Amatuer? Hardly

In the wake of the ongoing investigation into OJ Mayo and the USC basketball program, naysayers are coming out of the wood work to criticize the USC sports program, including head basketbll coach Tim Floyd. In essence, the stories seem to implicate Mayo's recruitment to the Trojans may have been affiliated less with Floyd's up and coming basketball program and more with where OJ's "advisor", Rodney Guillory, who received over 200,000 in payments from BDA, a sports agent company who currently represents Mayo.

For me, the questions should focus less on investigating young athletes and their amateur status and more on the idea of "amateurism" in collegiate athletics in general. The schools don't want to pay student athletes - fine. Having agents and advisors surrounding these young people seems to be what has put so many media pundits into a tivy.

What is the major problem? Are collegiate athletics really a realm we can consider to be of amateur status anymore. OK, fine, the men's diving and women's crocket are amateur competition. Let's look into what drives the department at most major institutions, men's basketball and football.

Neither football nor men's basketball can reasonably argue amateur status anymore. In today's sports world, the internet, 24 hour sports news channels, Sportscenter, talk radio, and constant media inundation of information makes it nearly impossible to classify these sports as amateur in nature. Major networks make billions in ad revenue by airing the games live, conferences make millions of dollars by representing the institutions, schools make millions by filling the stadiums. Liscensing and apparel companies bring in the bank by selling shirts, hats, jerseys, and memorabilia.

In other words, the only people NOT expected to make any money on the process are the athletes themselves. The debate regarding whether a paid education should be payment enough for these kids can continue until we're all blue in the face, but the fact of the matter is the tuition and board rate these kids get pales in comparision to what the NCAA, conferences, schools, apparel companies, and tv networks make.

Am I advoating payment for collegiate athletes? No, actually, I'm not. What I would like to see is people leaving the title "amateur" out of the realm of college football and basketball. If agents and family advisors want kids to go to a certain school, and are willing to give that kid some money to do so, I don't really see a problem. I see a problem with a school providing that money, and I see a problem with agents and alumni of the school providing that money. I don't see a problem with sports agents providing a kid money for a promise of choosing a certain company as his sports agent upon heading to the pros, as Mayo and Reggie Bush apparently did. If the NCAA does, then create a simple solution - don't force kids to go to college. OJ Mayo never would have attended USC if not for the NBA's age limit rule (a rule which went forward with the NCAA's assistance and blessing), requiring players to be one year removed from high school before coming to the NBA. You think Kevin Durant, Greg Oden, or Michael Beasley would have played a minute of collegiate basketball without the rule?

Do the same for college athletes in football - surely Bush, Vince Young, Larry Fitzgerald, and other big name football stars needing the money would have jumped the college experience for the sake of the pros.

All I am saying is get these traditionalist blowhards out of here - college sports, whether you like it or not, is great because people who follow it have a certain tie that professional sports teams cannot forge with their fan base, not because the fan base thinks they are watching "pure" amateur competition. Florida and Tennessee will always be a marque college football matchup because of the tradition and rivarly - not because "amateur" athletes played. Duke vs. Carolina will headline basketball seasons forever because of the greatness of the schools' hatred for one another, not because Jerry Stackhouse stayed at UNC for 2 years, or Duke had Luo Deng for 1 season.

College football will remain popular because of the shortness of its regular season, and it's fucked up post-season. This sport, unlike any other, relies solely on a team's ability to be perfect in the regular season, making each week "must watch" tv. Giving players money or allowing agents to buy a linebacker a new tv won't change this.

College basketball will remain popular because it provides fans the 3 most exciting weeks in sports postseason, the great March Madness tourney. Great games and upsets are going to happen, whether we have outstanding players in the game or not. With the departure of the great Kevin Durant and Greg Oden last year, the ratings for the this year's tournament changed very little. It's the game that matters on the collegiate level, not the athletes or the behavior of those players off the court.

So instead of trying to force this idealistic world of amateurism down our throats, allow college sports to evolve with the rest of the society. If those who make a living off these athletes can't seem to find it in their hearts to "share the wealth", then the least we can do is allow those players who want to make money doing their craft that option (i.e. let the high schoolers go pro without going to college)

The college game will always be about the name on the front of the jersey, not the back. Tweaking the rules of "amateurism" in the industry won't change that.