While some people want to see the Miami Hurricanes scandal wind up with congressional hearings, at least one prominent Senator says he'd rather see the NCAA shape up than ship the Hurricanes out. Of course, that Senator is Marco Rubio, who just happens to be a former college football player himself and holds a law degree from the University of Miami.
"Obviously, it is very sad to see what is happening with the young athletes over at the University of Miami," Rubio said, according to the Local 10. "I think the NCAA carries a lot of blame of what is going on."
"You have this multi-, hundred-million-dollar industry that is NCAA football, and their No. 1 employee is the players, who play for free."
"Some of these kids go play on Saturday nights in front of 80,000 people and make the universities and the NCAA hundreds of millions of dollars, and then that night they don't even have enough money to go to McDonald's. So, I think they've got to figure out some changes in the rules because what they are doing right now is unfair to the kids. I think the kids are responsible for the mistakes they made, but I think the NCAA is being hypocritical as well in its approach to all of this."
Rubio attended Tarkio College, a now defunct college that played in the NAIA, for one year on a football scholarship before eventually transferring to Sante Fe Community College and then the University of Florida. He received his law degree from the University of Miami.
Perhaps if we can get the full force of the Tea Party behind Rubio's ideas for NCAA reforms we could actually see something done.
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