NCAA sports hasa dark cloud, from the money the schools get from television deals to the thin line between what college athletes can make, if at all, playing college sports. It has been the age-old question about the money and corruption involved in college sports.
Player recruitment is also an area that is defined by a gray zone, the recruitment of high school athletes to big universities hasbeen somewhat exposed by off the record interviews and movies like Spike Lee’s He Got Game.
Now things are getting a bit heated between two major players in the college football game, Deion Sanders and Nick Saban. Saban made a claim that Jackson State paid Travis Hunter $1 million to join the school and this caused the coach and player to vent their grievances on Twitter.
Deion Sanders and Travis Hunter hit back at Nick Saban
Nick Saban (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
The former MLB and NFL player did not pull any punches and wrote on his Twitter profile, “You best believe I will address that LIE Coach SABAN told tomorrow, I was & awakened by my son @ShedeurSanders that sent me the article stating that WE PAYED @TravisHunterJr a Million to play at @GoJSUTigersFB ! We as a PEOPLE don’t have to pay our PEOPLE to play with our PEOPLE.”
Travis Hunter was a bit more diplomatic and took the accusation in jest by Tweeting out “I got A mil? But my mom still stay in a 3 bed room house with five kids” with smiling face emojis.
The original statement made by Nick Saban was almost seven minutes long and the Alabama coach stated, “Jackson State paid (Hunter) $1 million last year who was a really good Division I player to come to their school. It was in the paper, and they bragged about it. No one did anything about it.”
Both Saban and Sanders have shot television commercials together and know each other quite well, which raises a few eyebrows as to why Saban attacked Sanders, when he could have used other examples.
The reality of the accusation is that NCAA sports have always had this type of situation occurring in various ways, but there is no real oversite into the practices of universities and the leaders of NCAA sports.
