The title of this article sound like the ingredients for one of those college football movies that hit the box offices every two years or so, telling the grueling story of a band of young man fighting to make it to the top of their sport. Some do it for glory, others for fame, others for their love of the sport and other for money.
Players, coaches, fans, are all part of the multibillion dollar circus (show business, if you might get offended by this) that we have come to known as Division I collegiate sports. Yes, these are amateur players. Yes, these guys don’t make a dime out of the whole thing. Sure, they get a free education and technically these players are called student-athletes, or participants of the most selective and effusive training camp programs. These student athletes’ academic performance is most of the times inversely proportionate to their success on the field. And it’s not a big deal because, heck, they might eventually make it into the pros where multimillion-dollar contracts will be waiting for them.
In college football, in college basketball, everybody makes money, except for the players. And everybody seems to be fine with this. Well, most everybody. That’s perhaps why this whole Ohio State Buckeyes scandal takes a whole new distinct dimension. What sparks me as the most interesting aspect of how this whole thing went down is that it was not because of the NCAA that the scandal surfaced.
Let’s follow the story of one particular tattoo parlor owner, Edward Rife, who had a lucrative side business selling hundreds of pounds of marijuana in Columbus. Let’s consider for a moment that Rife’s guilty plea to drug trafficking and money laundering charges might have gone unnoticed had federal investigators not stumbled on another of Rife’s sidelines. And this is where it all get’s interesting from our point of view. It so happens that not only was Rife a talented drug dealer, but he also was a die-hard fan of the Buckeyes. The federal investigators discovered that he had been buying Ohio State memorabilia from football players or giving them discounts on tattoos for the items.
On a press release given out earlier today, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Kelley said the government is not assisting with either the NCAA or Ohio State investigations. But sure enough, it was this federal investigation that got all this started. If anyone was wondering, Kelley also said there was no evidence Ohio State players were involved in the marijuana operation.
There are still plenty of issues that have to be taken into consideration by the NCAA. Some believe that it is now time to start paying the players something in exchange for their talents. Some consider that getting a free education shouldn’t be enough to cover the risks that these young men undergo on every game. It is possible that all of this issues could be solved soon. But its not likely. The NCAA stands firm behind their position: college sports should stay on an amateur level. The main problem here is that the only ones expected to do something out of love are the players, everybody else is making a profit out of the most popular sporting events in the United States.
:Edward Rife, Football college tatoos, NCAA Football, Ohio StateLeave a ReplyClick here to cancel reply.
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