SI: Oklahoma State football players got sex, drugs and money

If the players are on campus, they're getting fed at someone else's expense.

 

Steak, in any player's year-round calendar, that leaves at least four to six weeks where they might have a hard time finding money for food. And this is not even factoring in the idea of going out to the off-campus pizza place like all other college kids do (many on the work-study or other jobs they are allowed to get for extra cash).

Scholarships don't cover the cost of living, especially when you go home, and there's no way to make up the difference since they can't get jobs.

 

The criticisms of this story are just rationalizations to keep propping up this farce. Kids aren't starving, then the story must be wrong. Starving was not meant literally but was a metaphor. Its about more about not having the $$ to eat when you want.

I hate college athletics, well lets say big time D-1, because its about whether those players truly are "student-athletes" or unpaid pros. I say the latter. No doubt many use their scholarships to benefit themselves. But the vast majority, you might as well not make them part of the school. They don't have the $$ to really integrate into the student life. While others in the student body have no problem just getting a pizza night out, the players cannot afford that. Heck, they can't even get home for the holidays.

Its a farce because on the big time sports level, the vast majority of those players are on campus for primarily one thing, to play ball. That means working out, practicing, playing, year round. Any threat to this structure means TV contracts are in jeopardy; the coaches' and administrators' salary structure is in jeopardy; and ....so are the salaries of the bowl organizers (Armageddon!!).

Enough of this.

 

Did you forget about bowl season?
And spring practice? And off-season workouts.?
Most D-I players I covered in high school stayed on-campus during the summer as well.

 

I guarantee you'll find at least four weeks' worth of time that these guys aren't covered. And that's leaving aside the -- gasp! -- possibility that it might be fun to eat somewhere besides the training table once in a while. Did you eat every meal at the cafeteria because your parents bought the meal plan? If so, you'd be about the first college student to ever do that.

Regardless, qtlaw is correct -- the focus on whether they are "starving" is a red herring to take away from the fact that they're getting screwed.

At least in this case they are also getting screwed by the hostesses, though.

 

Point taken, but in my dorm cafeteria I couldn't order a rib eye at 2 a.m. for free.

 

You obviously didn't live in Wolpers. We did that shit all the time.

 

Whitlock doesn't much care for Thayer Evans:

http://www.tulsaworld.com/blogs/post.aspx/Jason_Whitlock_slams_SI_writer_Thayer_Evans/11-22173

 

Well, preparing them for Tony Soprano's world

 

"Rebunked" - I like that word.

I'd actually like to see a reporter go up the food chain on something like this. Promise to leave an assistant or player out of a story if they spill on a higher up.

 

Does anyone else share Jase's opinions on Evans? Myself, I don't know much about the guy. Does he have one-tenth of the bad rep that Whitlock gives him?

 

Gregg Doyel doesn't care much for him:

http://www.sportsgrid.com/ncaa-football/cam-newton-cheating-gregg-doyel/

Neither do Texas fans:

http://www.burntorangenation.com/2008/12/29/703788/a-final-word-on-thayer-eva