With all of the talk about ‘pay for play’ in the NCAA going around these days, most people forget, or chose not to notice, that there has been a system in place for years now that is sort of like ‘pay for play’. College athletes have been getting ‘stipends’ from team supporters for many years now or didn’t you know that?
It’s not huge sums of money that we are talking about here. No bank accounts, nothing at all traceable but, money does change hands, in cash mostly, to encourage players to attend a certain college or perhaps simply to help a gifted athlete with expenses. It happens all the time.
Each college or university with a viable athletic program also has a strong local fan base and among that fan base are found what we will call ‘avid supporters’, some of whom have a few extra bucks to spread around if it might mean that ‘their’ school could land that five-star recruit that visited campus last week. “So let’s give him a little extra incentive to come play for us”, they say.
Nothing illegal you understand. Just a few bucks on the side. But who is it that handles these potentially delicate exchanges and how do they pull it off? Believe it or not they call him ‘the Bagman’. Really, that’s no joke, or is it?
These guys and probably some ladies as well, have no qualms about handing out funds to athletes from wealthy backers with the aim of making the team and the school, better. They want to win just like everyone else.
There is a whole network of these people out there filling this need. If the NCAA refuses to even acknowledge that there is a problem, what else is to be done? Most students cannot afford the time and effort to mount a major offensive against the NCAA in order to get enough to eat or a second hand car to drive.
Working within the system for the needed changes may well be the way of the future, but it’s currently not so and it never has been. There is a system in place, but it bypasses the NCAA, the university administration and even the coaching staff. The Bagmen do not want to get to know the coaches, for everyone concerned.
These ‘Bagmen’ are present on the majority of college campuses today with or without the knowledge of the powers that be and they will remain in place until someone comes up with a better system of compensation for student athletes.
