Pope Center Poll: Should College Athletes Be Paid? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The John William Pope Center for Education Policy provides a treasure trove of information suggesting the better path forward in regards to North Carolina's number one issue - public education. Public education, at all levels, requires a significant amount of funding from our state government, and all one hundred North Carolina counties, so it is essential that leaders effecting education policy get it right, and know that concerned entities, like the John William Pope Center, will be minding their progress to do so. We welcome the John William Pope Center for Education Policy to our growing readership, and expect our readers to learn all they can to do their part in this wise endeavor to better educate our People.

    The author of this post is Jesse Saffron.

    Tell us where you stand on the issue of player compensation.

    Major college sports like football and basketball produce revenue streams in the billions. In recent years, the NCAA, powerhouse conferences, teams, television stations, and coaches have profited at an unprecedented rate. In North Carolina, for example, the highest-paid public official is not Governor McCrory, or the president of the UNC system, Tom Ross, but Roy Williams, the head basketball coach at UNC-Chapel Hill.

    Behind the scenes, a bleak picture comes into view. At some schools, academic fraud and recruiting impropriety have damaged the reputations of not just players, but professors, administrators, and even entire conferences. Sports agents have been indicted and imprisoned for "under the table" payments to would-be superstar athletes.

    As these and other problems have become increasingly prominent - new athletic scandals and dramatic headlines seem to pop up more often than not - commentators, concerned athletes, and spectators have begun pointing at the entrenched institutions that have molded the college sports spectacle into its current form.

    Some question the rules and procedures of the National College Athletic Association. Some doubt the appropriateness of maintaining amateurism. And others blame administrators' attitude of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" that has turned otherwise well-intentioned people into nefarious co-conspirators in a never-ending movie, one with all of the standard Hollywood vices: drugs, money, and power.

    Here at the Pope Center, we seek to engage in these important debates in a way that addresses big-time college sports' fundamental problems. Does a solution lie in a return to amateurism? Or perhaps the best solution will require "professionalizing" athletes in revenue-generating sports, allowing them to earn monetary compensation, advertising contracts, etc. For others, keeping the system the way it is sounds more appropriate.

    We already know what the talking heads are thinking. What do you think?


Click here to view the poll.