finally have a chance at that payday they had been dreaming of since they were little.

Just like you mentioned! Colleges help these talented athletes their dreams to come true and at the same time these students having a great opportunity to get a great education. It’s a win win situation for athletes and colleges as well since these talented kids represent them. At least that’s how it supposed to be, that’s how it was meant to be.
We were wrong! They were wrong! With student getting just a minimal portion of the entire budget while being “aware” of this much money being involved, it eventually leads only one direction “greed & corruption”.
I agree with you! Something has to change and to be honest with you after reading your article, it’s hard to say what exactly must be changed. In my opinion the main problem is too much money being involved. That is the main reason colleges, coaches and eventually even students forget about their real purpose and get corrupted because of their greed. It’s like a domino, everyone follows.
Before reading your article I thought these kids get paid for almost everything and some extra. I guess I was wrong. In my opinion if there wasn’t that much money involved we wouldn’t be talking about this issue at all. It worked before, why wouldn’t it work now.