For years, athletic directors and coaches have referred to their college athletes as scholar athletes or student athletes. The reference is that college athletes are students first and athletes second. Meanwhile, college athletes, especially footballers, have often been accused of being indifferent students. Interestingly, 90% of college athletes graduated from their four-year college in 2023. Division I athletes graduate at a rate of 69%, same as the general student.

I suspect that writers who love to demean college football players never made it past PeeWee football. They have no idea what it is like. Being a college athlete and a student is not easy. As an athletic trainer at LSU, I was in the training room or on the football field every day, lived in the athletic dorm, ate at the training table, and maintained the same schedule as the athletes. Instead of having afternoons to socialize and study, football players face endless meetings followed by on-field training that is brutal, fatiguing, and exhausting, especially in south Louisiana. Physically drained, they then have to study.

Last year I wrote about the problems facing college athletics. I mentioned that along with the transfer portal, name, image, and likeness (NIL) money was going to be a problem that once started, there was no going back. A recent New York Times article described the cash pouring into athletic programs to pay NIL money, quarterbacks in the Southeastern Conference making a million dollars a year and offensive linemen raking in half a million. Several writers have recently labeled college football players as mercenaries, hired guns, willing to do anything for money. I have a problem with this derogatory terminology and believe that the athletes are not to blame.

After all, colleges have taken advantage of their athletes for years. Athletes had no income while coaches and athletic directors raked in millions. Many football coaches make $10 million a year and a recent survey showed that the top 25 athletic directors make at least a million a year. Meanwhile, athletes received tuition, room, and board, but no money. How do you go out to eat, buy clothes, go home to visit family? Hopefully you finish school intact, but many are left with career ending injuries, some lasting a lifetime. Only 1.6% go to the NFL. Overpaid coaches and college and NCAA administrators were well aware of the problems but did nothing about it. After all, they were doing fine.

As I wrote, football athletes virtually led the life of a professional, but without pay. Football training was tough in the 1960s but training was seasonal. Today, athletes train all year, including the summer, and even play games before school begins. Want a job? No way will coaches allow you to do anything but train. Schools now play more games, ending the season just before final exams. But wait, there are now 44 bowl games with big payoffs to the schools followed by an extended national championship season, another big payday.

In 2014 Ed O’Bannon was playing a basketball video game and noticed that his image was being used on a $60 video game. He won a lawsuit for $40 million in 2014 against Electronic Arts. The class action settlement was divided among 29,000 players. O’Bannon’s lawsuit led to a 2021 House bill establishing that name, image, and likeness preempted more restrictive rights of athletes. Athletes became eligible for compensation. Congress was supposed to draft legislation establishing common sense rules of the road, but after 11 hearings — no such luck. Everyone knew the problem but did nothing. The floodgates opened and the amount of money being distributed has astounded everyone.

Some writers suggest it is the beginning of the end for college sports. The future is unpredictable. Will we see fewer scholar athletes? No one mentions this. Transferring from school to school will certainly be detrimental to academic pursuits. I suspect the graduation rate the NCAA is so proud to promote will suffer.

Certainly, there are some athletes who are gaming the system, waiting for the best offer. Perhaps they learned this from their million dollar coaches. Labeling college football players as mercenaries is biased and narrow minded. There are 85 scholarship athletes on a team and the NCAA will allow more next year. Yes, the quarterback and others are well funded, but what about athlete number 70 or 85? Let me guess; they are not driving a Lamborghini like the Georgia quarterback.

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Jim Johnson is a retired professor of exercise and sport science after teaching 52 years at Smith College and Washington University in St. Louis. He comments about sport, exercise, and sports medicine. He can be reached at jjohnson@smith.edu.