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Tuesday, January 20, 1998
Big 12 coaches: Letting athletes work sounds
good in principle
By DOUG TUCKER AP Sports Writer
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Everybody agrees college athletes deserve
a little spending money.
After all, the young athletes generate hundreds of millions
every year through their skill and hustle, but the schools and
the NCAA keep every nickel, minus the cost of a scholarship which
the NCAA admits does not cover the full cost of attendance.
But allowing athletes to hold part-time jobs will create even
greater problems in the opinion of most Big 12 coaches.
"I have mixed feelings about it," said Roy Williams
of third-ranked Kansas. "I think they should have the opportunity
to become more like normal students. But the fact is the time
demands on them are so great in men's basketball. It's going to
be difficult on them to find time for a job. It's the idealistic
approach, but in reality I think it's going to be very difficult
to handle."
It also could be difficult to administer and monitor. Does
anybody believe some schools and boosters won't violate the rule
and pay for work that isn't done?
"How do we monitor it?" asked Oklahoma coach Kelvin
Sampson. "In the NCAA, we have a hard time enforcing the
rules we have. We're opening a can of worms. I'm all for rules
we can manage. My question is this - is this going to have an
effect on your recruiting in certain situations? Then we've created
more problems. Instead of this I would probably be more in favor
of coming up with some equitable stipend each kid can get."
NCAA officials and school presidents fear that giving a stipend
would leave them vulnerable to the touchy issue of player compensation.
Give them $100 a month now, and won't they demand $200 a month
later?
"I'm sure that's part of it," agreed Sampson.
The NCAA board of directors is expected to come out in April
with some kind of rule allowing athletes to hold part-time jobs,
starting next Aug. 1.
But the anxiety over how to ride herd on the jobs says something
about the state of college athletics, said Texas coach Tom Penders.
"It shows people don't trust anybody'" Penders said.
"It would be a lot easier to set up a work-study program
at each school where kids get paid a maximum or minimum and get
what they used to call laundry money when I was in school."
The $15 monthly allowance athletes got in the 1960s was long
ago outlawed by the NCAA.
"Now with all the millions of dollars they bring in, I
can't understand why kids don't get that kind of stipend,"
Penders said. "When they came out and said NCAA scholarships
... are about $1,500 short of (the cost of) a full scholarship,
I think they admitted something there.
"They admitted that an athletic grant-in-aid is not in
fact a full scholarship. I don't think you'll find a coach in
the country who would be against players getting a full scholarship."
"It's great in theory. It's not workable," said Kansas
State coach Tom Asbury. "These guys do not have time to be
student-athletes and hold down a job. Something's going to suffer.
There are two things that won't suffer - basketball and their
jobs. So what's left to suffer? It's going to be their academics."
On another point, Asbury is still fuming about being the only
Big 12 school scheduled to host a game this Sunday. At just about
the same time the Super Bowl starts in San Diego, the Wildcats
will tip off against Colorado.
"It's stupid to have a game this Sunday," Asbury
said. "Normally, I don't care that much about a Sunday game.
But to play a game this Sunday is ludicrous. It's a home game
for us and we're not going to draw flies."
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