I would have to say yes pay them, and here is my thinking.
I would argue that being a full time student could be considered a job. I would also argue that being an athlete is job. So while being able to get a degree for free may be considered payment for the job of being an athlete, what do these kids do for spending money? Now I may be wrong about this but I do believe scholorship athlets get a cost of living allowance to help with expenses but I'm not sure how much it is, I doubt that it's much. Do we ask them to get another job on top of being a student and an athlete?
I do realize that many althletes get additional "perks" in one form or another and that the NCAA would deem most of these "perks" as violations of policy. So why not go ahead and pay these kids something instead of having scandels dealing with NCAA violations.
I don't know how it would be decided who gets paid what, would college athletes need agents to negotiate contracts, I'm not sure. But, like many of you have said these college programs make millions on these kids. Not all of it is ticket sales either. My college team, The University of Texas, was at one time, and maybe still is, the highest grocing sports paraphernalia in the country. People pay $60-$100+ to buy jerseys of these star athletes. And lets not forget that UT now has their own television network making the University millions more.
