NCAA president Mark Emmert was a guest on Dan Patrick's show this morning, and he said all the stupid things we've heard him say many times before while trying to defend the scam that is the NCAA. The entire interview is worth a listen, because Patrick isn't afraid to challenge Emmert, but I particularly enjoyed Patrick's last question, in which he asks Emmert how he would feel about being an unpaid "student-athlete."


Here's Emmert's answer:

If I was playing college football or any other Division I sport and I had an opportunity to get an education at a world-class university, all expenses paid, had an opportunity to compete at the highest level, get the best coaching, the best health care, the best training possible, I would consider that ample compensation for my being allowed to participate in that program.


Good for Emmert, but why stop at the hypothetical? If all this is good enough for people who work full-time playing college football, it should be good enough for people who work full-time promoting it. Instead of paying Emmert $1.7 million a year, maybe the NCAA should just give him a meal card, health insurance, and vouchers redeemable for some life coaching. It's been a while since Emmert was in a classroom, so let's throw in some free continuing education courses from a world-class institution of higher learning like Oral Roberts University. You can't put a price on knowledge, after all.

A final note: Emmert and other NCAA stans really need to stop acting like "world-class health care" is a fucking perk. Big State U. keeps the linebackers in knee surgeries and flu shots for the same reason they keep the bolts tightened and the gears greased down at the cracker factory, and anyway you don't get a hearty pat on the back for not making your full-time employees go on Medicaid.