Spurrier: Let coaches pay players a stipend

Whether it's tweaking opposing teams and coaches with colorful barbs or having a state trooper handcuff him during spring practice to illustrate a point, Steve Spurrier certainly knows how to grab center stage.

Now, the Ol' Ball Coach has turned an otherwise insomnia-curing SEC annual meeting into an impassioned forum for one of the biggest debates in college sports.

Spurrier stunned the gathering of coaches, athletic directors and university presidents when he floated a proposal to pay football players a $300-per-game stipend, a direct cash payment that student-athletes could use for food, gas, or tickets and travel expenses so their families could see them play.

And the money wouldn't come from boosters, the conference or the universities. Under the Spurrier plan, coaches would pay their players out of pocket.

"A bunch of us coaches felt so strongly about it that we would be willing to pay it — 70 guys, 300 bucks a game, that's only $21,000 a game," Spurrier said.

The average U.S. household income is just north of $50,000 a year, but the average salary of a head football coach in the SEC is $3 million. A majority of players in any given SEC game come from families on the lower end of the income scale. So why not let coaches share the wealth?

Nick Saban (the highest-paid coach in the SEC at $4 million a year) supports the proposal. Other supporters include:

• Florida coach Will Muschamp (five-year contract worth $13.5 million)


• Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen ($1.5 million annually, the lowest in the conference)


• Tennessee coach Derek Dooley ($1.8 million in his first year at Tennessee, 150 times what his father, Vince, made in his first year as head coach at Georgia)


• LSU coach Les Miles ($3.95 million)


• Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt ($2.8 million)


"It's under $300,000 if you play 14 games," Spurrier said. "For what coaches are making now, we'd all love to do that. I just wish there was a way to give our players a piece of the pie. It's so huge right now. As you know, 50 years ago there wasn't any kind of money, and the players got full scholarships. Now, they're still getting full scholarships, and the money is in the millions. I don't know how to get it done. Hopefully there's a way to get our guys that play football a little piece of the pie."

In addition to the intuitive unfairness of using college kids to raise billions while forbidding them to take a dime, the NCAA also prohibits athletes from taking jobs. Plus, as we learned from the Ohio State fiasco, if a student athlete sells his own stuff, he could run afoul of the rules and face possible suspension. Even selling a used car for more than blue-book value requires an audit by a compliance officer.

The simple argument against this is that athletes get their tuition and room and board for free. They should be thankful for the chance at an education.

But nobody in the real world buys that anymore, especially when assistant coaches make half-a-million a year, and CBS and ESPN pay $3 billion to broadcast SEC games.

Players are glorified indentured servants. The professional sporting leagues have colluded with colleges to make sure high school football and basketball players can't make immediate jumps to the pros, so anyone hoping to build a career in those sports has to abide by draconian and impoverishing NCAA rules.

If a shoe company with billions in annual sales treated its employees the way the NCAA treats its athletes, there would be placard-waving protests and sneaker bonfires.

At least Spurrier is addressing the problem.

"They (athletes) bring in all the money; athletes are the performers," Spurrier said. "I hope something like that will happen in the next few years; just get more money to all the players. . . . Not all schools could do that, and not all coaches could pay it. But that's what we're talking about; just let us coaches pay it. But obviously, it can't go all over the country, so there would be a difference between the big schools and the average-size schools."

What is the likelihood the Ol' Ball Coach's proposal will be taken seriously? About the same as a flock of pigs flying over Jordon-Hare Stadium during the Iron Bowl.

To the surprise of exactly no one, SEC commissioner Mike Slive said, "I don't think (it would pass). It was a gesture by Steve, thinking about student-athlete welfare."

At least somebody is trying to look after the kids. Unfortunately, that's more than can be said for SEC officials or anyone at the NCAA.