Integrity would be paying these players enough money to survive on. You mean they can't stay in a dorm and have all the food they want isn't enough to survive on ? Or you mean they can't get 4 to 6 guys to live together in a flop house and share the expenses ? I do agree with you that if they have to pay for gas in their Denali or to get a new tattoo every quarter that these needs could exceed what a scholarship athlete gets. That argument is not going to work.
Integrity would be to have a rainy day fund available to players when someone arises, something that is designed to be a one time help for players to avoid having to decide to help himself or his family financially and put himself and his team in danger of issues. I agree with this and I'm pretty sure there are these funds that are available...but again, they aren't going to pay to refuel the Denali or buy more tattoos. There are Pell grants too. Students are supposed to be poor because they are working on preparing themselves for their careers....it's been that way for a hundred years.
Integrity is not lying to your athletes and calling them amateur while you make more money on their names, jerseys, likenesses on video games and ticket sales than the "professionals" make for their organizations. Who is "lying" ? The Ohio State University ? Because the NCAA isn't making the money. The money that goes to the member institutions goes to pay the salary of the athletics administration (36 varsity sports) and for over 300 athletic scholarships every year. By the way, the players signed on for this treatment by the universities and are always more than willing to sign the pro contracts that come along with having gotten the exposure and training of playing at OSU. And the diploma from OSU helps these poor, abused student-athletes make 10 times what they would have made without the college diploma.
All I know is that if my mom was being threatened to have her house foreclosed on because she owed $3000 in rent payments, I'd sell some of my shat to help her out even if it came at a personal cost to me. It's my mother. That's fine...sell it. But please don't expect to be treated like you played by the rules....because you didn't. But the more you read about these so-called "poor" athletes the more you hear about how that moeny went to buy tattoos...or to buy insurance and gas for a Yukon Denali. Your line of reasoning is precisely why youth feel there are no consequences to their actions. The cycle keeps on keeping on because there are rarely consequences being paid. If TP and company take their punishment like it looks they will, then they will hopefully learn a lesson and be a good lesson for many other young folks.
