For one, student athletes are paid - it's called scholarships. I wish someone would have given me a full ride to be an underachiever majoring in communications and then drop out in two years to join the NFL, but that didn't happen. I have to pay my own way through. These athletes don't - that's payment enough.

For two, sports are supposed to be for the love of the game. If the athlete's only ambition is to move on to the pros, why waste the university's money? Why not go straight to the professional leagues out of high school?

For three, the game he's complaining about in the article is being played to support the athletics program. The players aren't playing an extra game to pay a professor's salary or to build new academic facilities, they're playing a game to pay for their own program. Why should other students have to foot the bill for athletes who are intending to show off their skills to become professional athletes?

And finally, this extra game is a nationally televised broadcast. In other words, these players aren't playing for free; they're playing for an extra game's worth of exposure in front of pro scouts.

I don't know what kind of moonshine the guy was drinking when his garage logic told him that this game was bad for the players, and I especially would like to know what he was smoking when he suggested that "suspend[ing] athletes for getting a discount on some shoes is beyond belief", but I definitely have to get myself some of that, because it must be some good shit.