UK and UL

Credit where due:

Bevin: “I think we should pay college athletes…they’ve not like normal students & we shouldn’t pretend like they are… deferred payments”

— Joe Sonka 😐 (@joesonka) October 3, 2017

More here.

“I think we should pay college athletes,” said Bevin. “I really do. This idea that they’re not professionals is nonsense.”

Defending his position that college athletes should be compensated, Bevin said: “They’re not there like normal students and we shouldn’t pretend that they are. Some of them, yes, go to class, but most of them are students differently because they’re there for athletics and not academics.”

As for how they should be paid, Bevin added, “I think we should maybe defer that comp — fair enough, they can defer it – but they and their families should be able to benefit from the sacrifices they make.” Bevin added that everyone else associated with college athletics is getting rich, except for the players who made all of this possible.

“The coaches are making millions of dollars a year,” said Bevin. “Shoe contracts are dictating what happens on our college campuses. Athletics directors and others associated with it that are making exorbitant fees. I don’t begrudge people making a high living. Good for them, and I mean that sincerely. But if that comes at the expense of those that are delivering the athletic prowess on the field, then maybe we should rethink the fact that this is really like the minor leagues for the professional sports associations, and they should be compensated and treated accordingly.”

It’s not all that surprising, I think, that it’s Bevin who’s coming out with this; both Louisville and Kentucky field basketball teams that are immensely popular across the state (the latter more than the former, obviously), and both have developed… complicated methods of managing the conflict inherent in the student-athlete construct. To my mind, and I hope that this is not taken simply as institutional bias, I think that Calipari’s approach to recruiting and team management is altogether more healthy and above-board than the alternative, but I digress.  Bevin is also notable for his contempt for anything that goes much beyond vocational training at the college level, so it’s not as if he’s the sort to be all that sentimental about the “student” part of the equation.

In short, the genuine lack of merit of the speaker notwithstanding, we need more elected officials making this kind of argument. And given the GOP lean of college basketball and college football fandoms, it’s very important to see Republicans on the right side of the question.