Paying student athletes to play

Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-pasadena, is the perfect legislator to carry his recently introduced College Athlete Protections Act, which would pay athletes in big-bucks programs in California universities up to $25,000 a year for playing their game.

That’s because Chris is one of the few lawmakers — the few anyones — who’s been there.

Over a four-year career — yes, he graduated — playing basketball for San Diego State, Chris, who is a 6-foot-8 power forward, averaged 5 points a game for the Aztecs, mostly coming off the bench. His best year, as a soph-wilson omore, he averaged

8.3 points and 6 rebounds while hitting the hardwood in 27 games.

OK, these aren’t Kareem’s stats. Few of us are Kareem. But very few of us also played varsity sports at a high collegiate level. Point is, he’s been there, putting in the 10,000 hours.

And, unlike so many college athletes who get spit out of the system, with their sporting years being the best ones of their lives, Chris went on to a business career, served as a city councilman and then mayor of Pasadena, and has represented the San Gabriel Valley and points east in the Legislature for a decade.

Pardon me for calling him Chris. Rare is the pol I would. It’s just that I’ve known and reported on him for, geez, 30 years. I can’t call him “Holden.” That would perhaps be his dad, Nate Holden, the 94-year-old former Los Angeles councilman and state senator. Chris and I don’t agree on every political thing. So what? You won’t find a straighter shooter, a sweeter, more honest guy, a representative more dedicated to working hard for his community. Anywhere.

So — is it a good idea for California colleges to pay their student athletes?

A few years ago, I think I would have been in the “no way” camp, out of some misguided — naive, even — notion of the sanctified amateur American athlete.

And then, you know, you finally grow up; get real; recall the appalling way in which this country treated probably the greatest American athlete ever, Jim Thorpe, stripping him of his Olympic medals because the impoverished member of the Sac and Fox Nation was slipped a few bucks for playing two seasons of semi-pro baseball when he was young.

Considering the big bucks universities rake in on the backs of their “student athletes,” all the while paying their coaches on the sidelines millions of dollars a year, the real question is what took such a proposal so long to be fully considered, with the likelihood of passage.

Crew rowers and lacrosse players are going to have to wait for their paydays,

What Assembly Bill 252 proposes is that California colleges and universities share a percentage of their massive sports revenue with football and both men’s and women’s basketball players. The paychecks would be based on how much revenue the programs earn each year.

The pay maxes out at that reasonable $25,000 a year — nothing spectacular, but good beer money for an undergrad.

Here’s the really cool part, according to Sports Illustrated: Chris’s bill “tethers a portion of an athlete’s pay to graduation; does not consider athletes employees of their universities; requires schools to provide medical care and scholarships for athletes after their eligibility; and, in a severe penalty, calls for the suspension of athletic directors for at least three years if they cut roster spots, reduce scholarship amounts or discontinue sports programs.”

“It’s no shock that college athletes experience injuries on the field, on the court or in the game/match,” Chris told SI. “What is shocking is the lack of protections helping athletes when they are down.”