Hail Alma Mater(s)
Travel back with me to those thrilling days of yesteryear when a young lad or lassie would work their tails off playing high school sports so they might be noticed by a recruiter for a major (or really any) college or university and given a free ride to a coveted degree, just for representing old “State” on the fields or courts of intercollegiate sports.
I once had those hopes myself, but I didn’t measure up. But I did have cousins who got football scholarships to respectable universities, which led in their cases not to the NFL, but to distinguished careers in teaching and high school administration. Without scholarships, they would have struggled to pay for their college education.
My guess is that most athletes at major institutions are now more interested in professional careers in the NFL or NBA than in getting a degree. Only 50 percent of NFL players have degrees; in the NBA, it’s only 25 percent. We are now living in the era of “one and done” in college basketball.
We also have the transfer portal, which permits an athlete to move from a lesser to a more notable school, thus enhancing his or her value in the draft. I have even read recently that talent scouts now take a dim view of prospects who have spent their entire careers at the same school, which must mean that better schools weren’t interested in them. Playing the portal effectively led to the unlikely rise of Indiana University to the pinnacle of college football.
Throw into this bubbling brew the rewards of “Name, Image, Likeness (NIL)” The quarterback from that same Indiiana team, Fernando Mendoza, is estimated to have made $2.6 million in endorsement deals, while still (theoretically) an amateur. . By the way, he had previously played for the University of California “Golden Bears.” He graduated from California, but still had football eligibility left, so he transferred to Indiana to get a graduate business degree. Maybe he should teach it instead!
NIL is inherently unfair. In my experience, an offensive guard works just as hard as a quarterback to get and keep in top physical condition, but makes little or no NIL income, nor is the higher paid athlete required to share his or her income with the grunts that make their lofty reputations possible. I have no objection to athletes being compensated in this way, but I do think a more equitable way of sharing the income is justified.
Although the amounts were not as lofty, boosters and others in the past found ways to lure the best prospects to their schools with a variety of “under the table” incentives. It might have been secretly making a down payment on a house for dear old mom and dad, or “loaning” a flashy convertible to that star quarterback. At least the NCAA doesn’t have to spend all its time policing the old rules, so can now concentrate on finding athletes being paid by gamblers to shave points.
Illinois had tax income of nearly $2 billion in 2024 on various forms of gambling. All those people holding their phones at sporting events aren’t checking their messages. They’re keeping the state solvent while going broke themselves.
Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon
cannonnadedotcom 
Gaudeamus igitur!
Alma Mater is going to nourish, for most students their minds, for some in cash.
And what better preparation for the NFL than the NIL?
The transfer portal has no doubt disrupted college sports, but also liberating student athletes from the time when college programs raked in revenues and treated players like indentured servants.
It took decades before professional sports like baseball allowed players to have free agency. For so-called not-for-profit colleges, it took even longer.
If memory serves, it was Northwestern football players that first brought suit claiming grants-in-aid made them statutory employees. The NLRB declined jurisdiction in the case, but the suit opened the door to further litigation that eventually led to NIL and the portal.
All major college programs now compensate players through NIL, and players are free to offer their services wherever they prefer.
Indiana is hardly the only school that recruits players in the portal. IU also compensates players via NIL, but its fund doesn’t even crack the Top 25.
No doubt it helped Indiana win the national championship with an undefeated season, but it did so on the same playing field as every other team it played, including those with far more NIL money, including Oregon, Texas, Ohio State, Alabama, Penn State, Michigan State, Iowa and Illinois, all teams IU put in the loss column.
Give some credit to Curt Cignetti, his staff and to the players they recruited and coached.
Cignetti brought most of his staff and several key players to Indiana from James Madison. Other players came mostly from schools with smaller programs. I don’t think any of them were ranked four stars or above. Cignetti knew what kind of players he wanted: experienced, hungry and humble, willing to put team above self.
Mendoza was an average quarterback at Cal with a 6-5 record and a 68.7 completion percentage for 3,004 yards. He graduated from Cal but red shirted in 2022 as a freshman, so was eligible to play at Indiana, where his brother Alberto had earlier enrolled.
Under Cignetti’s tutelage, Mendoza perfected his game to the point of winning the Heisman, the first in IU’s history.
He’s also a good person. He donated $500,000 to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and set up a fund, as his mother suffers from the affliction.
Karl Marx may protest, but the highest NIL payouts tend to go to the most valued athletes. Not that linemen aren’t essential to a team’s fortunes, but QBs and other scoring players are a rarer commodity and bring more value. Unfair? Maybe, but it’s also motivation to do better.
Now that he’s turning pro, and likely the No. 1 draft choice, the second Indiana player to do so since fullback Corbett Davis (who also played defense!) in 1938.
All Mendoza’s accomplishments may earn him a spot on the Raiders, one of the most reviled teams in the NFL. No free market there.
How’s that for fairness? Fair to lousy teams.
Sports are a big money business, an understatement. Businesses can be run ethically as well as unethically. Profits aren’t evil in themselves. It’s the character of the people involved that counts. True perhaps, but it hardly inspires confidence.
I have a ton of misgivings about the role of gambling in sports, something that has become universally accepted and aggressively promoted in this country. I’m not a gambler. For me betting, even the March Madness brackets, gets in the way of my enjoyment of sports competition.
In a way, NIL does, too. But there’s thin gruel in signaling virtue, and if I did I might have to accuse myself of envy.
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