Over the past year, I have noticed an intensified effort, primarily by popular media, to discredit and attack the NCAA's stance surrounding payment of collegiate athletes for play.

As a full-scholarship athlete at three different levels of collegiate basketball (junior college, Division I and Division II) from 1991-95, I feel that I may offer a perspective unique to this discussion.

I began my collegiate career playing for two years at Coffeyville Community College in Coffeyville, Kansas. In 1993, I was named the first National Junior College Athletic Association Male Athlete of the Year. After my sophomore year, I accepted a scholarship to play at Creighton University. After one year there and the dismissal of my head coach, I transferred to then-Division II University of Denver.

In my estimation, four years and $40,000 worth of full tuition, room/board, fees and other expenses were fair and just compensation in exchange for the athletic services I provided each college and university at which I participated.

With multi-million dollar television and merchandising agreements the NCAA negotiates splashed all over national newspapers and publications, I can certainly understand the debate (and sometimes outrage) concerning where such funds should go. Yet in my opinion, as a former scholarship student-athlete, paying collegians for amateur participation would only undermine the progress made by intercollegiate athletics to this point.

I viewed the nine-month academic calendar as the time to invest all energy in the direction of academic and athletics pursuit. I understood the three-month summer break as my opportunity to work both at Creighton and Denver, saving dollars for normal calendar-year expenditures (laundry, late night runs to McDonald's and even dates with girls). Every summer during my collegiate participation I saved, on average, $3,200 for use the next nine months.

I believe it is hard to justify how an average of $355 per month (roughly $12 per day) isn't enough money for the student-athlete to "live on" as out-of-pocket expenses arise. Rather than a hardship, I viewed summer work as experience that enriched the learning that took place in my life over four years. Just as I understood that arriving for 6 a.m. weights, running the appropriate half-court offense or being early for a departure to the airport was important, so was maximizing and using the three summer months to work, save and budget money that was then used for discretionary purposes during the school year.

This debate is certainly a valid one. However, some balance and perspective is in order. It is unfair to equate negotiated contract dollars with some sort of distribution system to players. As my situation shows, not only is it possible for student-athletes today to earn enough money in the off-season to subsidize incidental expenditures during the season, but to pay them would remove part of the appreciation for what is already being granted.

Mike Worley
Atlanta