The fact that Reggie Bush's parents may have received help to purchase a house from someone has sparked several debates recently.

The whole situation got me to thinking about the issue of, "Should college athletes be paid?"

I know what people always say. They get a full-ride through school. They get stipends for things such as doing their laundry, etc.

Well...maybe they forgot, but thousands and thousands of kids get academic scholarships every year.The difference: the students in school on academic awards can have jobs. They can have paid internships. The students who get free rides because of their grades can get things from whoever and nobody says anything about it.

All of those things are a huge help to the kids who wouldn't have gotten into school without those awards. I know I would have never graduated from Michigan State had I not been able to get a job to help pay for things.

What if "El Presidente," as his teammates call the likely Number One pick in Saturday's NFL Draft, wanted to take his girl out for dinner and a movie? How can he do that with no job? All college athletes don't have cars and money for airfare, so what is a guy supposed to do if he goes to school in Georgia, but he's from New York and he wants to go see his people during the holidays?

I'm a 24-year-old guy. In order to make it through those scenarios I just mentioned, you have to have some very understanding family--and, quite possibly--the greatest girlfriend in the history of the world.

You know who doesn't need understanding from anyone? The guys pocketing all the scratch they made pushing No. 5 jerseys. The organizations getting PAID because 80,000 people filled a stadium to watch Vince Young play.

The high-revenue college sports--men's basketball and football--make it possible for the field hockey team to have a nice place to play. Those two sports alone pump millions upon millions of dollars into hundreds of colleges and universities each year, that all the residence halls on a bunch of campuses should be named after All-Americans.

The NCAA and professional sports have created a monopoly that makes it extremely difficult for "student-athletes" to make it. One thing about that parenthetic term is that a majority of schools wouldn't give a damn about a majority of those kids if they couldn't catch or dunk a basketball.

Yes. I DO think that college athletes should be paid. Why shouldn't they get a piece of what everybody else is eating off of them? They can't get jobs. Hell, you can get a job washin' towels when you're locked up!

And on the pro side, how can you tell somebody that they're not ready to play professionally at 18 when Uncle Sam says they're ready to carry a Mac-11 and fire it at people at that same age?

I bet if 90,000 people came to see a girl play Beethoven's Third, that girl and her parents would want some paper out of it. I'm not saying pay them thousands of dollars, but give them enough to take a female out and put clothes on their back. I know some players already get "perks," but not every college player is D'Brickashaw Ferguson.

I don't know about Reggie Bush's family, but the families of most college athletes aren't "well off." Their kid being able to read a defense is the only way said kid would have ever had a shot at going to college. So before we get all high and mighty and look at all the reasons why college athletes shouldn't be paid, try looking at both sides first.