Small universities betray student-athletes for cash
Every year hundreds, maybe even thousands of college athletes, are thrown under the bus for nothing other than money.
I’m talking about small-school athletics and how they purposely schedule their teams against obviously dominant opponents.
The recent demolishing NDSU put on Concordia-St. Paul is a prime example of athletic directors betraying their athletes for a guaranteed amount of money.
Do these athletic directors enjoy watching their teams get crushed? Do they enjoy the embarrassment and ridicule inflicted upon the school and the players?
They put their athletes through this for what, a few thousand dollars? Can you really put a price on pride?
I understand that some of these small programs need the money for new facilities and such.
But wow, how can they expect to recruit competitive players when they schedule one or two guaranteed losses a year?
This is especially true in football, where there are so few games to begin with. Scheduling a superior team in basketball is nowhere near as suicidal as football.
Basketball is the type of sport where an inferior team can get hot and beat the best team in the world.
That’s why so many upsets are seen in the NCAA tournament.
Players want to win. If athletic directors think players don’t mind being embarrassed for a chunk of change, then they are terribly mistaken.
Will the players see that money?
Well, maybe they’ll stay at the Motel 6 instead of the BudgetHost Inn on the next road trip.
I hardly doubt that’s worth the 66-7 beating they just received in front of 15,000 witnesses.
Obviously one would think athletic directors owe it to their players to schedule a competitive game.
Columnists' opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of The Spectrum