For the Love of Money
In the early 1970s I played football for Baylor University, well, at least I was on the team! Half a dozen plays or so in a game were about all the coaches would risk with me. Their job was to try and win games, not lose them. Still, I loved college football. My teammates and our comradery, the competition, the discipline, the travel to famous stadiums, the crowds on game days, and so many other aspects of college football are memories that I will always cherish.
On occasion, I still wear my Baylor letter jacket or a Baylor t-shirt out in public, even though our teams are rather mediocre most seasons (Basketball is an exception!). Athletics aside, Baylor is a terrific school and the university experience was one of the highlights of my life. The education I received was top-notch and prepared me for life, although I regret that I didn’t take my education more seriously!
My athletic scholarship paid for my room, board, and tuition, plus 15 dollars a month for my laundry expense. That was it! I worked during the summer months to earn money for the school year. I wore blue jeans to class, as did most of my friends, and would have been on foot had it not been for the generosity of an aunt who gave me her seven-year-old Volkswagen. The car could go 65 miles per hour if the wind was behind it, but only around 55 miles an hour if it faced a head-wind. Regardless of its limitations, I was proud of my Bug.
A few of the better players on the team drove new GTOs every year, and the other guys on the team were aware that some sugar-daddy must have paid for the car, but that kind of thing went on everywhere. From time to time a wealthy supporter would take my roommate and me out to dinner and once a fan gave me 20 dollars after a game—I think he confused me with someone else! I wonder it that made me ineligible? The coaches would have rejoiced!
Players have a much different experience today. College football is simply a minor league for the NFL, and, unfortunately, Pay for Play is synonymous with college football. For the most part high school recruits don’t choose schools based on curriculum or faculty but on how much NIL money is being offered.
Now I’m all for players receiving some kind of stipend to play college football. In today’s game kids don’t have summers off to earn money for the school year, as football is a year round sport. But there need to be guidelines and rules that monitor the NIL deals, and today there are virtually none. The amount of money that many players receive today is absurd. The average starter on a Power 5 school receives upwards of $45,000 per year and some elite players are paid over one million dollars! Few schools can offer that kind of money to an 18-year-old high school graduate to play football nor should they.
Let me be clear, the players aren’t to blame—the system is. If I were an 18-year-old high school senior and one school offered me 50K to play and another school offered me 500K to play, which school do you think I should choose? Obviously, I would go to the school that offered me the most money. Many people work their entire lives and never accumulate that amount of money.
Even more ridiculous, after a year attending one school, if a player thinks another school would offer him more money, he has the option of entering a portal where he can transfer for an additional sum of money. All across the college football landscape that is exactly what is happening, and it is destroying a sport that I have enjoyed since my childhood.
The primary purpose of college should be to receive an education, not to play football. But the money that many of these players receive is likely to distract them from taking their educations seriously, as many of them are making more money than their professors or their parents. Most of these college athletes simply are not mature enough to manage their sudden wealth. How often we have heard of professional athletes, who made millions of dollars throughout their career, go bankrupt because they didn’t have the maturity to handle their wealth.
Then, too, many of the lessons that football taught me both in high school and college are being lost in the bright lights of NIL money. The concept of team is often replaced by players looking out just for themselves. And what about the players who are not starters or elite players? They go to practice every day and give their best, but they receive far less in NIL money. What does that do to team morale?
College football has lost something invaluable—student athletes playing for the school they love, receiving great educations, forging lasting friendships with other members of the team and receiving the incredible benefit of having their college paid for are not priorities for many of today’s college football players.
Fans lose out, too. No longer can we count on our favorite players even being on the team from one year to the next. Team loyalty is a thing of the past. For the love of the game has become secondary to the love of money.
It is not just college sports where money has compromised the love of the game. Professional sports, too, have succumbed to the intoxicating effects of money. Mickey Mantle, my boyhood hero, earned a totalthroughout his playing career of around 9 million adjusted for inflation dollars—9 million! Today’s players, even marginal players, make that much and more in a single year! Are we so bored with our lives that we are willing to obscenely enrich others to entertain us? Have sports become an addiction to which we are willing to pay any price for a fix of a few hours of amusement?
You’ve perhaps heard or read that the PGA has recently merged with LIV, a Saudi Arabia owned golf enterprise, and was paid billions of dollars, even though less than a year ago the PGA strongly condemned the Saudis for their Human Rights violations. Many believe the Saudi government is responsible for the brutal death of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as the virtual enslavement of thousands of migrant workers. Then recently, they lowered their oil output in hopes of raising the price during a world-wide inflationary crisis. How could the PGA possibly form an alliance with this government? Has America’s greed and lust for money sucked out all of our ethical and moral fiber? Are sports more important to us than our national integrity?
Money and material possessions in themselves are not evil. Our economy is based on a monetary system, and we work hard to make money in order to provide for our families. But when our desire to provide for our families far exceeds our needs, we risk making a god of wealth. Paul writes that the “love” of money is what leads people astray (1 Tim. 6:10), not money itself, but the craving for more. When money becomes our idol, that which we pursue at any cost, then life is headed in the wrong direction. When we sacrifice our integrity for the sake of money, we lose our soul in the process. Jesus warns us that life is more than possessions (Lk. 12:15), and the writer of Ecclesiastes tells us that material wealth alone is meaningless (Eccl. 2:1-11). Wealth can be incredibly intoxicating, but material wealth alone does not add value to life. Only following the ways of God and loving others can do that.
Rockefeller was once asked, “How much is enough?” He responded, “A little bit more.” If we can’t find a way to end our addiction to greed, we will all end up with less and less. For life is far more than money. Jesus warns us, “What does it profit a man if he gains the world, but loses his soul” (Mk. 8:36)?
