UNC Asheville to pay selected athletes next season

ASHEVILLE – For colleges that rank at the bottom of their conferences in athletic budgets and struggle every year to break even financially, an extra $90,000 or so annually is a big expense.

But that's what UNC Asheville and probably Western Carolina are looking at spending to pay athletes and help keep up with their competitors.

A new NCAA regulation allows schools to pay their athletes an amount that equals the true cost of attendance minus the cost of a full athletic scholarship, a rule that will go into effect in the upcoming 2015-16 school year.

The measure, called cost of attendance, is optional for schools, and many athletic departments are still in the decision-making process about if, which and how many athletes they will pay.

Western Carolina athletic director Randy Eaton is very blunt about the rule and how it affects mid-major programs like his and Asheville's so much more than the Power Five conference schools (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 12 and SEC) that have so many more financial resources.

"This is about keeping up with the Jones. And how we do that, I don't know," Eaton said.

"I struggle with the fairness of this. No matter what you want to call this, in reality it's spending money for the kids."

The cost of attendance figure per athlete varies from school to school — Georgia Tech is less than $2,000, Furman is around $2,800, Kentucky is between $3,300 and $3,600 and Louisville is more than $5,000.

And the schools' plans on who gets paid also vary. While some will pay just certain sports, others — like East Carolina and Liberty — have announced plans to pay every scholarship athlete.

Price tag

The Big South Conference has decided that all 11 of its schools, including Asheville, will pay cost of attendance for all scholarship players on the men's and women's basketball teams.

Eaton and Appalachian State assistant AD Mike Flynn said their schools are undecided on how they will proceed.

According to UNC Asheville athletic director Janet Cone, the school's cost of attendance figure per athlete is $2,454 for in-state students and $3,564 for out-of-state, and paying the 27 basketball players expected to be on scholarship next season in those two sports will cost the school about $90,000 per year.

"All money is tough to raise, and this means we just have to put that in our budget and go out and raise $90,000 more," said Cone, who added that the payments will begin with the upcoming 2015-16 school year.

"We may have used that $90,000 for something else, but this is what the Big South has decided to do.

"I'm never going to be in favor of paying student-athletes, but I don't think this is paying them.

"I wish we had more flexibility and time to work on this and look at how equitable this is for all athletes."

"We're still looking at it and feeling out what the remainder of the (Southern) conference is going to do, and we'll know more after our spring meetings next month," said Eaton.

Paying all WCU athletes would cost the school about $750,000 annually, said Eaton, and would probably force the athletic program to drop some sports.

"If forced to pay that, I'm not sure we could. We would probably have to limit participation opportunities for other athletes.

"Some mid-major schools similar to us, like College of Charleston, have already dropped programs and said they did it so they could pay for cost of attendance."

Eaton said WCU is probably going to pay the basketball teams, like Asheville, and the annual cost would be similar to what the Bulldogs plan to spend.

"If I had to do football, it would cost about $200,000, which would be about a 16 percent increase in their budget."

Ironically, football players in Cullowhee will almost definitely not be paid despite the fact their sport produces by far the most revenue.

Over the past two seasons, the football program has played five money games against FBS opponents for a total payout of $2.025 million.

WCU's annual athletic budget for all sports 2014-15 was $10.6 million, and Asheville — one of the lowest in Division I — was around $5.7 million.

Eaton and Cone said they rank at the bottom of their conferences in annual budget.

A widening gap

Richard Johnson is the athletic director at Wofford, a SoCon school waiting on decisions to be made at a meeting of league presidents next month before moving forward on the measure.

He said this is another example of widening the gap of the haves and have nots in college sports.

"There are two distinctly different groups — the (Power Five schools) and the rest of us," he said.

"The big five want to do it, are eager to do it and have the resources to do it. For the rest of us, it's a financial burden."

The huge increases in television money for college football and basketball at the higher levels of the NCAA make paying athletes for the larger schools a much easier proposition.

"The 360 schools that play Division I basketball have lost control of the narrative," said Johnson.

"The majority of the student-athletes are not going (pro) and are not here to be a farm system for the pros, but they are here to get a college degree.

"At Wofford, we treat athletics as a co-curricular activity. The lessons learned on the courts and the fields go hand-in-hand with the courses of study.

"But the TV money is so big at the Power Five level that it has changed the dynamics of the collegiate model. That model works at our level but not at their level."

Players like it

Paige Love, a rising senior basketball player at Asheville, said she would like to see all athletes at her school be treated the same.

"Being a student athlete is a full-time job and (because we) are not able to work to have extra funds, I can see that (money) as a benefit," said Love.

"If this is going to be mandated (by the Big South), I would like to see it spread across the board (to all athletes)."

Western Carolina rising senior Rhett Harrelson is a guard on the basketball team who hadn't heard his school is thinking about giving him around $2,500 for next season, but was excited to receive the news.

"Awesome! That would be a tremendous help," he said.

"To be able to buy some food and clothes and things like that, that would be great.

"I think if one team gets the money, all the teams should, but they really encourage us to stick around campus all year and do things as a team, and sometimes we have to pay for that ourselves.

"The extra money would help with that."

What's fair?

SoCon member Furman is also waiting on the league presidents' meeting before making a decision on cost of attendance, but athletic director Gary Clark said paying some athletes creates more of a disparity that already exists.

"We're constantly struggling with financial pressures, and this would be just one more expense," said Clark.

"There are already discrepancies among the sports, and this would just add to it.

"Most basketball programs are fully funded (for scholarships), but in most of the rest of our sports, very few athletes have full scholarships. Most are on partials, and now we might be adding another $2,800 difference in that discrepancy."

That disparity doesn't end with athletes at the same schools.

Bigger schools in the Power Five conferences that already have financial advantages can now offer more money — especially in the non-revenue sports — that would produce a bigger recruiting advantage against mid-major programs in conferences like the Big South and Southern.

"Those schools have multi-million dollar TV packages; I have to pay to get on TV," said Eaton.

"The theory that Western, Elon and (Appalachian State) has to keep up with North Carolina and Duke is absolutely ludicrous.

"Some things just aren't fair, and cost of attendance just widens the gap."