College athletics not a business, JU’s Kerwin Bell says in First Coast News story

Jacksonville University’s football coach and a freshman player shared their thoughts about a proposal to compensate college athletes in an April 3 First Coast News story about a California case that has ignited a national discussion on the topic.

Some former student athletes are attempting to require the National Collegiate Athletic Association to share its revenues from television deals, video games and other money-generating ventures.

JU freshman offensive lineman Kevin Battle says having the opportunity to play college football is plenty of compensation for him.

“Getting an education, and a chance to get a degree. I just soak it up, that’s my reward,” Battle told First Coast News.

JU football coach Kerwin Bell went a step further in the First Coast News story: College athletics is not a business, he said.

Bell says compensating athletes could be particularly harmful to small universities.

“I’m sure some of those guys at the top, the SEC guys, Florida, they might want to do that because it might give them an advantage over everyone else. But you can’t realistically think that schools in the NCAA can make that happen,” Bell told First Coast News.

Here is the text version of the First Coast News article; here’s the video version: