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By Eric Horchy | The Suncoast News

Published: May 3, 2008

To pay or not to pay, that is the question.

Every year, this is one of the many hot-button issues that arise when the upcoming grandeur of college football slowly approaches: Should student-athletes be compensated for their efforts on the field?

It's a topic that often seems as divisive as it is intriguing. Go online and broadly search 'Paying College Athletes.' Hundreds of articles, studies, term papers and message board comments endlessly appear.

Upon milling through quite a few of these entries coming from a multitude of outlets, (SI.com, NPR.org, Collegenet.com, etc.), I remain steadfast in my belief that initiating a paid-to-play system is both unnecessary and unwise.

The crux of my argument always has been, and still is, the yet-to-be-wavered reality that student-athletes ARE already being paid. They have been for years. It's called free, or nearly free, tuition to an elite institution of higher learning. Factor in if the player is pulled from out of state, and you're talking $30,000-50,000 per year, easy.

Maybe I'm just dense, but that alone is a good deal in my book. Thousands of kids and families would do more than you probably care to know for an opportunity like that.

Typically the antithesis to this, if I must say rock-solid foundation of an argument, is the current big-business landscape that college football operates within. It's a multi-billion dollar industry with revenue flowing into athletic department coffers from all angles and in between. Because of these hand-over-fist profits, many view the issue as nothing short of blatant exploitation. The athletes lay it all on the line for the name on the front of the jersey, yet the name on the back is repeatedly denied the fruits of its labor.

Honestly, that makes perfect sense, too – so long as you deny the previous fact that paying one's tuition is a form of compensation. Likenesses of star athletes are used everywhere from marketing campaigns to merchandise sales.

But is this sort of exploitation, as it is often painted in many debates, a one-way street?

Do star student-athletes ever 'exploit' their status as BMOC's? Are they not given near-celebrity status because of who they happen to play for?

Those are enormous perks that pay dividends in a variety of ways, both in the present and future. I went to a major university and saw firsthand what 'ways' those were at times.

Keep in mind that I've only touched on college football players. Basketball generates boat-loads of cash; therefore its players would need stipends as well.

Then what about the other athletes? Go to Minnesota, Michigan, New England – these areas are hockey-crazed. The revenue may trickle in like a small backyard stream compared to the Amazonian surge football and basketball generates, but it's conceptually the same principle. That's only one example. Where is the proverbial line in the sand drawn?

Another pro-pay thought is that doling out funds to student-athletes will alleviate the allure of receiving illegal, outside – or inside – monies and gifts.

Maybe I'm crazy, but these "gifts" we sometimes hear about – and often do not hear of – can range in the thousands of dollars. Somehow I don't think the cash athletes would receive under any NCAA-sponsored program would be enough to offer the financial flexibility of rolling around in Escalades and Hummers – allegedly. To think big-time college boosters that work this way will just discontinue the practice is quite utopistic.

Maybe it's a defeatist's outlook I hold that views the pro-pay approach as one that would simply generate more problems than solutions. That may be true.

But given NCAA higher-ups' and conference leaders' recent track record on solving other contentious matters-of-the-moment, I think I'd rather just let it be.

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