“It’s time to reform college athletics.”

That’s the cry echoing throughout the land as self-appointed sports saviors watch collegiate sports become as corrupt as real life.

Of course there are legitimate changes needed—it is a pretty disheartening fact that to follow the latest exploits of many college sports teams these days your best bet is to check the police blotter.

Individuals in the collegiate jock-acrocy, like the aptly nicknamed Jerry “Tark the Shark” Tarkanian, Jim “Moneybag$” Valvano, and any agent of your choice have made televangalism look reputable.

Granted, changes are needed, but one of the latest cures put forth to cure collegiate sports, paying college athletes, is not only akin to pouring fuel on a fire, it’s redundant.

The argument goes like this: Collegiate athletes make millions for their schools and are entitled to receive their share, and if Joe Jock is paid upfront, the under the table payoffs would stop.

Lets examine that argument. First, how many athletic departments make money? Not as many as you would think when you hear about the millions in TV money being thrown around. If most sports programs had to run themselves as for-profit institutions, independent of their university, the bankruptcy courts would be overrun with athletic directors.

Certain schools make money on certain sports, but if college sports was as much of a windfall as it’s supposed to be, why aren’t we reading about Japanese investors trying to buy Midnortheastern State?

Schools like NIU would be forced to drop even more sports if the athletic department budget was further burdened by athletes’ paychecks. The few schools that are already turning a profit would be the only ones who could afford it, leading to an even wider gap between the Notre Dames and the Not Notre Dames.

As for eliminating illegal payoffs to athletes, do the reformers think that an athlete being offered a porsche and $10,000 to attend a school will suddenly find religion and go to the best academic institution because he’ll be getting $90 a week?

The athlete will presumably be getting the $90 (or whatever) at any school he chooses and would still make his decision when the real money is put on the table. There’s a telling joke going around about the college athlete who declined a tryout for a pro team because he couldn’t afford the pay cut.

There are other reasons why this “solution” needs re-thinking, but one of the most annoying things about this “reform” is that it implies that college athletes aren’t paid, when in fact, they are. What do you call an athletic scholarship? When you have your tuition, books, etc. paid for these days, you aren’t exactly dealing with loose change.

The value of an athlete’s scholarship varies, but in almost all cases is worth several thousand dollars per year—a lot more than they’d be making manning a spatula at Burger World like a lot of their classmates. Also, if we agree that the rumor that makes it sound as if athletes are financing Americas’ higher education is false, what other reasons are there for paying athletes on top of their scholarships?

Would an athletes’ union, strikes and more corruption be far behind? To answer that question you only have to look at the wonderful example of “professional” sports. And if that’s the direction that the reformers want the collegiate athletics world to be heading, they’re welcome to it—if it survives.