Should College Athletes Be Paid?

Within the past decades, there have been numerous accounts of agents contacting players such as Luchs and his many clients.  Major universities and players have been getting busted for receiving benefits.    Is it fair though?  Every college athlete aspires to play at the next level and pursue their dream of professional sports.  In the year 2010 the NCAA came down upon the University of North Carolina for seven players who reportedly accepted over 27,000 dollars in benefits (Curtis).  To solidify all of the allegations that were handed to North Carolina, sports agent Josh Luchs recounts his experience with his coworker Gary Wichard.  Wichard was good friends with North Carolina assistant coach John Blake.  John Blake was the ring leader in the Carolina scandal, and according to Luchs was paid money to steer the UNC players to Wichard (Dohrmann).

A similar case happened in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California.  USC football player Reggie Bush and USC basketball player OJ Mayo both penalized their programs for accepting money.  While OJ Mayo accepted money, the total amount was nowhere near Reggie Bush’s 300,000 dollars.  Bush was sued by agent Lloyd Lake to try and recoup his losses, but was eventually settled (Saxon).  Both programs had to give up all of their wins for the years each player played, and about 30 scholarship losses.  Each player is currently in the professional league for their sport and has not been affected as has the school (Saxon).

With all of the cases that are happening in college sports, the NCAA is proving the enforcement to be arbitrary and unfair.  Schools such as Kentucky and SMU have become well known for the sole purpose of intimidation and making sure other schools don’t follow in the same path.  Cases have sprung up at schools everywhere including North Carolina, Southern Cal, and Ohio State.  Each of these programs has violated the same rules and has received similar punishments, but each school acted differently prior to receiving the sanctions.