) is the hammer that keeps the minor league system in place and its a role it should not play.

What is this "suffering" you refer to? On the average, the college athletes I knew were about as far from "suffering" as anyone in school. I know, I know, it is so terribly unfair that there no minor league football system, but that is how the system is setup. Either play by the rules or choose another path. Life is full of conflicting desires. I have a conflicting desire for a billion dollars and the system is setup so that I have to some how earn that money legally. Maybe I should go rob a bank and blame it on this unfair system. It couldn't possibly be that I am a greedy and impatient person.

The players took the money/benefits knowing full well it was against the rules. I don't buy portraying them as the innocent victims.

[Patler]

Very few players in any sport go straight from high-school to the pros. Even if you include all players that eventually make the NFL, that only accounts for a tiny fraction of all of the players. Is it really a good ideal to revamp the entire college system because a handful of players that might otherwise go straight to the NFL are being "forced" to go to college for a few years?

A lot of 18-22 year old players make it to the NHL before they would finish college eligibility, but hockey has a well-developed "juniors" program that many use as an alternative to college or as a predecessor to college, and a minor league system to follow juniors or college for players not ready for or not skilled enough for the NHL. Many also leave college early to play minor league hockey.

Of course, minor league baseball is the primary path to MLB, even for college baseball players.

Football has no minor league system and instead takes advantage of college football to serve as their minor leagues.

This of course begs the question of whether or not colleges really should be in the business of sponsoring minor league football for the NFL, which is really what D-I programs are. Maybe the NCAA should take more of an academic emphasis and leave nonacademic athletes to look for other opportunities. A whole new business could result, minor league football similar to minor league hockey and minor league baseball. In many ways, I would prefer that. There are some who have "careers" in the minors both in baseball and hockey. Some can earn a decent living in minor hockey well into their 30's. That opportunity is not there for football players, but could be if a minor league system was available that was not tied to NCAA eligibility.

[mraynrand]

What is this "suffering" you refer to? On the average, the college athletes I knew were about as far from "suffering" as anyone in school. I know, I know, it is so terribly unfair that there no minor league football system, but that is how the system is setup. Either play by the rules or choose another path. Life is full of conflicting desires. I have a conflicting desire for a billion dollars and the system is setup so that I have to some how earn that money legally. Maybe I should go rob a bank and blame it on this unfair system. It couldn't possibly be that I am a greedy and impatient person.

The players took the money/benefits knowing full well it was against the rules. I don't buy portraying them as the innocent victims.

MY two cents: The players violated the rules and should get spanked. I don't think most players are suffering, but a lot of activity is going on under the table. Football is a huge money making enterprise and the players are a big part of the draw. The benefits of their free education are completely uneven, depending on their competency for schooling. Some get great benefit, other actually are harmed. The spectrum is wide. I outlined my suggestion earlier in the thread. My basic thinking is to pay them and reduce the rules - many are absurd, such as those regarding payment for plane tickets, family visits, even haircut monies in some cases. Simplify and streamline. One of the main problems as I see it are these alumni who want to maintain this appearance as a pristine institution of higher education but want to grease the skids to get the best players on their teams - regardless of their fitness for higher education. The whole scheme breeds and encourages hypocrisy and scofflaws.