The O'Bannon ruling

When I heard that a judge ruled in favor of the lawsuit brought by Ed O'Bannon I was relieved for college athletes. Even though the ruling brought by Judge Claudia Wilken stopped short of lifting all restrictions it dealt a huge blow to the NCAA and it's supporters.


I have always maintained that college athletes should receive some sort of compensation for their services to their respective universities. People who sit on their moral high horse will say that they are getting a free education and that is their compensation. Yeah, sure. Go into a college bookstore and look at college jersey's that are on sale for the public. You will see numbers of the most popular players on the team. Are you listening Texas A & M? Oregon? Ohio State? USC? Notre Dame? The list of teams that market their players is incredibly long and could go on forever.


When players walk around campus and see their coaches getting paid seven figures, Rolexes being worn by coaches and alumni, and see their likeness being bought by fans and the university benefitting from them, they have to wonder, where's my cut? Now, I am not saying these players need to be paid like professional athletes, but they DESERVE a bigger cut of the profits from the sales of their likeness. That is what is at the center of the O'Bannon lawsuit. The players get a check to help them pay for things every month, but it does not come close to helping them enjoy the college experience.  I remember back in college and meeting some players and hearing them complain about how they really did not have enough money to do anything fun from time to time and that was disconcerting to me because they were helping the university make money on Saturdays and they were struggling to pay for things.


When I see players getting caught taking impermissible benefits like dinners, bills being paid, money for autographs (Manziel), taking phone calls from coaches, or any number of things that anybody else would take and get their eligibility threatened I just want to burn the NCAA down. Then see the coaches leave for other opportunities and leave the former program in sanctions and really nothing can be done to the coaches it becomes even more frustrating. The coaches can move on without penalty, but if the players want to exercise that right, they have to wait to play until the following year. I know there are exceptions to this rule, but the vast majority of transfer players have to wait before playing again and that is just plain wrong.


When Johnny "Football" was signing those autographs and was paid for them,  I was saying "good for him, get it while you can." I hear people say that their are students who are on academic scholarship and deal with paying for school just like the players. That is apples and oranges to me. Players are bringing hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars into the school that is used for college stadium expansion, updated facilities for both academic and athletic students, and these players are just supposed to be ok with that? When they fully know that they are part of the benefits that the university is enjoying. It's just wrong. So here is to hoping that the reins will be taken off and these players can get a bigger share of a billion dollar pie...