At least it shouldn't be. I am consistently flabbergasted by presumably-intelligent people who think that throwing money at college athletes is the right thing to do. As opposed to the schools simply providing them the legitimate fucking education that they promised and lied about during the recruiting process, along with the tools to help them achieve on and off the field. To instead open the other can of worms and wrestle with questions about who to pay and how much and where the money comes from is madness. If you want pay-for-play at this level, fine, but let's hold the NFL's feet to the fire on building that out as a separate model. In the current system, we already have the established framework of football teams with actual by-God universities attached to them (!), so maybe we could stick to swapping exploits on the field for schooling, because that shit costs more than a $400 per diem and a fucking ham sandwich. Again, it's sad that a whole fuck-ton of people who presumably either went to college or put kids through it or whatever else ignore the fantastic financial benefit of getting it for free.

something here that A. is an extremely important point, and B. I've not seen articulated as clearly from any other coach.

"It's our job to teach them how to make a living at the university and not to give them their living at the university."

If you blow your food allowance on Doritos and beer, why is that the University's problem. Many other college kids learn how to not do that, so why shouldn't the athletes?

And even more strange, how does anyone not believe he's doing a great job at Stanford and will continue to?
I'm so tired of reading about his imminent collapse (not here but).
My take: Good man doing a really good job.

the NCAA has no interest in policing that arena, unfortunately.

The NCAA's definition of amateurism is and has long been far more restrictive than any other definition in the world.

Now, should everything be opened like the former Olympic-style amateurism, where the athletes could market themselves however they want provided they didn't get paid to actually play the game? No, I would disagree with that sentiment. But there's also quite a bit of room to maneuver between those two extremes.

I come back to this every time one of these threads pops up: I added it up one day and I made over $15k between work study and internships while I was in college, and I was in the class of '00. If the NCAA's rules are going to be strict enough that it makes coaches discourage their players from getting jobs (and they are, ever since Oklahoma got busted for letting players take no-show jobs) then I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that the players should get a couple thousand dollars a semester.

Given the way the money has exploded around college athletics over the last few years, I reject the idea that finding a way to get that kind of money to all college athletes is impossible.

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Stanford -- and Shaw -- have it right. We need to align with schools like them if amateurism is to survive.

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The 2007 ND-UCLA game was a once in a lifetime experience, I hope