One of the highlights of Super Bowl week each year is the plentiful media exposure of some of the sport's most popular athletes. Fans always enjoy it because it gives the players rare opportunity to talk about something other than football.
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Of course, football still comes up, and sometimes players end up letting you know their real thoughts about a topic. Richard Sherman and Michael Bennett did just that this week when they ripped the NCAA.
The pair took the time to provide a different viewpoint about student-athletes, which is obviously a hot-button issue right now because of the debate surrounding compensation for college players.
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Here are some of the things Sherman had to say:
"I don't think college athletes are given enough time to really take advantage of the free education that they're given, and it's frustrating because a lot of people get upset with student-athletes and say they're not focused on school and they're not taking advantage of the opportunity they're given.
"I would love for a regular student to have a student-athlete's schedule during the season for just one quarter or one semester and show me how you balance that. Show me how you would schedule your classes when you can't schedule classes from 2-to-6 o'clock on any given day. Show me how you're going to get all your work done when after you get out at 7:30 or so, you've got a test the next day, you're dead tired from practice and you still have to study just as hard as everybody else every day and get all the same work done.
"People think, 'Oh, you're on scholarship.' They pay for your room and board, they pay for your education, but to their knowledge, you're there to play football. You're not on scholarship for school and it sounds crazy when a student-athlete says that, but that's those are the things coaches tell them every day: 'You're not on scholarship for school.'"
And here are some of Bennett's comments:
"I think the NCAA is one of the biggest scams in America, because these kids put so much on the line, and they study hard, they play football as hard as they can, but if they don't crack the NFL, then [the NCAA] says, 'We gave you a free degree.' That's like me owning a restaurant and saying, 'I'll give you a free burger.'...I'm just giving you something I already have.
"Guys break their legs and they get the worst surgeries you could possibly get, they see the worst doctors, they get the worst treatment, then they're stuck with injuries for the rest of their life, and to say that you get a degree doesn't mean anything to me."
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