Ohio State's third-string quarterback Cardale Jones infamously tweeted this message last week:
“Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain’t come to play SCHOOL classes are pointless.”
Jones' Twitter account has been taken down and OSU has suspended him for a game. In The New Republic's "Who Wins When 'Student' and 'Athlete' Clash? The University," Marc Tracy throws a flag on the field:
If Jones is a student, then he should be allowed to tweet about not liking class. If Jones is an athlete, with enough responsibility that he isn’t allowed to tweet about not liking class, then he should be paid some figure commensurate to his value and market worth—which would surely exceed the several thousand dollars his in-state scholarship is worth annually. And any hybrid of student and athlete should be designed to give Jones something other than the worst of both worlds.
This is not a new argument, of course, but social media has provided a fresh reason to make the case.
Photo: Formal opening of the new Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor, October 22, 1927, Ohio State University vs. University of Michigan. Library of Congress
