Collegiate athletics finally took a necessary step forward with the reforms approved Thursday by the NCAA executive committee in Indianapolis.
The board, which includes USC President Harris Pastides, voted to make several changes to the organizations bylaws, including an optional $2,000 cost-of-living stipend for student-athletes, multiyear athletics scholarships and stronger academic benchmarks individual programs must meet in order to be eligible for postseason play.
College sports have been the subject of much scrutiny lately with numerous cheating scandals and the chaotic, dysfunctional conference expansion process. So many times throughout the past few months, officials and administrators have claimed the student-athlete should be the first priority, but too often those statements have felt hollow and disingenuous.
These reforms are quite the opposite though; they are real, solid changes that will ultimately benefit student-athletes. The reforms place their well-being and education front and center.
Are the reforms perfect? No. The stipend amounts likely still aren’t enough for student-athletes to make all ends meet, and various studies agree with that sentiment. Also, USC football coach Steve Spurrier does have a point: The athletes who compete in the major revenue sports do deserve more of the pie.
That’s the way capitalism works, and big-time college sports are undeniably capitalism in all its glory. And multiyear scholarships, while noble, could provide cumbersome to an athletic program’s on-field success.
The main objective is to educate, but the secondary one is still to win. Success in competition fosters the ability to generate the revenues necessary to uphold this new system.
But the bottom line is this: College sports have been spinning out of control for a while now. The NCAA has now made a step toward stopping that cycle. We’re not all the way there yet, and much work still needs to be done. But progress is progress, and it should be heralded accordingly.