By Terry Mosher
Editor, Sports Paper
Pat Haden, USC athletic director, said today that beginning on July 1 the Trojans will offer four-year scholarships in football and men’s and women’s basketball to current and future student-athletes.
Wow! About time schools woke up. Scholarships, as you may know, are currently one—year, renewable at the end of the year (or taken away, depending on what the college chooses to do).
This is a giant step by one of the giants in college sports. I now sincerely hope that the rest of the major colleges, who reap billions off these amateur student-athletes, now quickly follow suit. It will mark the dawning of a new age, one that should have dawned years and years ago.
I would like to see universities do the same in all sports, which mainly includes the non-revenue ones like tennis and golf, etc. Make a commitment; don’t be afraid to be brave. Do the right thing. This is a first big step, but take some more steps and do away with archaic NCAA rules that punish schools and athletes for such things as accepting rides across campus or buying an athlete a burger at McDonald’s. And pay these student-athletes so they don’t have to steal a frozen dinner from the local super market.