I am sure many others have, but let me welcome all nine of my readers back to school (they’re growing exponentially). Exams happened. I learned what evidence is.  Most grades are still a secret. So take a deep breath, make sure the stall door is secure, and let’s settle in for a little sports.

First, we haven’t talked in over a month. I missed you too. The Nationals paid $126 million to watch Jason Werth hit doubles and strike out a lot. The Heat hit their stride. The Giants missed while the 7-9 Seahawks made the playoffs. What a good month.

Second, as always, I will try to discuss a topic you may not see at the usual outlets, or give you a different take on a developing story. Finally, I have to find the focus of the article interesting, and it will hopefully give me an excuse to watch a lot of highlight videos on youtube. Today we’ll talk about paying college football players.

Recently some Ohio State football players, including star quarterback Terrelle Pryor, sold their game jerseys and Big Ten championship rings. They then presumably bought... other stuff. The players have been rewarded with a five game suspension beginning next season. That means were still able to play in the AllState Sugar Bowl on January 4th, 2011. This episode has once again riled up those who wish to pay college athletes.

Now as I understand it, the argument for paying college athletes to play sports is pretty strong. Only two college sports make money: football and men’s basketball.  These two sports often fund all the other athletic programs for a particular university. The other sports are sparsely attended, lack wealthy boosters, and rack up the traveling expenses. Thus, young (and predominantly black) athletes are the platform from which old (and predominantly white) administrators make untold millions for themselves and their universities. This is unfair.

One rebuttal to this proposal would be to point out that these athletes are paid with a free education from any university that will admit them. Unfortunately, that ignores reality. A recent UNC Chapel Hill study proved that playing Division I men’s college basketball makes an athlete 20 percent less likely to graduate–30 percent if they play in a major conference. Furthermore, athletes are encouraged to select “easier” majors like Agriculture and Communications, thus making their degrees less valuable. For instance, to become a teacher or a doctor, students have to take classes that require more time outside the classroom. Football players generally cannot allot that time into their schedules. How else would the players attend the “optional” lifting sessions?

Thus, proponents of paying players more than a scholarship point to the above facts, and, setting the racial element aside, say that the players are used as money making tools. Any rhetoric about the purity of the student-athlete is hypocritical and self-serving when the term “student” is applied so loosely by coaches and university administrators. Young men are punished for the greed of their fathers. Cf. Cam Newton (for now).

The second rebuttal argument is that the NCAA was originally designed for amateurs. Justice Scalia may disagree, but that argument is dumb. The Olympics were also so designed. The Olympics only allowed amateurs to compete until 1992. But the Olympic committee changed. They realized that they were pandering to an outdated aristocratic virtue in a shrinking world where the majority of athletes came from modest means. We had the Dream Team. We have Kenyan marathoners with sponsorships.  We have greater entertainment value. The Olympics live on. The Olympics make money. Life is good. I won’t support a tradition solely for tradition’s sake.

Yet, with all that said, I don’t think you can pay college football players. I haven’t heard anyone else say this, but I think it’s illegal. I think it violates Title IX. Codified at 20 U.S.C. § 1681, it states in relevant part:

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex . . . be denied the benefit of . . . any education program or activity receiving Federal finance assistance.”

I read the above statute to say that if you pay 85 college football players and 13 men’s college basketball players, then you have to pay 98 female college athletes, and you have to pay them the same amount. I don’t think this could possibly happen.

First, women’s sports are a financial black hole. They eat money. Outside of tennis and golf, they cannot sustain themselves. Paying female college athletes is just off the radar. Second, but related, this would mean that college football and basketball would have to fund every other sport, and fund the players’ salaries, essentially forcing them to pay for these programs twice. Lastly, this is America, dagnabit. I ain’t payin’ a woman the same wage as a man for doin’ the same job. Harumph.

Wow. That was harsh. Let’s do some clever backtracking. I’m in favor of Title IX.  Those who oppose Title IX do so because it takes away opportunities for men to play college sports. The argument goes that men are more inclined to desire to physically express themselves, and more likely to want to play sports. Thus, Title IX runs contrary to our intuitive human knowledge: men want to play sports more than women. I happen to agree with that underlying principle, but I have two responses.

1) 83? Football needs 83 scholarships? Cut that to 65, and you’ve funded two other sports programs.

2) So what? As someone who played college sports, so what? As someone who was once a 19-year-old boy, so what? In college I think that I found roughly 9,568,301 ways of physically expressing myself outside of organized sports. If you want to wrestle, wrestle. No one needs a university logo to play sports, and universities should be under no obligation to fund men’s sports that are also black holes (including my very own Oglethorpe Stormy Petrels mens’ soccer team).

Here’s my point: opponents of Title IX have framed the issue incorrectly. They frame it as “We should provide scholarships and opportunities to play college athletics to men and women in proportion to their general desire to play.” I’m sorry, but that’s just wrong. It’s a bastardization of Title IX and the women’s movement. The issue should be framed thus–we need to provide equal opportunities for men and women to go to college for free.

That’s it. It proves that football and men’s basketball is the entertaining aberration. The other sports are about amateur students experiencing all that college has to offer, and athletics can provide an opportunity to do it on the cheap. Title IX makes that opportunity equal for the sexes. I won’t sacrifice that so Terrelle Pryor can get his ninth Buckeyes tattoo.