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Smash Articles
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NFL/NCAA
It is quite obvious that the NFL is using college football as a minor league system to evaluate potential talent for the NFL draft where that system works quite nicely for the NCAA in that they do not have to pay athletes directly for their athletic services. Instead the collegiate athlete is provided with room, board and an athletic scholarship, which is great for athletes that will never make it in the NFL. However, it is the elite athletes that are not properly protected where the NFL needs to take a stand for the rights of these players. The NFL needs to protect the future of these NCAA's elite college football athletes by making the NCAA stand by their commitment to their education. It is hypocritical of the NCAA ... and all of it's universities ... to commit to providing an education by scholarship, rather than to provide payment of to it's athletes ... only to rip that commitment from it's athletes after services were rendered. In other words, the universities commitment must be made to survive the brief nature of any and all athletic football careers. It is a fact that only a small percentage of all collegiate athletes are drafted or make it in the NFL. It is also a fact that the bulk of these universities are making a fortune off these elite athletes, where that athlete is treated just like any other student within their academic system ... and that is heinously wrong. If we learned anything from Alan Page, the future of every athlete is based upon what they have both learned and achieved ... which is a far cry from the number of athletes that end up either bankrupt or destitute. These football players must be allowed the ability or reaping what they were originally promised, in lieu of pay, if their world turns upside-down. To abandon them, like their talents ... fleeting-in-time ... is a double whammy that no man should be made to endure. What kind of men would do something so incredibly wrong? It is as old as time ... give a man a fish and he eats for a day ... teach a man to fish and he eats for a life time. The NFL doesn't have to stand by idly ... it can champion a new future. Presently, no athlete can enter the NFL until that athletes class has entered their junior year in college. Somehow the NFL comes off as somehow being superior in their stance on this eligibility as players are admitted within baseball directly after completing high school. To be direct, these athletes are way too young to be able to make decisions in regard to their futures. Well of course, the NFL points to the money without facing up to the fact that A FOOL and HIS MONEY ... ARE SOON PARTED. It is here that the NFL must insist that the NCAA should provide a much wider safety net for it's elite athletes. Let's take a real life situation and examine it. A sophomore completes his college football season where millions of dollars are flashed before his eyes. He declares for the NFL draft. Exactly at that moment the NCAA cuts all of it's ties and commitments to that athlete ... and that should not be allowed under any circumstance. The following stance should be taken by the NFL against the practices of the NCAA and it's system of universities where these issues should be immediately championed by the NFL to protect the interest of it's players as well as to enhance the integrity of the present system between the NFL and the NCAA. These rules shall apply to any prior scholarship football athlete that is either drafted by the NFL or has obtained 3 years of service within the NFL, where these athletes are to be considered vested athletes:
1. The financial commitment for an athletic scholarship, including room and
board, shall survive any drafted or vested NFL player throughout his lifetime as long as
that student maintains a C average or maintains the appropriate grade point
average of an athlete at the university that he attends. |
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