With a whiff of scandal in the air, you know college football is around the corner. And this time it’s not some underclassman who’s been caught taking money he shouldn’t, but the National Collegiate Athletic Association itself.
This month, reports surfaced that college football’s reining Heisman winner, Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel, may have signed memorabilia for compensation. If he did, it would violate NCAA rules governing what an “amateur” is allowed to do.
An NCAA probe was launched, imperiling Manziel’s college eligibility. Meanwhile, ESPN analyst Jay Bilas, using the association’s online store search box, entered the names of well-known players — current, former and even suspended. He found the NCAA offering their jerseys (with player numbers) for purchase for as much as $100.
Bilas then posted a series of tweets calling out the organization on its hypocrisy. An embarrassed NCAA removed the search feature. And by week’s end, it announced it would no longer sell the jerseys.
Now, the original idea of college athletics was to exercise student bodies as well as minds. When schools began awarding sports scholarships, the idea was that an education was a reasonable exchange for what the athlete delivered on the field.
Since then, college sports have become a multibillion-dollar industry, while many of its athletes get little or no education. The NCAA’s problem today isn’t signed jerseys but a fundamental double standard: The athletes who make the money are deemed “amateurs” while the schools and NCAA that get the money are partners running an essentially professional sports operation.