Universities should consider giving athletes a little more

A couple of weeks ago, I witnessed one of Oakland’s most colorful panhandlers put on quite an… A couple of weeks ago, I witnessed one of Oakland’s most colorful panhandlers put on quite an interesting performance.

I’m sure you’re all aware of the older gentlemen who likes to yell at people and things that the rest of us can’t really see. On this particular occasion, this man was standing in front of King’s Court, yelling at something that had made him mad and swinging his fists in rage.

My first thought was, “what could have made him so upset?” My second thought was more interested with what he was wearing.

Many Panther fans and anyone who has attended a Pitt football game in the past five years would have identified his No. 12 Pitt jersey as that of Panther quarterback Rod Rutherford’s home uniform. Except for one thing.

Rutherford’s name isn’t on the back.

It’s the same way with the Pitt jerseys hanging in the campus store windows that have the Nos. 19, 25 and 32 on them. You might say those shirts belong to Shawntae Spencer, Brandon Miree and Lousaka Polite, but in actuality, they’re just football jerseys.

No different are the No. 20 basketball jerseys that Pitt began selling after Brandin Knight started making a name for himself two years ago. Not only that, but you can buy yourself a nutcracker wearing a basketball jersey with the No. 1 on it. You can tell yourself it’s Julius Page, but there’s no name on the back – never mind the fact that it looks nothing like him.

So you might ask, what’s the big deal? So Pitt is making money off of replica jerseys of Rutherford and Knight. How is that different than any other article of clothing fans buy?

Well, since their likeness is not being used – in this case, their names – nothing is owed to the players.

Of course that’s a good thing, because if the players were being paid royalties for the jerseys and other items that they help the university sell, then they’d be ineligible, which brings me to my point: college athletes should be paid.

And by paid, I don’t mean they should receive the multi-million dollar contracts that the professionals make. That wouldn’t make sense.

But they should receive some compensation for the time and effort that they spend making their schools millions of dollars, especially if the school is going to use their uniform numbers to make money.

Many would argue that athletes are already getting paid with a free education, and in most cases, that is true. There are a lot of athletes who will not have to pay a dime for their college education because they can catch a football or bounce a basketball.

But there are also athletes that walk-on to teams and get absolutely nothing for their services. They put just as much time and effort into their sport – in some cases, more – yet they still have to shell out thousands of dollars for their education.

And most of them don’t have time to get a job.

Between classes and their sport, most athletes put in as much work as a normal student who has a part-time job, if not more. So why shouldn’t they get paid for their extra work like those students do?

It’s not like Pitt or any other major university couldn’t afford it. With the money made from ticket sales, merchandising and alumni donations, there has to be some extra cash that can go towards supplying athletes with a little extra spending money.

Trying to convince major colleges that they need to give their athletes a little more money wouldn’t be easy, and it probably won’t happen for quite some time, if ever.

But it just doesn’t seem fair that a school can use a number that every fan knows belongs to a current player and make a profit without giving anything to that player in return.

And it’s not like it’s any kind of accident that a jersey with Miree’s number is hanging in a store window. The people who came up with the idea know what they’re doing.

That’s why Ohio State is still selling jerseys with the No. 13 on it. Forget the fact that Maurice Clarett, who wore that number for the Buckeyes last season, is suspended and will probably never suit up for Ohio State again. He’s the Buckeyes most well-known player – despite the fact that he hasn’t played all year – and having that number on a jersey means it’s going to sell.

As long as schools are going to use a player’s number to help sell more merchandise, then maybe they should consider thanking their athletes by giving them a little more than the opportunity to compete at the next level.

Joe Marchilena is the sports editor for The Pitt News, and believe it or not, he gets paid for writing this. Isn’t that awful?