Out of the blue, Missouri football announced in July the creation of garypinkel.com, a new portal for accessing the Tigers on the gridiron through the namesake of their head coach.
It was a welcome change for Mizzou fans and the media alike, both of whom could take a closer look at Missouri football as it embarked on its second year in the Southeastern Conference. It was a glimmer of transparency in the opaque body that is Mizzou Athletics.
Immediately, Pinkel’s every move was documented: his Tiger Talk dinners at Buffalo Wild Wings, recorded Google Plus hangouts and what the Tigers will wear on the field every Saturday (_a lot_ of gray).
Then, on Sept. 9, Pinkel upped the ante with the content he posted online, speaking in favor of further compensation of student athletes in a 1-minute-52-second video that got Maneater Sports thinking: If student-athletes were to be paid, what would it look like?
It is with that muse we offer to untangle the vast web of money in college sports, deconstruct the the benefits and drawbacks of the life of a student-athlete and expose the oft-unsightly system of college sports.
We offer this report as neither a condemnation nor a comendation of those who do or do not support compensating athletes, rather, as a discussion of what is just and what is not. We offer this report to help clarify. We offer it to begin untangling the web.