kentucky

For quite some time now, there has been a big debate about whether or not college athletes should be paid. Some people believe that a scholarship should be payment enough. After all, a scholarship can be easily worth $15,000 – $25,000 or more per year, plus a career after college that can be worth a million dollars over a lifetime. Additionally, student athletes receive all kinds of perks while they are in college, like staying at fancy hotels, being seen on national tv, and all of the notoriety that goes with being a stare athlete. Its hard to put a price tag on all of that.

However, considering the fact that certain college sports generate millions of dollars for college athletic programs, many people believe the athletes are being used. If the average football scholarship is worth $20,000 per year, yet the university gains $70,000 per year in revenue per scholarship player (please note that this figure is just an estimate – the actual number may actually be higher), the university will profit $50,000 per year, per scholarship player, or $200,000 over a four year period.

It is very difficult to put a numeric value on exactly how much an athlete is worth to a college. A star quarterback will not only help sell tickets, but will bring in plenty of merchandise sales as well. The NCCA won’t allow the universities to sell a college football jersey with a player’s name on it, but they will sell the jersey with the player’s number on it, which is easily recognizable in local, and sometimes national markets. The major colleges earn enormous sums of money on this kind of merchandise alone, yet the student athlete who’s number is being used to sell merchandise will not see one dime of the profits. To say that the student athlete isn’t being exploited in this situation is an understatement.

It goes way beyond that. College athletic programs rake in millions from television and advertising contracts. They also bring in millions of dollars of donations from sports boosters. Yes, salaries need to be paid to athletic directors and coaches, not to mention travel and other costs for the student athletes, and it is great that major college football and basketball programs help fund non-revenue athletic programs. However, the fact of the matter is that, compared to the amount of revenue that student athletes generate for their colleges, what they receive in return is very small.

Here’s where it gets really interesting. An athlete can be “disciplined” for selling their tickets to a fan on game day, yet how much money do the directors of the NCAA earn as a result of the efforts of the student athletes? The reality is that the college athletes quite literally pay for a large portion of the salaries of every person employed by the NCAA. If an executive from the NCAA is able to drive a Mercedes, he can thank a star quarterback or running back for that, and perhaps even several walk ons.

So here is the point: if the NCAA, coaches, and athletic directors can earn huge sums of money from the student athletes, shouldn’t student athletes have a piece of the pie too? This isn’t to say that college athletes should get paid large amounts of money, but it would definitely be nice if their scholarships would pay them a little extra to go out for pizza every once and a while, or buy some nice clothes – just a little extra spending cash as a way of saying “thanks” for their efforts.

If for some reason college athletes could be paid, that opens up a whole new can of worms. All of the athletes on a football team with 125 players work very hard in practice, but only 11can start on offense and defense – do you only pay the starters?. Additionally, if you were to pay more to the star quarterback than you do for an “ok” receiver, you are going to run into a lot of other problems. Having said this, the first thing you want to avoid with paying college athletes is student athletes squabbling how much money they earn or should earn, which happens frequently in the NFL.

The second thing you want to avoid is an uneven playing field. While some colleges at the division I level could afford to pay athletes, many simply don’t bring in enough revenue. If a student athlete knows he can earn more at USC than he will if he plays for his state university, then the playing field becomes more uneven than it already is. Athletes would almost always choose the “money schools” over other colleges. Technically, this happens today more than people realize, because colleges with the most tradition, best coaches, and the best records are usually the colleges with the most money…but, if one college could afford to pay more to athletes than other colleges, the playing field would be even more uneven.

If you are going to start paying athletes, all of the athletes need to be paid the same amount of money, and all of the colleges would need to have the same amount of money to pay their athletes with, which could be pre-determined by the NCAA. Even if this amount was a small amount like $1,000 PER YEAR, per player (which totals ($125,000 per year for a college football team with 125 players), paid every month during the school year, it would be a lot more fair to the student athletes…and most colleges at the Division I level could certainly afford it. For the few colleges that couldn’t afford it, the NCAA could always put up the extra money out of the millions it generates from the bowl game. Another alternative would be to cut the salaries of every executive of the NCAA who has gotten rich off of NCAA athletics by 25%– and give the difference to the athletes…

Most of this article focused on college football programs. The revenues that are generated from basketball programs are even more staggering, considering that the teams, are smaller, the travel expenses are less expensive, and that fewer scholarships need to be handed out, making the profits that the NCAA earns from college basketball programs even more staggering.

Fall In Kentucky finding home.

I have fallen into a morning ritual filled with repetitive actions that make up my routine. I start by making sure both the boys are properly dressed (The things they allow kids to wear now!), hugged, kissed, and assured of my love as they head off to school. I either make the coffee or make the bed. If I am out of bed first, I make the coffee and Steve makes the bed. I meditate, say my prayers, and check my e-mail. Most morning Athena, will have popped up the messenger screen with her usual “GM”. (This is her shorthand for “good morning”). With all this completed, I begin my morning.

This particular morning would be a little different, as I looked down to see my sister had left me an instant message. The background was a stunning fall picture of Kentucky dressed out in multi-colored leaves. Was it Fall already? As I stared at the picture of the area in which I grew up in, I could almost smell the crisp cool air that is native to that area. The picture showed a path much like the ones I used to walk on when on my personal sabbaticals with nature. I could almost hear the crunch of the leaves under my feet and feel the shiver I use to experience before pulling my heavy sweater tighter around me.

The outside noise awakened me from my trip down memory lane. My memory trips are never lacking, since I always use all my senses in recall. I utilize sound, smell, feel, sight, and even taste when needed. I call my memories my treasure chest of life, and I pull them out and experience them repeatedly when needed. My ability to achieve this brought about a sharp pang of homesickness this morning and with this a gasp of surprise!

I left Kentucky with only regrets of not seeing my mother, siblings, one uncle and a few emotionally adopted children. I left behind the aches and pains of my joints in the winter, the black slushy ice from the aftermath of a huge snow and the negative side of small town bureaucracy. I took off across the United States with my children, a U-Haul, and the unmovable belief that I could make it on my own. I had not regretted leaving that area even once, so the pang of melancholy over my nostalgia was shocking.

I wake up in a vacation everyday in Pensacola, Florida. Living here affords me the luxury of wearing shorts ten months out of the year. The Gulf Water nearby is so clear that you normally can wade out to your waist, still gaze down, and see your feet. The huge mounds of stark white sands remind you of snowdrifts that are indigenous of winter in the northern states. The palm trees and Seagulls standing out amongst it all make up a number of the most popular postcards made. Why would I possibly miss Kentucky?

It was after a small amount of soul searching that the revelation dawned upon my conscious mind. I believe it was in my subconscious and yet because of my embittered feelings towards a particular group of unsavory individuals, I refused to allow it to my conscious mind. I missed certain parts of Kentucky with the larger parts of my loyalties belonged to Florida. I had branded the entire state with the sins of a few and thus pushed my happy memories away along with the bad. After having the light, some call realization become illuminated, I had face a few facts about my memories.

I would adore making a trip to Kentucky to stroll down the familiar trails and roads for a week in the fall. I would love seeing the countryside decorated by natures own paintbrush as each leaf takes on a color and hue of its own. I would rise early and sit on the porch drinking my coffee as the steam arose from a cup. I would rejoice as I tugged on my thick sweater jacket to walk each trail or path. The smell of the cool fall air, the site of Pumpkins and winter squash being harvested, and the distinct site and smells of Tobacco being fired would make me ecstatic to be there. The week would quickly to come to an end …

I would do “The HAPPY Dance” all the way back to Florida, put on my shorts and my tank top and run kiss the sandy beaches of Perdido Key. Let us face it, making a snowman or snow woman is awesome, but after a few hours, it is just darn cold and miserable. Snow can look pretty and white first thing in the morning but as the day wears on, it becomes black and slushy on the roads. Walks in the fall can be so wonderful and inviting but after a week, my fun meter would definitely be pegged out. Vacations do have a way of ending that way.

What is one person’s vacation is another person’s life. The utmost one can accomplish is finding the place that makes them happy and live there. Every place has its good and bad, yet you should live where you find the most happiness! Subsequently, whenever you get ready to take your vacation, you can go to the place that brings a week or two of happiness. Returning home then will be as exciting as your vacation was. Who knows, maybe there was a nostalgic moment in the life of the person who said, “It’s a nice place to visit, but I sure wouldn’t want to live there!”

In addition, I realized one more thing. I had allowed myself to push away my warm and happy memories with the traumatic experiences others had inflicted on me. This was not only a disservice to me but to entire state that I had blamed for the ugliness of a few. There is a lot of beauty in Kentucky (Even after I left *smiles*).

After all the thoughts, realizations and memories had found their proper place within my spirit; I reached for the keyboard and wrote … “Hi Sis! Gee Kentucky is looking lovely this fall!”

This lesson is on finding beauty amidst the ugly and about remembering the good while leaving the bad alone. It is about finding the place you want to live and the place you want to visit yet more over, it is about finding peace within yourself. Sometimes, when you would never expect it, those lessons come in the form of homesickness.

If winter is slumber and spring is birth, and summer is life, then autumn rounds out to be reflection. It’s a time of year when the leaves are down and the harvest is in and the perennials are gone. Mother Earth just closed up the drapes on another year and it’s time to reflect on what’s come before.

Mitchell Burgess, Northern Exposure, Thanksgiving, 1992

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.

P. D. James

www.rhiannonwaits.com