We all know about thinking outside the box. A well worn office buzzword from the past. Everybody can fake it but really, very few can do it and when public acceptance is required for an idea very few can recognize the hidden value in an out of the box idea. After all, by definition such ideas are against accepted conventions and hard to recognize- impossible for most. Private companies with bold CEO's sometimes demonstrate this. Steve Jobs didn’t have to sell the idea of mobile computing up front. It was against conventional thinking.
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For example: There is almost a national recognition that a paradigm shift is needed with regard to college athletics. Too many scandals at too many revered institutions like Ohio State and UNC. Miami – well, probably no big surprise.
But the voices of authority are sports pundits and University Presidents. They all have their visions of solutions. Sports guys say things like ‘pay the players’ or ‘punish the coaches and administrators’. Presidents float ideas like ‘stricter punishment’, or ‘increasing academic emphasis’. These ideas don’t solve anything. They are either economically or academically unrealistic and just preserve the status quo and add some bureaucracy.
My solution is far simpler, effective, inexpensive, and inherently fair. Eliminate rules regarding impermissible benefits from external forces like boosters. If you consider athletes adults, why would you try to have a rule about one adult buying another adult dinner, or inviting them to a party? It’s not fair and it’s impossible to monitor and enforce. Will boosters pay student athletes to go to a certain school? Maybe the top players but so what, they’re adults. Nobody would call foul if I paid my favorite sports DJ not to leave town. Let the market work. This has the affect of paying the stars that create the value but not costing athletic departments money they don’t have.
Their parents should worry about what parties they go to, not the NCAA.
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