By Jeff Simpson
In the immortal words of Ronald Reagan, "There you go again" Christian. Christian Schneider. who has an aversion to actual facts in his writing, has chosen another topic he has no knowledge of to address. This time it is the world of college athletics.
Within minutes, Hayes was being hailed for “speaking out” against the “injustice” suffered by college athletes.Yet this is perhaps the most obnoxious type of praise we heap on young people in modern culture. Celebrating millennials for “speaking out” or “starting a conversation” merely praises them for exercising their right to speak — a right everyone already knows they have. It’s a linguistic participation trophy.An opinion writer berating other for having an opinion. We are off to a nice start.
Such undeserved celebration absolves the speaker from actually having to defend the position he or she is taking.Says the guy who broke the story about Kyle Wood and when he found out it was completely fictitious, deleted the story like it never happened.
But his histrionic protest in this case leaves out one vital fact that he obviously can’t see. Literally, every student on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus would instantly switch places with Nigel Hayes. Every single one.Yes, "every single one", when they were 12 years old maybe. For instance, Kevin Stonewall has his sights set on curing cancer not shooting threes, I doubt he would want to "instantly switch places". However in Schneider's world view minorities play sports and white people are the ones who cure diseases and run our Government.
And last year, Hayes turned down the chance to play professional basketball for a living, where he would make millions of dollars doing what he ostensibly loves. If he was truly living a life of abject poverty on campus, he could have easily rectified that by leaving before he graduated.(Hayes is a marginal NBA prospect, but many American players do very well overseas.)Actually no he did not turn down millions of NBA dollars(he would not have been drafted in the first round), no he is not a "marginal NBA prospect"(he heads into this season as one of the top prospects in college), Hayes could go overseas. but why would he go play in Turkey and not stay and get his degree and a shot at the NBA? That involves sacrifice, hard work and a passion that is foreign to someone who has sold his soul for a paycheck.
But the bottom line is that athletes are paid — in the form of full tuition, room and board. In the case of an out-of-state student such as Hayes, this can run up to $200,000 for four years at UW. Just because this benefit doesn’t look like payment because it’s not money in his pocket doesn’t mean it’s not hard cash being shelled out by taxpayers and other students who pay their own tuition to subsidize his.I will let Nigel respond:
Nigel Hayes @NIGEL_HAYES The @bigten made nearly $450 million. My scholarship is about $160,00. If only there was enough money to pay us..
The conference had $448.8 million in total revenue during a fiscal year ending June 30, 2015 — a figure that represents a nearly $110 million increase over what it pulled in during its 2014 fiscal year.As a result, the conference distributed roughly $32.4 million to each of its longest-standing 11 members, amounts that put those schools on par with amounts the Southeastern Conference distributed to each of its 14 member schools from conference revenue that totaled $527.4 million.
I am curious how much Mr. Schneider thinks the tuition would be if Nigel did not help bring in an extra $32 million plus. Also, I am not sure Mr. Schneider knows, but the state only provides about 17 % of the total funding of the UW Budget! To think that Nigel's tuition being covered is "hard cash out of the taxpayers pockets" is downright laughable.
And if rules mandating equity weren't implemented, this could give a major recruiting advantage to the schools that could pay the most.There is already a major advantage to schools that pay the most. The ones with multi million dollars facilities, the ones paying assistant coaches 7 figure salaries, the ones with major television deals, all have a major recruiting advantages.
The unintended consequence of this would be to restrict access to those disadvantaged African-Americans who use their athletic scholarships to overcome their tough upbringings.I recently attended a talk with Maurice Clarett and Chris Borland. For those of you who do not know, Maurice Clarett was an All American RB and High School Player of the year. Clarett then took his "tough upbringing" to Ohio State where as a freshman he was a starter, and major part of the offense, on the National Championship team.
Clarett, then successfully challenged the NFL rules of eligibility, and was allowed to enter the draft early. The rules were in place for a reason, and he was not yet ready for the NFL and after a couple years and bouncing around leagues found himself out of football.
Clarett, ended up with no football, and no college degree and was left with major debt, and ended up in prison for 3 1/2 years for some very bad decisions. He has since changed his life around and is a successful entrepreneur.
However, the thing that stuck out to me, is Mr. Clarett told us that in his year at Ohio State, he took such rigorous classes as Officiating tennis and officiating swimming. Without a strong family structure to advocate for you in college(remember the "tough upbringing" kids, then even if you graduate, your college education is not the same college education that others get.
One interesting thing is Mr. Clarett told us that he had recently asked former LSU coach Les Miles, if he would let his kids take the same classes in their college career as Leonard Fournette was taking. The answer was No!
There’s a simple solution to all this, actually — any athlete who wants to give up his or her scholarship and work his or her way through college accumulating debt like every other student is free to do so.There is even a better solution. Allow the student athletes within the system, the ones who are living it everyday, to be students and athletes. Let's be proud and listen when they become the student part of student athlete.
Especially Nigel Hayes, who can say more in 144 characters than Christian Schneider has in miles of column inches!
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