It won't get you any bling-bling, but I think you'll survive

I heard something that kinda go me thinking on the way home from work today. I was listening to 97.1 and the D&D show and they were asking if people thought that college athletes should be paid. They were focusing on Big Ten type schools that make millions of dollars off of their sports teams, like basketball and football, from things like shoe deals and players jersey's. You know, if they're making all the money off of the players shouldn't they get a cut of it. Not anything too extravagant, but somthing to live on since many players can't have part-time jobs. Some coaches get millions while the players get only a scholarship.

At first I was all for this idea. The marching band at Eastern gets a little stipend, so why not give the players some money to live on. This was until a guy who played football for U of M in 1994 called in. He talked about how they could not have part time jobs and that the stipend that they get is not enough to live on. I was agreeing with him until he said that the stipend was between $700-800 a month. Ok, wait a minute, how is that not enough to live on? I know that if I got a part-time job with being a full time student at some place, say in the mall for example, I would not be making $700-800 a month. Why do they need a ton more than that. I understand saying that they should share in what they helped to make, but not if you're saying that they don't have money to live on. I imagine most smaller schools, like Eastern, don't give their players this much, but I really don't think that you would need more than that. You might have to budget a bit, get a person to share an apartment with, but come on. Don't give me a story about you can't get a part time job during the season when you make more with your stipend than you would if you were a regular full-time college student with a job.

I'm getting off my soap-box now.