Don't Not Do It Because It's Wrong, Don't Do It Because You Don't Need To

Recently 3 Tennessee football players were arrested on charges of armed robbery. As of yesterday, two had been dismissed from the team and action was pending on the third.

This is absurd for multiple reasons (how much money do you need when you're going to college for free?), but the most pertinent is this: you don't need to do it. Unless you're just in it for the thrills, there are far easier ways for a football player at a major Division I school to get money.

And no, I'm not talking about the indignity of work-study or even a real job. No, you simply get a wealthy booster to give you thousands of dollars under the table. Like this guy:



That's a photo (which was quickly removed) from Kenneth Page's myspace page. Page, a recent high school grad and high-ranked recruit of the Clemson football team, somehow got his hands on thousands upon thousands of dollars in fresh bank bills (in case the resolution isn't very good, those are twenties).

Now one might ask how an unemployed recent high school graduate would come into possession of such a large amount of cash. Perhaps he went trick-or-treating in a really nice neighborhood that gives away thousands of dollars in fresh-from-the-bank bills instead of candy bars...

Or, perhaps, a Clemson booster wanted to make sure their new recruit was happy and well taken care of. Not to make the wild accusation that these supposed amateur athletes occasionally make some good money for being "student" athletes, but it would seem to be a plausible explanation.

Which is what makes the Tennessee case so crazy. Major college athletes don't need to avoid robbing banks because of the legal fallout, they don't need to rob banks because there are plenty of people willing to give them large amounts of cash just because they play football for a particular university. And given the choice between armed robbery of a bank and getting thousands of dollars for free, I would probably choose the free money. But then again, I was busy spending my time in class instead of running football drills, so maybe they just missed that day in logic class...