Syracuse college basketball coach and campus emperor Jim Boeheim made himself even more loathsome and detestable than he already is. If that’s possible. Jim Boeheim made remarks yesterday that will place him squarely on the wrong side of history. In the college basketball world, he’ll be like Mississippi Governor who tried to physically block integration at Ole Miss.
Behold Jim Boeheim on the idea of paying college athletes:
“That’s really the most idiotic suggestion of all time,” Jim Boeheim said, via The Post-Standard. “I think you have to understand something. It’s really very clear. This is really clear. … Our players get a $50,000 education. Some of them use Syracuse to develop their game, get the publicity they need, become a first-round pick and make money from basketball. Some of them like me get the scholarship, get the grades, get their education, get the chance to play basketball and then get to start life without any debt.”
“People say that they should be getting compensated because there’s 30,000 people in the (Carrier) Dome,” he said. “That money all goes to pay for basketball, pays for field hockey, pays for volleyball, pays for soccer. We make no money at Syracuse University in the athletic department. Zero. We’re lucky if we break even at the end of the year. The only reason we break even is because we’re subsidized in some way for scholarships and we use fund raisers. Our basketball program might make 12 or 14 million (dollars) but it all goes to pay for the other sports.”
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An analyst for 95.7 The Fan and 1620 The Zone, he also writes for Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks) and Facebook,subscribe to his RSS feed here