Golston’s plan to fix NCAA football

By Sarah Kogod
Wednesday, May 16, 2012


I suppose it's a pretty widely accepted opinion that there are many things that need fixing in NCAA football, one of them being player compensation. Redskins lineman Kedric Golston, who attended and graduated from the University of Georgia, offered this solution in a conversation with linebacker Lorenzo Alexander on their show Capital Punishment.

"I'll say this. When I was in school, I didn't think we should get paid. I figured, whereas we didn't have the amount of money we wanted and sometimes we had to scrape up dollars to go to Wendy's and get some cheeseburgers, it was college. But now that I'm out in the real world and see how people are getting filthy rich off the backs of these young men, I think they should get paid.


"People say this, 'well you're getting a free education, you don't have student loans.' I understand all that. Like we talked about earlier, you got guys coming to these universities that couldn't read one line off this sheet of paper. You givin' them something that they can't take advantage of. They really don't care about it. They're there to play ball, make it to the NFL or whatever other sports thing they do.

"What I'm saying is, why not make an incentive program, you know, you put $20-30 thousand a year that if they complete and stay with their course credits and you pay to incentivize them whereas, we've all been there, maybe that degree isn't as important as it was when you was a freshman than when you're a senior. That would allow them to then get that money when they graduate because they wasn't able to do internships when they was there, summer school training, they couldn't get a job so they're already four years behind the rest of their classmates."

If I understand correctly, Kedric is saying that the NCAA should put up some cash that players could collect if they complete a four-year degree. It's nice in theory, but Alexander was quick to point out that the Golston Plan To Fix Football has at least one flaw.

"Sounds great, but the rich don't give up money," he said. "That's why they're rich."