Oklahoma Sooners football coach Bob Stoops doesn’t see the need for college athletes to get stipends, even if it means they have to skip an occasional meal:
“You know what school would cost here for non-state guy? Over $200,000 for room, board and everything else,” Stoops said. “That’s a lot of money. Ask the kids who have to pay it back over 10-15 years with student loans. You get room and board, and we’ll give you the best nutritionist, the best strength coach to develop you, the best tutors to help you academically, and coaches to teach you and help you develop. How much do you think it would cost to hire a personal trainer and tutor for 4-5 years? I don’t get why people say these guys don’t get paid. It’s simple, they are paid quite often, quite a bit and quite handsomely.”
Jason Kirk pushes back, calling it the “worst argument against paying college football players”:
American colleges are overpriced almost across the board, so what about the value-conscious education shoppers among college football players? What if we whittled that number down to the actual costs of providing education, not the number the University of Oklahoma gets to charge? Are cheaper schools closer to doing players wrong because their intangible numbers are closer to zero? …
Don’t act like every Sooner is a quarter-millionaire just because college costs are farcically bloated. You can’t eat a degree. You can’t trade one for something to eat, either. You can’t use college credits as loan collateral while your impoverished family, if you’ve got one of those, waits three or more years for your first NFL contract. Education is wonderful, but it has never paid a bill.
Go here to read the whole Dish debate over whether to pay college athletes.
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