Purdue Athletes Sign Petition To Get Money

The Boiling Point: Purdue athletes sign a petition to put pressure on NCAA for pay.

Yesterday an article came out from the Associated Press that a petition was signed by more than 300 athletes from basketball and football to put pressure on the NCAA to get money for playing. The athletes are from Arizona, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Purdue, and UCLA. Not gonna lie, I was surprised to see Purdue named since it seems like they are never involved with stuff like this. Below is the part where Purdue is mentioned:

"Purdue athletic director Morgan Burke, a member of the NCAA Division I Leadership Council, cautioned that economic realities could make it difficult for schools that don’t profit from sports to come up with extra money for athletes, whether to cover scholarship shortfalls or the proposed lock-box fund. He noted that fewer than two dozen of the more than 300 Division I schools turned an annual profit, according to the most recent figures.“Without identifying a funding mechanism, it is hard to see how many of these schools would be able to pay this added amount, which – depending upon the number of student-athletes – could approximate $1 million a year,” Burke said.Burke noted that athletes with limited family incomes are often eligible to receive need-based federal Pell Grants, while the NCAA also administers an emergency expense fund that athletes can apply for. Burke said he had not seen a copy of the petition.Purdue quarterback Rob Henry, who persuaded more than 70 teammates to sign the petition, said that the assertion that college athletes should be grateful for receiving a mostly-free education is misplaced. He called the player demands a matter of simple fairness.“Without the athletes, there are no Division I sports,” he said. “There are no TV contracts, there are no coaches’ contracts. Athletes should be the number one priority.”"

The following is commentary from myself and doesn’t necessarily reflect the opinion of the other writers for The Boiling Points:

I get why athletes think they should be paid and I understand why and what they bring to the University. However, paying athletes will never work. As Burke said above, the majority of schools can’t even do it in the first place, and second I don’t see schools agreeing to pay athletes of some sports but not the others. If it is agreed to pay just basketball and football players you really think that will fly with the non-revenue sports? I agree players should get some money IF it is done right. There has to be regulations in place or when does it stop? The NCAA is debating right now to give each athlete $2,000. How long until the athletes want more than that? Pro sports are going through a lockout, does that happen at the college level next? As men’s basketball coach Matt Painter has said, players don’t need money to buy more Timberlands.

Now to get to Rob Henry. Oh Rob, how arrogant you sound in that quote. Especially for someone who is viewed as a leader, if not the main leader, of the football team. No offense but whether Henry was playing or not Purdue wasn’t going to get more money from TV contracts. He’s an out-of-state student, so he’s already getting close to $40,000yr to attend Purdue. There are thousands of students out there, some at lower division football, who would gladly take the chance to play for a Big Ten football team for free. Some of them are on Purdue right now, such as Crosby Wright. Maybe Rob should go up to them and tell them he wants more money after already getting $40k, while they are in the same situation he is where they can’t work really, but have to pay for everything.

At Purdue if there was a list of teams that should NOT be paid, football would be on it based on their performance lately. Actually, out of all the sports at Purdue, women’s golf has the best case for being paid since they’ve done the most recently at the national level. Sorry Rob, at the end of the day athletes aren’t the number one priority. You’re at an ACADEMIC institution.

If athletes do end up getting paid hopefully it doesn’t end up like in the video below(Explicit Warning). Unless you go to Miami of course where they have a head start.