Play-for-pay
in athletics
Sometimes there's compromise
By Carol Morton
Ot the Emerald
It's no secret that, in the
struggle to maintain winning
and profitable teams, college
officials are willing to com
promise the academic integrity
of a university
They often concede to the
athlete a package deal that in
cludes lower academic stan
dards, relaxed entrance requir
ements doctored transcripts,
the failure of many athletes to
graduate despite a free ride,
and an end to scholarship funds
once the athlete ceases to per
form satisfactorily
Basketball and football are
the two sports regularly ac
cused of such transgressions
As early as 1946, newspaper
speculation that UCLA alumni
agreed to repay highly recruited
running back ‘Buddy" Young
with a job upon graduation
caused a minor uproar among
Pacific Coast Conference of
ficials
This was at a time when con
ference recruiting rules effec
tively tied the potentially gener
ous financial hands of college
alumni Coaches were not al
lowed to dangle any monetary
or subsidy aid in the faces of
prospective well-muscled ath
letes
Young allegedly linked his
close friend Kenny Washington
with a Bruin pay-for-play plan
An Emerald sports column
reported, tongue-in-cheek,
“Whether Kenny actually was
paid $130 a month for chasing
canaries out of the men's gym at
Westwood is not important at
the moment He completed his
eligibility at UCLA and was ac
claimed one of the finest run
ning backs in the country in his
season "
America has the dubious dis
tinction of being the only
country that demands sports
entertainment from schools with
academic superiority.
In addition, unlike other
sports (baseball and hockey, for
example), professional football
and basketball teams did not
develop until long after colleges
had developed highly skilled
teams Professional organiza
tions in these two sports carry
no financial burden of main
taining minor leagues, profitting
instead from athletes' training
and maturing in college sports
programs
Most college athletic budgets
are strained by costs of
traveling, equipment, recruiting,
and scholarships Inflation and
increased spending to keep up
with other teams in the confer
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Intercollegiate athletics have come a long way from the good ol' days (above left) to the big-time
productions ot today.
ence make efforts to keep ath
letic departments financially
afloat a desperate struggle,
especially in the face of big-time
college sports' attempts, of
ficially at least, to pay for their
own programs
University of Michigan s ath
letic director, Don Canham es
timates that his is one of no
more than 20 to 25 schools
whose sports programs pay
their own way Big-time college
sports equate winning with self
sufficient programs
Some schools with good
sports reputations earn money,
but the temptation to recruit
highly skilled, ignorant athletes
who are totally unfit for
r
academic work is overpowering
when winning is so financially
important
James A Michener divides
American athletes into two
groups in his book, "Sports in
America In addition to being
proud of their all-American
honors, the first group of ath
letes boast all-American brains
The second group of athletes,
Michener says, "must not be
deluded into believing they are
going to get an education They
are going to play for money in a
supervised system, and if they
have the will, they can gain an
education free on the side "
Reacting to a story in the
Arizona Daily Star about a
recent report that 27 University
of Arizona football players and
nine basketball players had
remained eligible for intercol
legiate sports even though all 36
were on academic probation
Sports Illustrated charged
Arizona authorities with reluc
tance "to weed out athletes in
capable of doing college work,
with the result that those ath
letes tend to be academic mis
fits "
Hitting at the heart of big-time
college sports is the oft-cited
hypocricy of describing the in
ducements offered in bargain
ing against other colleges for
athletes as scholarship aid
Continued on Page 3B
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