Marcus Ray, Others Weigh In On Player Pay
There's an interesting ARTICLE over at MLive where Marcus Ray, Marlin Jackson and David Cone are interviewed regarding their views on paying players. The article is hardly in-depth, but it's interesting that (apart from - rightly - noting that players ought to have compensation if their image is appropriated) they tend to view paying players as a Pandora's Box.
They generally support a bigger stipend for living expenses, but all three shy away from full employee status for student athletes for various reasons. Marlin Jackson notes that increased support for football-related injuries would be a good use of revenue:
"What about the guy who tore an ACL or had a herniated disk in college. Then, a few years down the line, he's ailing or in pain and there's nothing to take care of his surgery or his care down the road. I feel like that's maybe a bigger issue."
It's hardly a deep drill on the topic, but interesting to hear some ex-players' thoughts on a controversial issue.
Medical coverage gets to be a very tricky issue if you start getting into it, which is why you need collective bargining to get it all hashed out. Its a much bigger thing to tackle then just giving all the scholarship players and extra 1000 spending cash a month.
If a walk-on player gets injured say in practice or a game does he also get the medical compensation?
Is the compensation variable based on player impact or is it standard for all players? Does the star player get all his bruises covered and the 3rd string depth guy just have to tough it out?
It was medical benefits and coverage that was the primary driver of Kain Colter's argument before the NLRB when he spoke at the hearing in Chicago a few months ago as well. I would think that, at least with this point, there's a pretty good case for saying that players that make the NCAA money deserve first class care, so it is interesting when you hear about hitherto undiscovered injuries at places like the Combine or other events, some of them even requiring surgery that probably should have happened months before.
I assume there are staffs that are better about making sure athletes seek care than others, but there are a lot of things that radiate a need for improvement and lend a lot of credence to at least this portion of the argument Colter and others laid out.
Depending on what the ailment is would it be possible to prove that the ailment is due to what happened to the player in college? Could it also be possible that the cummulative wear and tear of middle school and high school football (as well as pro if the player made it that far) are contributing factors?
So what? Insurance doesn't have to be 100% free-rider-proof to be a good thing.
I am of an age and temperament where I should be the one always weighing in with all the reasons something won't or can't work. Why are you people always stealing my job?
And, to what degree does the "no preexisting conditions" restriction on coverage under the Affordable Care Act help former players get the care they need under government mandated insurance coverage, and is it thereby a moot question as to these ongoing concerns for medical issues that present after their playing days are done...
Kids have been signing waivers since preschool.
Schools should pay for medical care until the eligibility expires and then that's just life.
That said, something does need to be done with the money. Same with the money these coaches and ADs are making. It's America and there will never be a wage scale on something like this, but there should be.
Only problem is what to do with the billions of dollars I've just created. Me? I say find a way to put it back into the American school system at all levels.
Never going to happen, but it's just what I wish would happen.
I don't think players should be paid, but I don't think people/companies should be getting rich off them either. And if they are, then yes, the players should be paid.
I'd like to see the student-athlete get a little more and the admin/coaches/top folks/etc. get a lot less. Put that money in with all of the TV revenue and everything else that makes it a billion dollar industry and then make the public school systems in this country (all levels) a lot better.
If Dave Brandon made 200,000 and Brady Hoke made 150,000, would that really be a bad job? No.
But there demand is there, the money is there, and salaries a peanuts to what the industry is pulling in.
There's no way my "wish/dream" could/would ever happen, so yea, if everyone is going to get paid...give the athletes some. It's stupid, but if everyone else is captilizing because "this is America" --- the kids should be able to do the same. Make it the fucking wild west, let it blow up and start over.
Even if you cap all head coaching and athletic director salaries, as you propose, I don't think you are talking about many billions of dollars you "just created." First of all, there won't be as many people interested in creating the programs that make the money (so less money), and seond, there probably are not that many billions of dollars being paid to the people you want fired. I agree with you that too much is paid to the people at the top, in college sports as much as anywhere else. It's almost like this is a "big dick" competition using salaries instead of anatomy. I don't know of a good solution - though I do knwo that a flat cap is always a bad solution.
I disagree that "injuries are just a part of sport" and so the onus is on the player to take care of the aftereffects of college level sports injuries. First, players sign waivers for sports in which they compete for fun. They don't sign injury waivers in sports they play for compensation, nor should they. Second, the responsibility for making players good for injuries suffered as part of a paid entertainment rests with the organizers of the entertainment. Those who want to be entertained have to be ready to pay the full costs of the entertainment, and that includes making good the entertainers. That's just life.
Players know the risk of injury when they sign up to play football or any other sport for that matter. I sustained a permanent injury while swimming at Michigan which now provides me with the gift of chronic headaches (especially in cold weather). Shit happens. I wouldn't expect the school to cover me for life. I would simply expect them to make every reasonable effort to fix the problem (which they did).
Theoretically, watch how fast high schools drop football if the proposed medical coverage rules went into effect. Coverage for life? As an AD I would just drop the program.
The *only* exception to this rule would be if the athelete sustained an injury which will prevent them from getting work or performing manual labor jobs. I.E. they are disabled.