They are required to put in long hours of hard work for next to nothing, often in hostile conditions, always under the intense scrutiny of their bosses. They are imported from faraway places, then isolated from the rest of the population and ultimately exploited for their sweat. Migrant farm workers? Child seamstresses for Kathie Lee? No, we're talking here about major college-football players.
Hard as it is for some of us to admit, the Dink-Stover-at-Yale days are over. The ideal notion that a lad should just be grateful for the education he receives in exchange for a few hours of practice and the glory of Saturday afternoon is as dead as the dropkick. Who knows what the time of death was? It might have been when the shoe companies began dropping unmarked bills on coaches to wear their swooshes and stripes. It might have been when NBC decided to pay holier-than-thou Notre Dame $38 million for the exclusive rights to five football seasons. It might have been the day--true story--that a student athlete was asked to get rid of his soda at a press conference sponsored by a different soft-drink company. How is it that Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning gets nothing when a Peyton Manning jersey is sold for $70 in Knoxville? According to Walter Byers, the executive director of the NCAA from 1952 to 1987, "The coaches own the athletes' feet, the colleges own the athletes' bodies, and the supervisors retain the large rewards. That reflects a neoplantation mentality on the campuses that is not appropriate at this time of high dollars."
For Byers to admit that is somewhat akin to Pope John Paul II recanting his stance on women in the priesthood. Byers' recent change of heart, set forth in his book, Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Exploiting College Athletes (University of Michigan Press), came with his realization that "the wheel of fortune is badly unbalanced in favor of the overseers and against the players." His call has been taken up by coaches, administrators, journalists and the athletes themselves. Some of the more radical proponents of change wonder openly about the possibility of a strike on, say, the eve of the championship game in basketball's Final Four.
Student athletes would probably never go that far; they have been programmed to obey, not rebel. The elite ones also have the option of abandoning school before their eligibility expires and signing a pro contract, something they are doing in ever increasing numbers after ever decreasing course hours. That's one of the reasons the NCAA is finally looking into granting intercollegiate athletes, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds, some financial relief. Other reasons are their susceptibility to glad-handing agents and boosters, the alarming number of incidents of petty theft and hostility involving jocks--just check today's sports section--and the isolation of athletes from the rest of the campus. "I would love to see college athletes have a little spending money," says Archie Manning, Peyton's father and a quarterback legend at Ole Miss a quarter-century ago. "I've been outside college dressing rooms, and I'm ready to go to dinner with my family, and I see kids going back to the dorm who can't afford to do anything."