MIAMI — With all due respect to the hard-working NCAA employees who insist they are trying to protect college athletes and do what is best for intercollegiate athletics, it’s time to remove the fig leaf.
It’s time to end the charade and stop pretending college athletes are “amateurs” who should be governed by arcane, archaic recruiting rules that no longer apply in the era of name, image and likeness, when student athletes are allowed to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions, by profiting off their personal brands.
The NCAA was founded in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt after a public outcry to clean up or abolish college football because gang tackling and schools filling rosters with non-students led to 18 deaths and more than 150 serious injuries on the field the previous season.
