Almost.

Neverminding the millions and millions of dollars that go to UAB each year to fund its disease research facilities - there's lots of money going in there and I think it's well-spent - it takes even more to make a college run. Especially a college with high-profile Division I sports teams. Basketball and football are both very important to UAB's image, and the money brought in by those programs alone is enough to fund a small country.

College athletes are the ultimate in slave labor: for all the hard work, determination, and sheer talent they put into the game for their schools, they get almost zero payback. You might argue that a college education is quite a payback, but have you looked at what's actually being learned? What joke degrees are often being pursued, degrees that were seemingly created for the sole benefit of athletics departments? What GPAs are in reality being maintained? A select few are good enough to make it to the level of professional sports, but what of the thousands who aren't?

The payoff is, sadly, a much freer reign of campus and preferential treatment by faculty, law enforcement, and the media. Sure, UAB could crack down on these things and put things back to the way they should be. But word will leak out, athletes will go to other schools that WILL offer them preferential treatment that they've been granted all throughout high school and have come to expect, and there's a huge chunk of change out the window.

One thing I have to agree with in that article is something to the effect of "This has all the makings for a TV movie of the week." And that, if anything, is about all it'll ever be. I've heard next to no mention of this on local TV, on radio, or in newspapers. But then, remembering that I live in the Birmingham TV, radio and newspaper market, it's really not that surprising.