NCAA makes the right move
Lead Summary
By
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By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
This is likely the first sports column I have written in my life. At least I cannot remember any other, and as little as I follow sports, I am pretty sure this is correct.
I follow professional baseball because it is required in my marriage (Laura has seen a game in every current MLB stadium and in a lot of those that have been torn down).
I get interested in college basketball about halfway through March Madness. It is just not intense enough for me before then. As for anything else – nothing, nada.
But the NCAA made news on Oct. 29 when they decided “…to let student athletes profit from their names, images.”
It's about time. The last vestige of legal slavery in the United States appears to be coming to an end.
Now to allow the schools to pay them a salary, a salary like Elizabeth Warren earned as a teacher. What do the schools do with all that money they rake in on college sports anyhow? They certainly don’t use it to lower tuition for the regular students. They still run fund drives as if they were going broke tomorrow.
If we can get them to paying salaries, then we can get them to doing trades, just like the big leagues do. After all, the percentage of student-athletes who are there to earn a degree must be very small.
When my kids were going to the University of Georgia, a way to pick up pocket money was to be a monitor who followed an athlete to class to make sure they attended class. UGA actually paid students to do that.
In my five years at the University of Cincinnati, I officially attended one football game. That’s it.
Now, my freshman year, I had a room on the 11th floor of a dorm that overlooked the football stadium, so all we had to do to watch a game and hear the play-by-play was open the window.
That was true for Bengals games, too, for that was their first year – 1968 – and they played at UC that year (and I think the following year, too, I don’t remember).
A great next step would be to require all student-athletes to attend some sort of personal finance class so they can learn how to manage their money and not squander it. For, I am sure, within a couple of years, there will be scandals involving shysters who have come to campuses to relieve these young people of their newfound largess. Pools of money are followed by those with less than honest intent.
Speaking of those following money with less than an honest intent, how long will it take the politicians to show up and figure out a special tax on these earnings?
The unintended consequence may be to turn swathes of young people into conservatives when they find the long reach of the tax man in these cases.
The real unintended consequence is that this move may make a bunch of Republicans out of the student-athletes. For besides taxes, can’t you see certain elements on college campuses demanding that the students share their wealth with them? After all, it is only right that they share, isn’t it? This idea will move them into conservatism faster than anything.
Professional athletes have nightmarish tax returns, for each state wants their cut of the athlete’s salary is based on the amount of time they play in that state as compared to their entire earnings.
Accounting firms are thriving on keeping professional athlete’s salaries straight for the state revenue offices. It is easy to figure out how much time they “work” in each state – that is a matter of official score keeping. Then to file the return. Will that happen here?
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.
HCP columnist
This is likely the first sports column I have written in my life. At least I cannot remember any other, and as little as I follow sports, I am pretty sure this is correct.
I follow professional baseball because it is required in my marriage (Laura has seen a game in every current MLB stadium and in a lot of those that have been torn down).
I get interested in college basketball about halfway through March Madness. It is just not intense enough for me before then. As for anything else – nothing, nada.
But the NCAA made news on Oct. 29 when they decided “…to let student athletes profit from their names, images.”
It's about time. The last vestige of legal slavery in the United States appears to be coming to an end.
Now to allow the schools to pay them a salary, a salary like Elizabeth Warren earned as a teacher. What do the schools do with all that money they rake in on college sports anyhow? They certainly don’t use it to lower tuition for the regular students. They still run fund drives as if they were going broke tomorrow.
If we can get them to paying salaries, then we can get them to doing trades, just like the big leagues do. After all, the percentage of student-athletes who are there to earn a degree must be very small.
When my kids were going to the University of Georgia, a way to pick up pocket money was to be a monitor who followed an athlete to class to make sure they attended class. UGA actually paid students to do that.
In my five years at the University of Cincinnati, I officially attended one football game. That’s it.
Now, my freshman year, I had a room on the 11th floor of a dorm that overlooked the football stadium, so all we had to do to watch a game and hear the play-by-play was open the window.
That was true for Bengals games, too, for that was their first year – 1968 – and they played at UC that year (and I think the following year, too, I don’t remember).
A great next step would be to require all student-athletes to attend some sort of personal finance class so they can learn how to manage their money and not squander it. For, I am sure, within a couple of years, there will be scandals involving shysters who have come to campuses to relieve these young people of their newfound largess. Pools of money are followed by those with less than honest intent.
Speaking of those following money with less than an honest intent, how long will it take the politicians to show up and figure out a special tax on these earnings?
The unintended consequence may be to turn swathes of young people into conservatives when they find the long reach of the tax man in these cases.
The real unintended consequence is that this move may make a bunch of Republicans out of the student-athletes. For besides taxes, can’t you see certain elements on college campuses demanding that the students share their wealth with them? After all, it is only right that they share, isn’t it? This idea will move them into conservatism faster than anything.
Professional athletes have nightmarish tax returns, for each state wants their cut of the athlete’s salary is based on the amount of time they play in that state as compared to their entire earnings.
Accounting firms are thriving on keeping professional athlete’s salaries straight for the state revenue offices. It is easy to figure out how much time they “work” in each state – that is a matter of official score keeping. Then to file the return. Will that happen here?
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.