With universities across the country enduring football seasons dipped with controversy, administrators spent Monday brainstorming policies and values that should lead college athletics into the future.
LSU Chancellor Michael Martin joined President of the University of North Carolina Thomas Ross and President of Boise State University Robert Kustra at this year’s Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics in Washington, D.C.
The Commission is designed to promote ethics and academic values in athletics, which Martin has been discussing since the beginning of the semester.
NCAA President and former LSU chancellor Mark Emmert proposed increasing grants for student athletes by $2,000 to compensate them for more than tuition, fees, room, board and books, according to the Associated Press. Emmert said the goal is to come closer to the full cost of college attendance.
“This week, I’ll be asking the board to support a proposal to allow conferences — not mandate anyone, but allow conferences, not individual institutions — to increase the value of an athletic grant in aid to more closely approach the full cost of attendance,” Emmert told the Associated Press on Monday.
But Martin told The Daily Reveille earlier this month he opposes paying student athletes.
“I think we treat them pretty well,” Martin said. “Not only do we give them a full scholarship, with some cost-of-living benefits, we put them on a national stage, where if they’re good enough, they get the chance to play in the pros.”
Universities aside from LSU and the University of Nebraska don’t garner enough money to give back to their university, Martin said. He said he’s concerned paying players would bankrupt the athletic foundations of smaller colleges.
While rising athletic costs are a trend among universities spanning the country, Martin has repeatedly emphasized LSU is one of two universities in the country with an athletic department funded separately from academics. That means increasing grants for student- athletes would not pull money from LSU’s academic departments that are already struggling in wake of the state budget crisis.
LSU’s representation in the Knight Commission is vital, Martin said.
“I think it’s important because we have one of the most successful programs in the country, and still many of us have some concerns about the way this whole thing has evolved,” Martin said in an Oct. 12 news release.
 
Sports writer Hunter Paniagua contributed to this report.
 
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Contact Andrea Gallo at [email protected]