“ATHLETE CAUGHT EATING ICE CREAM CONE PAID FOR BY AGENT, NCAA SUSPENDS UNIVERSITY FROM BOWL GAMES FOR THREE YEARS”
You’ve seen headlines like that, as regulators try to make sure that amateur athletes don’t gain financially from their sporting activities at U.S. colleges.
Often the athletes are highly talented minorities from impoverished backgrounds who generate millions of dollars in revenue for their schools. They work hard and risk injury as they play basketball or football while going through the motions of getting an education.
College sports is big business, as packed stadiums and television contracts generate big money for successful teams. (And for some schools, like Notre Dame, whether they win or lose.)
Who are the eagle-eyed regulators who watch over the world of college sports to make sure that the sweating athletes don’t profit from their work? Who is it that makes sure that devious alumni don’t buy illicit sweatshirts for gridiron stars?
Looking out for the good of student-athletes is of course the business of the National College Athletic Association, known to all as the NCAA.
Like all regulators, the NCAA seems to have two sets of standards. The first, which is very rigorous, is for the athletes whom officials so sanctimoniously watch over.
The second standard is anything BUT rigorous, and applies, of course, to the activities of the NCAA itself. While the athletes that everyone pays to see are living like other college students, NCAA officials are living like kings. Here’s how:
- Last year the NCAA Executive Director, Cedric Dempsey, received $440,000 in salary and benefits, not including a $52,841 expense account. The Spartan Association also gave Dempsey a $450,000 mortgage loan at below-market interest rates. (We guess if you only make $440,000 a year you need some help with the mortgage payments.)
- The previous NCAA executive director, Dick Schultz, used the NCAA’s $1.7 million dollar Learjet for personal trips. (Why does a non-profit organization that spends its time making sure that athletes don’t get too much free airfare need a Learjet?)
- Schultz resigned after he was implicated in a scandal that unfolded at his previous employer, the University of Virginia. The NCAA paid him off with a $700,000 golden parachute. (America has to be the only country that engages in the outrageous tactic of paying disgraced executives huge sums to leave quietly.)
- The NCAA’s charitable foundation gave away less than a million dollars last year — yet it managed to chalk up $572,000 in overhead. Where did the money go? To the president of the foundation, of course. Dave Gavitt was paid $235,000 in salary, and he leased an office from his son for another $21,600. (About 38% of the total NCAA Foundation budget went to overhead. The comparable overhead figure for the U.S. Olympic Committee Foundation is 13%.)
The vast majority of college athletes never make it to the pros, and have little to show, financially, for their years of sweat and toil, and for the various nagging injuries they often incur.
When most student athletes leave school they take only memories, and in some cases a college degree, with them. NCAA officials know that amateur sports can yield much more tangible rewards.
READ MORE ABOUT IT
Read more about today’s Outrage in the Kansas City Star story.
