It looks familiar. The normal college football fan sees it every Saturday on the field in College Station, A&M's home. The team's athletic director sees it every day in a financial report alongside dollar signs.
The 20-year-old wearing the jersey, Heisman winner and star quarterback Johnny Manziel, sees nothing. Of the hefty $54.98 price tag, Manziel sees not a penny.
And if he takes even a fraction of one jersey sale, from anyone, the world of college football cries out in disgust. 'What a disgrace.' 'Greedy kid.' 'Never let him play another down.'
This is a system that we, as sports fans, have become accustomed to, and it needs to change. Athletic departments make tens of millions of dollars every season (A&M made over $44 million in 2011-12), but the athletes who play the game work for free. It's big business.
Only in college athletics does this happen. If a company uses a musician's song in a commercial without permission, a hefty lawsuit is on its way.
But if a University sells one, or a hundred, or a thousand Manziel jerseys, and Johnny says anything about it, we remind him of his role in the NCAA.
This role is backwards. Players like Manziel are expected to be in two places at once: on the field leading their teams to wins and in class getting an education.
The wins equal big money for the schools. A team who wins the BCS National Championship in college football benefits huge financially. In 2012, Alabama received a payout of $21.2 million for winning it all.
The education, on the other hand, is given for free to the athletes who lead these teams to championships. Supporters of the current system say this counts as compensation.
But it can't. The athletes, who are required to attend practice multiple times per day, aren't encouraged to go to class. No one pushes them. And they are given preferential treatment on assignments. The University of Auburn was caught giving student athletes boosted grades earlier this year.
Is this education?
No. It's like giving your grandmother a computer and not teaching her how to use it. Does she really benefit from having the computer?
Therein lays the problem. The free education is unattainable, but the fame and the lights of big time college football aren't, as long as the school is raking in the big bucks.
Take the story of Dasmine Cathey, a former football player for the University of Missouri. In 2012, he was reading at a first grade level as a 23-year-old fifth-year senior.
But man, could he play football.
"You don't see many guys his height who can run a 4.6 forty," a former coach said about him.
Cathey was illiterate. The man couldn't read. Some argue that college athlete graduation rates are on the rise, but it doesn't matter, even if that is the case 99 percent of the time. If one college student is illiterate and still playing football, there is a major systematic problem.
How do you fix it?
It's not as simple as paying every student athlete a stipend. You would have to pay the swimming team and the chess club, and quite frankly, those sports aren't the moneymakers.
First, you change the hierarchy.
Take the money and put it into hiring personal mentors for student athletes. It's the first step in encouraging them to go to class; making them feel like someone wants them to be there.
Then, you change the rulebook.
College athletes should be allowed to accept money from outside means, whether it's from boosters, jobs or autograph sales. That way, the most talented players, the ones who bring in the most money for their programs, are rewarded fairly. Some will get more money than others, yes, but is it any worse than restricting everyone from the opportunity? No. And removing some of the employment guidelines is a no-brainer. Let them work minimum wage jobs. Students with academic scholarships are allowed to.
Initiatives like these barely scrape the surface of the problem, but it would be a step in the right direction. Athletes like Manziel are being exploited by big-money programs that have room to negotiate.
They'll never stop selling the jerseys.
But they can stop selling the nonsense.
