In a year where Duke Basketball averaged more viewers on nationally televised than the NBA averaged, the debate of college athletes being paid was as hot as ever. It was no secret what freshman phenoms R.J. Barrett and Zion Williamson did for Duke basketball and the NCAA as a whole. The multi billion dollar organization that is the NCAA profits off of these players and don’t have to pay them a single dollar of physical money. The lone compensation given to these players is a scholarship so that they can enroll in classes that they rarely ever attend due to the insane workload that comes with being a Division-1 athlete. I urge you to remove yourself from any potential biases or pre dispositions and just look at the issue for what it truly is, a billion dollar corporation taking advantage of teenagers.
2014: Shabazz Napier Causes an Uproar
The topic of paying NCAA athletes has always been a heated debate, but in 2014, Shabazz Napier added fuel to the fire during an interview before the National Championship game. Shabazz was asked about players potentially being paid for their services and he responded saying that him and his teammates have nights where they go to bed starving because they don’t have enough money to feed themselves. This interview sparked a nationwide uproar and rekindled the controversial topic. One of the best players in the country, who was competing for his second NCAA championship in his collegiate career had nights where he went to bed starving. This situation that the NCAA has chosen to neglect for so long has been once again brought to the national stage. Believe it or not, Shabazz actually made a change. Because of the heat that the NCAA took as a result of his interview, they implemented a new rule that allows student athletes to receive unlimited meals and snacks in conjunction with their athletics participation. Although this was just a fraction of benefits that student athletes deserve, it was a change that will positively effect student athletes for years to come and that is just as important as anything Shabazz did on the court during his time at Uconn.
Zion’s Injury and Potential Losses
Zion Williamson is the most polarizing figure that college basketball has seen in years and he was playing for the most marketable college team in recent memory. This combination was responsible for most of the hype around college basketball during the 2019 season and one can only imagine how much money Duke and the NCAA made because of it. Zion, who was destined to be the first overall pick in the draft and land a massive shoe deal on top of it, almost lost all of those potential earnings because of one slip. Zion and the Duke Blue Devils were hosting rival North Carolina in a game where the tickets were as expensive as 2019 Super Bowl tickets when he almost lost everything. During the opening minutes of the game, Zion attempted to cut hard and his foot ripped right through his shoe as he took a a nasty spill. Zion would leave the game and not return. So on a day where some people paid over $10,000 to watch him play, the main attraction, unpaid student athlete, Zion Williamson exited with a gruesome looking injury. Luckily, the injury wasn’t as bad as it looked and Zion was able to return after missing just a handful of games. Hypothetically, had Zion’s injury ended his season or even his career, he would be sitting in his dorm room with no money and no opportunity left. Had his career been ended that night, Zion would have his scholarship stripped the following year all because he got hurt during . game in which he earned his University hundreds of thousands of dollars while essentially working for free. So you tell me, is it fair for a University and an Organization to make millions of dollars off of someone who is putting their body and career on the line while not receiving any compensation whatsoever.
Student Athletes Sitting Out
Ohio State defensive end Nick Bosa was a potential candidate to be th first overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft until he suffered groin and abdominal injuries just 3 weeks into the season. These injuries made him realize that he has accomplished everything that he needed to accomplish at the collegiate level. Instead of coming back during the season and risking further injury, Bosa decided to sit out the rest of the season to rehab and focus on preparing for the NFL Draft in April. We’ve seen players sit out of their teams’ bowl games before, (Ex; eventual top 10 picks Leonard Fournette and Christian McCaffrey) but a player essentially sitting out an entire season is something we have never seen. Many projected first rounders sat out their bowl games this year as well, but Bosa took it to the next level. His decision paid off as he was selected second overall by the San Francisco 49ers. With so many players sitting out games in their last collegiate season and still being drafted in the first few rounds, what reason do players have for playing those games? We’ve seen the opposite happen, where a player plays in a meaningless bowl game and suffers a horrific injury. This happened to Michigan tight end, Jake Butt who was projected to be selected in the first two rounds until he tore his ACL in his team’s bowl game. Michigan was 10-3 on the season and playing in a bowl game that meant absolutely nothing. Butt’s injury in this meaningless game resulted in him falling to the Denver Broncos in the fifth round of the draft. The Broncos signed him to a 4 year deal worth 2.7 million dollars and a 300,000 dollar signing bonus. The first tight end selected in the draft was O.J. Howard and he received a four year deal worth 11 million dollars and a 6.2 million dollar signing bonus. Had Butt not been injured, that contract could have been his, but instead he was signed for . fraction of that because he played a meaningless game for an organization that paid him zero dollars for his contributions over his four year collegiate career.
Timothy Martin Sports Journalism 