Congress passed legislation this past Thursday to make it harderfor sports agents to show amateur athletes the money, but thisisn’t necessarily a good thing.
There are already laws in some states to protect amateurathletes, but two new stipulations were adopted by Congress,according to the Associated Press.
The first requirement is the agent can’t give false ormisleading information to an amateur athlete or give the athlete orhis family gifts of value before a contract is signed.
No problem here.
This protects amateurs from those agent sharks, who aren’tlooking out for the best interest of a 20-year-old college student.This might have protected former LSU defensive end Marquise Hill,who had contact with an agent last year and lost his amateurstatus. Lucky for him, the NFL needs plenty of defensivelinemen.
The problem comes with the second requirement. The agent musttell the athlete he could lose NCAA eligibility after signing thecontract and the agent must notify the school’s athleticsdirector of the contract to prevent the school from playing anineligible athlete.
This regulation has good intentions Tennessee Rep. Bart Gordontold the AP it is intended to keep agents from “possiblyruining a chance” for amateurs “to compete on thecollege level and get a degree.”
The regulations aren’t set up to let athletics directorscontrol an agent’s contact with players. But it could beexpected that ADs will manipulate this system in the future.
The AD’s paycheck depends on the success of theuniversity’s athletic teams. So why wouldn’t he try tokeep star athletes from turning pro early?
A simple answer most ADs use is that they are providing acollege education for their student-athletes. If it wasn’tfor the football program, these poor kids wouldn’t have ashot at getting a higher education and developing into awell-rounded person.
That may happen as a result of being a college athlete. But theADs won’t tell you the real motivation for recruitingathletes — the revenue.
LSU and other major universities across the nation want theirteams to be featured on television as much as possible to increasethe bottom line. And if a team wins a national championship —like the LSU football team did last season — then they rakein even more dough.
If university athletic departments really want to helpunfortunate people, then go into the inner city and give fullscholarships to 85 kids, who have no shot at receiving a highereducation otherwise.
Possibly limiting agent contacts with college athletesisn’t consistent with the opportunities other students have,and it’s all for the sake of the corporate university.