Is id imagine for texas football. I want to close with a question to each of you. If you had to fix one thing regarding the money aspect of where we are heading or one thing that concerns you most of the road were heading down, what is it, pete . I think one of the things one of the places where were headed right now, jimmy, thats scary to me, is that as and especially at the lower tier schools in the big five, as they struggle to build buildings to compete, as they struggle to catch up, i think we could see a purge of nonrevenue sports in order to focus more money on the sports that matter financially most. I think thats a trend were going to see in the next five years and i dont think thats good for anybody. I think if we go down the road of paying football and mens basketball players as the agents and their agents, the trial lawyers, would like us to do and i got plenty of friends that are trial lawyers including my little brother. At least you did. Were going to be put in a situation as a series of enterprises that well be forced to make that decision. That the nonrevenue sports will be eliminated. Youll see schools asked to go from 16 sports, as a minimum to compete, down to 12. Ive already sat in meetings where these conversations have happened. Thats bad for the country. Thats bad for olympic sports. Thats bad for opportunities for people to get out of lesser environments, get to university and have a better outcome in life. We just cant lose our voice. Weve lost the opportunity for young people. Focusing on the financing of two. If you think of College Athletics, its a failed Business Model the way its interpreted in the courts. We have two Revenue Streams and we are the largest feeder of athletes for the olympics. Not only our own country but around the world. Opportunities for students across the spectrum has been phenomenal but because america has a vivacious appetite for College Football and for basketball, we are running that program to fund our entire Athletic Program and thank god we have that ability to provide opportunity for a lot of people yet our voice is lost by trial lawyers. Our voice is lost in the media that says guess what everyone deserves a piece of the pie when the reality is were providing unbelievable opportunities for young people. I hope at some point in time the train hasnt left the station where we can at least regain some sanity in the amateur model. As someone who played the sport, footballs become too big in america. Its become too overbearing and dominated so much that i fear were losing sight of some of the things that make our universities great, the broader Sports Program, the opportunities for women in sport and i dont just say that because i work at the United StatesOlympic Committee and we obviously benefit from having robust programs that bring athletes to us but we also have athletes that come from sports that arent part of the university. I think its essential part of University Life to have that robust Sports Program and what i hope to see is that as more revenue comes into collegiate sports through, say, football and basketball, hopefully that of that money will filter into the world of olympic sport and womens sport to promote that on campus. Steve . I agree with pete that the definition of a broad based Athletics Program is becoming in some places is already an endangered species and i think youre seeing some of that kind of just whole disconnect of who the programs are for and whats the purpose and these events are going on around College Campuses and students are turning away from going to Football Games and is it about entertainment and circuses and is it really the part of what college is and whether thats going to happen or whether its just going to become really, really heavily professionalized and the impact of that across what college Athletics Programs look like. Steve, patrick, chris, steve and pete, thanks for taking the time to join us today. We have another forum coming up shortly. And we hope youll join us for that. Thanks for coming. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] more on the state of College Athletics at an event hosted by the big 12 conference. Sportswriters, former athletes and University Officials discuss the pros and cons of the Current System and how things might change if some athletes were paid for performance. From the National Press club in washington, this is about 1 15. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for joining us here. The continuation of our Panel Discussion today, organized and sponsored by the big 12 conference. College athletes College Athletics occupies a unique position in our culture. The athletes themselves can be among the biggest stars in sports. Think about johnny football. But whether stars or not, they will likely work hard. Kain colter, former northwestern quarterback, testified before the National LaborRelations Board that he spent 50 to 60 hours a week during Training Camp in the summer and once the season started, his commitment to football was 40 to 50 hours a week. It was hard to be a student, he said, in light of his obligations as an athlete. A finding of that same nlrb hearing is likely a significant step in radically changing further how College Athletes in the society are regarded. The regional director ruled that Football Players at northwestern are in fact employees of the school and have the right to form a union. The ruling is currently being appealed by northwestern but the battle lines have been drawn. What is the student athlete . And how should he or she be treated in regard to compensation and rights . Here this afternoon to try and answer those questions or at least shed some light on some of the issues, a distinguished panel. Christine brennan, a National Columnist for usa today. Len elmore is a sportscaster for cbs and cspan. Former professional basketball player and lawyer. President of the National Basketball retired Players Association and member of the Knight Commission on intercollegiate sports. Lisa love, the former director of athletics at Arizona State university. In 2005 she was inducted into the american volleyball coaches hall of fame and teaches a graduate class at the university of louisville. Tom mcmillan, rhodes scholar. Member of congress. The founder of the National Foundation on fitness, sports and nutrition and a former cochairman of the president s council on physical fitness and sports. She is a 38 year veteran of the College Sports world and seven serves as the womens Athletic Director at of university of texas. Also a former board member of the National Association of collegiate marketing in 2003, she was inducted into that organizations hall of fame. And the director of athletics at the university of kansas. He is a published author and researcher as well as one Time Assistant on coach bill snyders staff at kansas state which he started when he was just 23 years old. Lets cut to the heart of the matter here. Should student athletes be paid . Who wants to take that one. It is an easy one. Ladies first. Thanks, and great to be with you and great to be with everyone up here. Absolutely not. They are in many ways you can make the case that they are receiving a lot of benefits now with a College Scholarship which u. S. A. Today survey a few years ago valued at over 100,000 a career in terms of coaching, exposure, training in addition to receiving a firstclass education at some the finest universities on earth. The idea that athlete student athletes need to be paid i understand the argument. Im sure we will go into that quite a bit over the next hour and a half or so. A couple of thoughts for me. I will throw them out there to get rolling on this. If we are paying the Football Player, are we paying field hockey player . And if not, why not . There is the little law known a title ix that changed the playing fields of america. I think the most important law in our country in the last 42 years and we have just begin to see it work its magic. And if you have a daughter or a girl next door, a niece, a grand daughter you know how important that law is and wait until these women are running for president and running universities and running businesses. We certainly cant ignore that law unless we decide to go to an economic model for College Athletics that leaves the university in the academic setting and bar the door if we go there. I think that my overall feeling on this, jimmy, is that the notion of be careful what you wish for. Im not so sure we would like what we create if in fact we start paying athletes and have a whole separate pro league and lose what has been such a popular piece of all of our lives which is that College Sports experience. Either playing or watching, being on campus, cheering for the stow dent athletes, many of whom are doing it the right way, are going to graduate and give back to the universities for the next 5060 years and the communities. Are there problems in College Sports . You bet. But paying athletes is not the way to solve them. Go right down the line. Lenny . I would agree conceptually. Depends when you mean by paying. I look at the relationship and came to my mind is benefactor, beneficiary. When you look at the amounts of dollars coming in based on the exploits of the student athlete should there be balance in the equities . Absolutely. But are they in the form of salary . Should the whole relationship be in the form of terms is wages, conditions and benefits which seem to inure more to ememployee than beneficiary. I would say no. We need to take a look at how to balance the equities without making it a pure employee employer relation shall. There was a lawsuit filed yesterday which is relying on the fair labor standards labor act and why student athletes under scholarship are not paid minimum wage which becomes another issue since other students are paid the minimum wage and are able to gain some kind of pay check. But in the end, i do believe that our culture in College Sports and the things that we have loved about College Sports certainly is under assault by those who always talk about getting paid. And it is really filtered down to young people. I cant tell you how many times i talked to adolescents and people who are athletes and want to become college or professional athletes but talk about the idea of getting paid without understanding the true value the scholarship and the grant. We can talk about any number of things with regard to the benefits that student athletes are getting besides the education. Room, board, books and tuition. Reform can balance with some type of payment. Also medical benefit. What number do we put on the medical benefits and hoefully reform continue those beyond eligibility. If you havent received your degree through your eligible, so many schools are moving in the direction of providing those opportunities way beyond exhaustion of you eligibility. And then finally, i would like people to fully underand it when talking about true val, scholarship versus nonscholarship students. We are talking about 29,4000 in debt is what most students who have come out of school at the senior career that is the average debt that they are carrying. Scholarship athletes are carrying nothing. To me, real value of the education and scholarship that the student athletes are receiving hasnt been articulated well enough and allowed those who assault that particular culture to kind of grab a foothold in the argument. And i think that needs to be changed. But in the end as i said before, i totally do not agree in the employeremployee relationship and i believe the benefactor, beneficiary even though there is a symbiotic relationship is one that we need to look at strongly and put into context so that we can make a definition as far as what student athletes mean to an institute and vice versa. Two versus zero. Lisa . Three versus zero. And i will take this one step further. I couldnt agree with both speakers who made a point thus far. I would always stand in line with what you just heard in the panel before this one and that is whatever has to be done to financially maintain a sustainable environment of a uniquely American Culture of attaching amateur sports to college and universities and all that positive that has been yielded over a century and then a half century once you became multigender by adding women through title ix and multiethnic by serious work in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. The benefit is boundless because of the concept of paying for someones education becuse they have a unique talent and then making it an inclusive environment. Having been an athlete and coach and senior official at the university of Southern California that worked specifically with the olympic sports and then becoming the athletics director at Arizona State where i was overseeing the entire enterprise and getting extremely close to basketball and football coaches and making maneuvers therein what has been cultivated over time is a beautiful marriage if you will within an Athletic Program that yields i think incredible citizenry for the United States. I think that in addition to everything that has been said. I dont want to be redundant. We have not done a good enough job of expounding on the benefits that already exist through this rather remarkable and unique american system that i believe at all costs should be sustained. And i think by paying athletes you are creating an unsustainable environment. You are not going to pay tom and not going to be able to pay mary. If you think you are, you are naive. There is no mary out there that is requesting to tolerate that. Anything that would render this del county situation that we are delicate situation that we are already in financially and make it even a little wobblier while universities are trying to make sure as they invest in the Athletic Programs they continue to flourish i would raise my hand and vote against paying athletes ten times over. Not only a gender related issue somehow. It will be a question of playing the Football Player and the basketball player and not paying the tennis player or rower. All of it. You come at this from a number of perspectives, what is your thought on this . They should be paid. And that is definitional. Let me explain. If you were going to start over and rebuild College Sports in america, first of of all you may not want to put it on your universities. We are the only nation that has done that. We have this tailing withing the dog. More importantly if you had a system generating billions of dollars you would address the equities for the players. When len and i were teammates at maryland we got 15 a month in laundry money. So did every other athlete. When i introduced legislation i created a reform bill and provided for 300 stipend for every athlete. The fact is that i do think you can create equities across the board for every athlete women or men where they get a basic sty stipend that allows them to have a life and i think that there is plenty of money in College Sports if you took the dollars that are are out there and redistributed them. The fact of the matter is, it is just a matter of time before this system blows up because there is so much going on that the system will blow up and we will be sitting there saying should the players seven more. Everybody says they get an education. I have yet to see one strong study that shows me address division one kids leaving 10 years after they left what has happened to them. I would like to see that. You tell me that they get an education. I would like to see what type of life these kids who didnt go into the nba are living and i think that would be the ultimate proof. The question is yes, i think deserve equities. I dont think they need to be employees. I think it is a way to bring them a piece of the pie. Kris . I dont disagree with the overall goal of allowing Financial Aid to expand to the point where the true cost of the sport. I think weve been on record for a long time of saying thats where we need to be. There were votes on this years ago and because of the unwieldiness of our overall governing body we couldnt get to a consensus. And today were faced with this. But the whole idea of remuneration for someone who is a the age group were talking about, 17 to 23 years old, who often make a decision to go to an institution for various reasons and once we talk to them about the college experience, sports is only a part of it. Theres real College Athletics experience begins in the admissions office. Theyve got to meet so