Pay them their goddamn money.
September 8, 2015 1:21 PM   Subscribe

Broke: A moving essay about poverty, fairness, and college football.
posted by rouftop (29 comments total) 33 users marked this as a favorite
 
Spencer Hall remains one of my favorite human beings. He's both the conscience of college football and creator of Hatin' Ass Spurrier.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:33 PM on September 8, 2015 [6 favorites]


SBNation makes me almost care about football.

(That is a compliment.)
posted by maryr at 1:54 PM on September 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


Holy shit. I had to stop reading. Far too much of my own childhood in that story. We were poor and uneducated. That we treat college athletes this way is pure greed & bullshit.
posted by evilDoug at 2:20 PM on September 8, 2015


The United States of America: pure greed & bullshit.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 2:24 PM on September 8, 2015 [10 favorites]


I have stopped watching NFL and NCAA.

I wrote, badly, about this as a reminder to myself here.

NFL because of concussions. And NCAA because I think it is inherently unfair and racist. I call it racist with some trepidation, but read my bloated rant on my personal blog and tell me why I am wrong.
posted by indianbadger1 at 2:48 PM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


This is a fantastic article.
posted by wintermind at 4:12 PM on September 8, 2015


Everything about this article, but especially this:
Fifty-two percent of all incoming freshmen in football believe it is likely that they will make it to the NFL. [...] The actual number to make it to the NFL is something like 2 percent.
posted by epersonae at 4:37 PM on September 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


That was a great read. The descriptions of being broke - not out-on-the-street-poor, but just broke - really hit home. And this:

"If someone would like to start a policy argument about a contraband economy with the words, "If we just did what we were supposed to," toss them in the nearest well and seal it. They understand nothing about humanity and will get someone killed sooner rather than later."

Yeah.
posted by hackwolf at 4:47 PM on September 8, 2015 [3 favorites]


And while we're on the subject, pieces like this one need to go die in a fire. I find this mentality of the "purity" of higher education to be incredibly problematic (to put it mildly) for a number of reasons.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:05 PM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


This is a great article.

Note: I can't explain what it is, but something in you, once you're convinced of your own brokeness, believes in nothing but that. I didn't have a fraction of what real, survival-level, street poverty inflicted on people -- the real physical danger, the effects on health and cognitive development, the lifelong scars -- but I did and always will have the sense of being totally and completely alien from the concept of security, of stability, of deserving anything.

I don't know much about football, but this? This I know.
posted by triggerfinger at 5:10 PM on September 8, 2015 [7 favorites]


QFT: I did and always will have the sense of being totally and completely alien from the concept of security, of stability, of deserving anything.

This excerpt gutted me; it's my stable state.
posted by carmicha at 5:11 PM on September 8, 2015 [5 favorites]


See also. Unsure of source. Even those that make it to the pro's are unlikely to survive more than three years.
posted by rouftop at 7:09 PM on September 8, 2015 [3 favorites]


I appreciated him sharing his personal story, so much so that I really wish this has been broken into two essays. He does a great job of capturing what it's like growing up without financial stability.

On the football side, I didn't understand what exactly he's asking for, nor find it all that persuasive. I wish it had been an article about making income go up across the board -- raising minimum wage for everyone at Wendy's, say. Or about how lots more students deserved to be paid -- what about the students who volunteer at the peer-counseling hotline who are living below the poverty line, while saving the university's mental health system money? Instead, it seems fueled by an angry sense of entitlement that elite ball players didn't get the riches that were coming to them. I don't personally find that aspect of the essay very compelling. Maybe I'm missing something?
posted by salvia at 8:42 PM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


Maybe I'm missing something?

There are billions of dollars being made in marquee college sports, on the backs of the players. And yet the whole system is structured so that they are only allowed to receive a small fraction of that money, in the name of "amateurism" and "competitive balance". Hell, unlike your volunteer at the crisis hotline, these players can't even go out and get a side job to help support themselves. And if they get injured, or a coach finds a new hot player, well...sucks to be you, kid. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

It's an absolutely fucked up system, designed to completely exploit these kids, justifying it by saying that they receive an education that is routinely compromised in the name of the real reason they're there - sports.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:55 PM on September 8, 2015 [9 favorites]


I agree completely with everything he wants, and I also don't see it ever happening the way he wants.

I think sometimes, maybe if the players refused to play. Maybe. And with social media, perhaps it could be organized.

Even if just one Saturday every team just sat down around the 50 yard line and refused to play. Just once.

But, in reality, the fallout would likely be catastrophic and would ruin lives, and it's hard to ask an 18 year old kid to take that on.
posted by imabanana at 11:57 PM on September 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


This is so, so good, I'm already missing a train because I read it (and wanted to comment here) but sod it, there'll be other trains.
posted by Gin and Broadband at 12:04 AM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


. Sense of entitlement that elite ball players didn't get the riches that were coming to them

Riches? How about the chance to take their chosen classes towards the college education that they were all promised? How about enough money to eat properly while they work an intense physical job? How about a commitment that breaking their leg won't get them thrown out of college? I think you're missing a lot, and possibly the article doesn't do a great job of explaining exactly how badly off many college players are - but you seem to have skipped over even what he did write.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 2:17 AM on September 9, 2015 [8 favorites]


Damn. I love Spencer Hall, and I hate the NCAA system with a firey passion, but I had to stop reading. I read this "I remember asking for things and that flash coming over the faces of my parents, a kind of shift behind the eyes and slackening of the face I confused for anger at my greedy, elementary school-aged self." and I realized that it's a face I have probably shown my daughter from time to time, and tears came to my eyes. We aren't broke - we aren't even poor, though we've been close a time or two - and I'm sure even Rockefeller parents feel a twinge of guilt that they can't get their kid the solid gold carousel they asked for, but damn. Maybe I'll come back to it later.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:54 AM on September 9, 2015


I agree completely with everything he wants, and I also don't see it ever happening the way he wants.

Well, this is the reason that I support Jeff Kessler (and his absolute schooling of the NFL in New York has to have the folks in Indianapolis feeling scared). If he succeeds in getting a ruling that the NFL is a wage fixing cartel (and with guys like Tommy Tuberville handing him ammo, is looking more like when), then the whole rotten edifice comes crumbling down - because without the enforcement, the NCAA has nothing.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:30 AM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


imabanana: "I agree completely with everything he wants, and I also don't see it ever happening the way he wants."

I think there are a couple things he alludes to that I could see happening. 1) Some kind of scholarship reform where players are guaranteed a long enough scholarship to complete their degree if they wish, even if they get injured/cut. 2) Some kind of rational transfer rules. 3) Increases/reforms to the new Cost Of Attendance payments that are included in scholarships. And 4) some kind of trust/escrow situation, funded primarily through merchandise sales and TV revenue, that gives players a cut of that money once they graduate or otherwise complete their college playing career.

I mean, the system is always going to be rife with corruption and exploitation (because capitalism), but I think we are rapidly approaching a point where the NCAA sees that it is at risk of being dismantled, and is willing to make things somewhat better for the players, rather than completely kill the golden goose.
posted by Rock Steady at 9:10 AM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I mean, the system is always going to be rife with corruption and exploitation (because capitalism), but I think we are rapidly approaching a point where the NCAA sees that it is at risk of being dismantled, and is willing to make things somewhat better for the players, rather than completely kill the golden goose.

Sadly, I think you're very much off - the NCAA will ride this puppy into the ground Slim Pickins style. It took losing at court in O'Bannon before they would even allow the incredibly meager cost of attendance stipends.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:49 AM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


How about the chance to take their chosen classes towards the college education that they were all promised?

Nobody puts a gun to their head and makes them choose Travel & Leisure, rocks for jocks, or public administration, or any of the other lame-ass majors that has 'scholarship athlete' written all over it. Real majors require actual academic work getting done.

How about enough money to eat properly while they work an intense physical job?

Welcome to student loans! Many of us had to use these to pay for both eating and going to school! Nothing like paying amortized interest on your microwave burrito.

How about a commitment that breaking their leg won't get them thrown out of college?

That is called the risk they assume when play football. That's at least one part of football that resembles the real world. You are of no value to any team if you can't do your job. And it won't get them thrown out of college. It places the burden of paying for college on them rather than their team. An injury they can't recover from makes them a bad investment.
posted by prepmonkey at 10:24 AM on September 9, 2015


Nobody puts a gun to their head and makes them choose...

Members of the athletic staff deal with student-athletes every day and have total unfettered power to cut them from the team and therefore end their scholarship. The athletic staff's priority is going to drift toward "You shouldn't be spending time on homework that you could be spending at the gym*, so why don't you take General Studies instead of Biomedical Engineering?"

Welcome to student loans! Many of us had to use these to pay for both eating and going to school!

Just because things are shitty for a lot of people doesn't mean they should be shitty for everyone. Especially people who actually make the school more money than the average recipient of student loans.

That is called the risk they assume when play football.... An injury they can't recover from makes them a bad investment.

Personally, I'd rather universities don't think of students or athletes as "investments".

* -- For "voluntary workouts", of course.
posted by Etrigan at 10:41 AM on September 9, 2015 [6 favorites]


Nobody puts a gun to their head and makes them choose Travel & Leisure, rocks for jocks, or public administration, or any of the other lame-ass majors that has 'scholarship athlete' written all over it. Real majors require actual academic work getting done.

It's nice of you to demonstrate that you are ignorant of the matter right out of the gate. Because numerous college athletes have repeatedly testified that their coaches have threatened them with pulling their scholarship if the athlete chose a rigorous major that could potentially interfere with their duties on the field.

By the way, some other things you may not have known:

* Unlike you, college athletes cannot get part time jobs to supplement their income, thanks to strict NCAA regulations on supplementary income.

* College athletes can lose their scholarships through no fault of their own. Many schools only offer athletes year to year scholarships, allowing them to dismiss players in favor of hot prospects. (It isn't exactly coincidence that the decline of the SEC coincided with the conference cracking down on over recruiting.)

* Once again, marquee college athletics is a multibillion dollar business, yet the people whose labor it's all built on receive, even when counting the cost of scholarships, a very minute portion of that revenue. How is that fair?
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:43 AM on September 9, 2015 [9 favorites]


nobody puts a gun to their head and makes them choose Travel & Leisure, rocks for jocks, or public administration, or any of the other lame-ass majors that has 'scholarship athlete' written all over it. Real majors require actual academic work getting done

Worthwhile debate requires reading the material everyone else is responding to, as a bare minimum. Come back when you know why I think you haven't read the article.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 5:02 PM on September 9, 2015


Argh, I've started and then lost (to a phone glitch) a long comment three times now. I may get the will to add more later, but for now, I'll just say that I've learned a lot from this thread that I didn't learn from reading the actual article. I thought a lot of what he described was his experience or his view (especially since I knew college football players whose coaches encouraged them to major in useful majors and take hard courses). Learning that players are pressured or formally not allowed to take the classes they want and work side jobs (as opposed to just putting their priorities elsewhere) is persuasive. One of my frustrations was that the essay didn't have a lot of the evidence and analysis that would persuade me, but apparently, a lot of that is widely available already.

What the essay does do very well is describe how income insecurity is fundamentally harmful to people, permanently changing their sense of self. That's the other reason I found the essay frustrating. He so powerfully describes an ongoing tragedy being suffered by at least 50 million US residents, then proposes a solution that would help only a tiny fraction of that. Since the crux of his argument really seemed to be that poverty is something that nobody should have to experience, I kept wondering why he would then focus in on paying football players as the solution. (I still don't understand, given that they are crucial to the profitable effort that is college ball, why players can't negotiate better stipends as things stand currently, and whether that would need to change school by school or via the NCAA -- but again, maybe this is obvious to a lot of people.)

But now I kinda get that there's a big ongoing media conversation about paying football players, and he's sharing his story and gathering together the reasons into a sort of impressionistic presentation of the evidence. That makes more sense.
posted by salvia at 10:14 PM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Up next to repeat the same tired platitudes about "amateurism": the president of Notre Dame.

The president rejects the notion that Notre Dame is morally obliged to share its football revenue with those playing the game. “I don’t think there’s a compulsion or some demand of justice that we do it,” he says.

His position — his North Star, he calls it — may be dismissed by some as trite, even convenient, but here it is: Notre Dame is an educational institution, and athletics, while diverting and instructive in its own right, is meant to serve the educational purpose.


I do like the response to that, though:

Here’s a good way for Jenkins to prove his honesty: he can go right ahead and enact all of the hypotheticals he laid out to the Times. If he truly believes that football should not take precedence over education, that the university would be just fine without its TV contract and Under Armor sponsorship, and that money only cheapens college football, he can go right ahead and opt out of the machine. Nobody is stopping him from turning Notre Dame football into a club sport that doesn’t produce millions of dollars in revenue but does improve the educational experience of students who just want to get some physical activity while they learn about Aquinas and physics. If he doesn’t, it must be either because he doesn’t really want to, or he’s afraid to act on his convictions. Who can tell which it is?
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:22 AM on September 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


You have to feel for the guy. Being the head of the most famous Catholic school in the country (if not the world) -- the absolute top of his career mountain -- and knowing damn well that the only reason it is that way is because of football probably hurts a lot, deep down inside.
posted by Etrigan at 11:36 AM on September 10, 2015


You have to feel for the guy. Being the head of the most famous Catholic school in the country (if not the world) -- the absolute top of his career mountain -- and knowing damn well that the only reason it is that way is because of football probably hurts a lot, deep down inside.

And then he spouts the same tired, discredited bullshit about why it is good and just to exploit athletes, and all my sympathy vanishes.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:39 AM on September 10, 2015


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