Dept. chairs are tenured, but an administration still has different ways to put pressure on a chair.

Also, I think you can perhaps fault some faculty for being cynical, or bowing to easily to pressure, or not being brave enough, but in general, they are not happy about things. For example, the Binghamton faculty voted against going to Division I.

The NCAA really needs to drop the pretense that these guys are amateurs and just let colleges pay their players, and who cares if they go to class or not. If some booster at USC or Ohio State or Florida wants to pony up $1 million to pay the #1 HS QB to come to their school, why not? Why should the NFL and NBA get a free farm system? And what's the downside with that?

The NCAA really needs to drop the pretense that these guys are amateurs and just let colleges pay their players, and who cares if they go to class or not.

I don't agree with that but do think stipends for athletes working 20-40 hours a weeks generating revenue for the school should be paid.

The problem is that, with Title IX, you wind up having to pay the women's lacrosse team that draws 17 people to the stands the same stipend as the quarterback who brings in millions of dollars. Which makes all this a non-starter.

I'm not sure Title IX works that way, but it's been a looong time since I looked how it operates. For example, the football team gets pep rallies, chartered jets to away games depending on where, stays at a nice hotel even the night before home games (at least at my school), better training facilities, etc. etc. etc. Not sure why actually paying the players would be different (as opposed to providing equivalent opportunities for females to participate in inter-collegiate sports, which is IIRC what Title IX is all about).

Further, if the $$ comes directly from boosters to the student-athletes, I'm not sure Title IX comes into play at all (though I'm sure the schools would rather control who gets paid what, which is probably part of the reason why the NCAA is sticking to the amateur fiction).

In any event, Title IX aside, I still don't understand why these schools get to rake in millions of dollars on the backs of adults who, at best, get paid the equivalent of $40,000-$50,000 a year in kind (tuition, room, board, etc. at, say, Duke) when, if there was a true free market for their services, some of them would be reaping 7 figure salaries (or at a minimum 6 figure).

The schools are not generally making money off the games. The coaches and administrators, well that's a different story. But in fact, most of the money the athletic departments do make on football and basketball is used to pay for all those non-revenue producing sports. If you start taking from money from those revenues to pay the football or basketball players, then you are going to lose more sports, perhaps even women's lacrosse.

The schools are not generally making money off the games. The coaches and administrators, well that's a different story. But in fact, most of the money the athletic departments do make on football and basketball is used to pay for all those non-revenue producing sports. If you start taking from money from those revenues to pay the football or basketball players, then you are going to lose more sports, perhaps even women's lacrosse.

It takes special talent to double post these days.

So not only is college sports corrupt those in the Ivory Tower are corrupt as well. Who pays for that corruption? The real students who are seeking an education and their parents who are paying for it.

Thanks Modern Academia, thanks for nothing.