Personally, I don’t think that the piling on that’s going on here is warranted. I think we all figured that, as the reports started to surface, that there was a lot going on at Ohio State that could not be accounted for. That there were rules being broken in the “selling of memorabilia” department.
Ray Small adding to the fire doesn’t help his alma mater, but, he may not be happy with them. So, it may not matter to him one way or the other. I can’t read his mind, but I found it odd that he would come out with this stuff and he’s been out of school for a couple years now.
He’s got a good point though:
“They explain the rules to you, but as a kid you’re not really listening to all of them rules. You go out and you just, people show you so much love, you don’t even think about the rules. You’re just like, ‘Ah man, it’s cool.’ You take it, and next thing you know the NCAA is down your back.”
“If you go in and try to get a tattoo, and somebody is like, ‘Do you want 50 percent off this tattoo?’ You’re going to say, ‘Heck yeah.’”
“We have apartments, car notes. So you got things like that and you look around and you’re like, ‘Well I got (four) of them, I can sell one or two and get some money to pay this rent.’ ”
I mean, he’s right. This is why the idea of paying student athletes makes sense. We may never be able to stop this because these kids are being bombarded everyday, and, as bad as this sounds, it’s hard to say no to a great deal of this stuff.
Matbe the OSU case will push paying athletes to the forefront. It’s an issue that needs to be dealt with.
photo credit: Triple Tri
