JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT

Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post wants to pay college football players because it is their right.

They work for the schools that give them scholarships and, in turn, those schools make millions on their backs.

The NCAA should face reality, she says, and recognize how it takes advantage of players in order to enrich itself. Players deserve a piece of the action, if only a small piece akin to pocket money.

It would be okay if wealthy alumni fund the paychecks, with sums based on the value of the players’ positions; quarterbacks would receive the bigger stipends.

That pretty fairly wraps up Ms. Jenkins argument. Let’s stipulate that college football has pretty well got out of hand. Football, however, pays for other intercollegiate sports at many schools. And, yes, football coaches and athletic directors usually make much more than do presidents and chancellors and, at state schools, more than the governor.

Something should be done, but what?

Long before most of us were born or, at least, were aware of sports, talented writers on newspapers began to romanticize the skills of college boys displayed on Saturday afternoons. Think Grantland Rice and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. (Actually, the 1924 game was held at the Polo Grounds used by the New York Giants baseball team, and Rice’s lede was turned into a promotional photo back in South Bend by a student publicist, George Strickler.) College football attracted fans without college connections before pro football became the obsession it is. In the 1930s and 1940s, even into the fifties, local radio stations programmed college football scores, punctuated with recorded fight songs. Alumni loyalty was augmented by local fans paying reasonable ticket prices to fill stadiums built to hold the followers of the growing attraction that was college football. It was a time when most young people did not consider attending college.

[As a grade school pupil in the late 1930s, I could afford to buy a ticket – something under $1 – to an Ohio State game in the Buckeyes’ horseshoe, an unlocked place we would explore from top to bottom when there were no games, including an area under the stands that contained rooms for athletes. Another grade school recollection is our parochial football team’s star running back in 1940. Two things stood out about Manny Phelps: he was the only kid that drove to school in his own car, and the only one needing to shave daily. I learned the word “ringer.”]

Fandom grew something like that. Now the old stadiums have been expanded or new built; ticket prices have soared beyond the reach of most people. College football is big business.

So, Ms. Jenkins has a point. Time has passed when some kid from West Siwash High, who came to campus by Greyhound carrying his pasteboard suitcase, can walk-on at State U and become an all-American QB. He is recruited from a Texas, Georgia, or Ohio secondary school where he wears fitted uniforms not unlike the pros and has clippings and YouTube posts that bring him to the attention of university scouts. He and his parents and coaches are all but bribed until he signs a letter of intent, almost as sacred as a contract.

Turning back the clock to “winning one for the Gipper” is out of the question.

Some accommodation that most people would agree to be fair needs to be found or Ms. Jenkins would have us believe. But, some little compensation for players would soon grow. Pay schedules would become recruiting tools. Bonus payments would be permitted for sterling play. Athletes in other sports would demand equity. Women athletes would cite Title IX and obtain pay equivalent to men. And those poor high school players could not wait for their compensation and, somehow, would start getting it.

Soon victory would be sought, not for the glory of old Puce and Umber, but for the Sean “Crusher” Jefferson III and his warriors.

Maybe the solution is recognition of what’s happening. Big­-time college football cannot be returned to play between matriculating students preparing for professions who just happen to enjoy athletic competition.Big athletic plants must be paid for by TV networks and fans in sky suites. So, how to supply the games using dissatisfied, underpaid players who supposedly attend classes to earn worthwhile degrees? Make classes optional, pay living wages, lease the stadiums to promoters, and convert football programs to bona fide minor leagues.

For boards of trustees burdened by conscience, let them divorce football teams from the college’s name and devote lease income to laboratories and faculty upgrading.

A few universities might wish to abandon football altogether as the University of Chicago did while remaining part of the Big 10 for academic endeavors.

Those opting to sponsor unabashed pro football programs would not have to pay obeisance to scholarship and agree to a play-off system that would determine the actual top team in the country. Fans would like that.

As for us purists: how about real students going out for the team to represent their school against the downstate rival – just for the fun of it?