OMAHA, Neb. _ They took turns walking onto the media-room stage Thursday inside the CenturyLink Center, one Hall of Fame basketball coach after another. There are 2,676 wins, 19 Final Four appearances and seven NCAA national championships between the three of them _ Kansas' Bill Self, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski and Syracuse's Jim Boeheim.
With those resumes comes significant, deserved compensation.
For them. But not for the players they so often allocate some of the credit.
As the sports world centers its focus on the NCAA Tournament, which will trim its field to a Final Four this weekend, college basketball and the NCAA as an institution remain under scrutiny for myriad issues that the game's best coaches say need solving. Among them: A system that prevents athletes from making money while those around them profit from their success.
"The reality of it is it's big, big business. It's big money, and everybody is looking to make something out of it," Self said. "Whether it be scouting services, AAU programs, shoe companies, universities, you could look at all areas, and the reason people are in the business is to try to make money.
"And you can make an honest case that the student-athletes obviously are the ones that create the money but really receive very little of it. So I think there will be an adjustment. I don't know the magnitude of it. But I look forward to seeing some changes."
It's a long-standing topic of conversation brought further into the spotlight after an FBI investigation revealed the scope of improper benefits in college basketball. Certain assistant coaches stand to receive prison sentences.
At the crux of the issue is amateurism, what the NCAA calls a "bedrock principal of college athletics" and what lately has been seen more as a defensive mechanism. Under the standard rules of amateurism, players cannot be paid a salary, cannot sign contracts with professional teams and cannot receive benefits or agree to representation from agents.
As Krzyzewski was quick to point Thursday, "It's not my model. We do what the guys tell us to do, OK?"
But it's a business structure in which the top coaches in the game profit nonetheless.
And business is good. The 2017 tournament generated more than $1 billion, according to Forbes. In January, the NCAA released a financial statement that showed it made $1 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2017, its highest mark yet.
In a billion-dollar industry, the stars aren't getting paid.
A free education, you say? Well, not really. It would only be free if nothing is expected in return, and players are providing a service. They are members of the basketball team, and for that reason alone, in return they receive tuition, room and board and some meals. Two years ago, the NCAA allowed schools to also provide students a stipend that covers the "cost of attendance."
"I've been pretty happy with my four years of college. It's been awesome," Duke senior Grayson Allen said. "It would be really tough because you're changing something that's been in place for a long time. It sounds good _ I'd love to receive some extra money; that would be awesome. But thankfully I'm not the one in charge trying to figure out exactly how to do that."
Cost of attendance checks range from $2,000 to $6,000 annually. Boeheim, Self and Krzyzewski all said Thursday that players have many more luxuries today than they enjoyed a decade or even half-decade ago. "A dramatic improvement," Krzyzewski said. "Not small. Dramatic."
It's a start. But is it complete?
"I think we need to tweak it to do a better job. I think we need to do a better job of explaining what players actually get in terms of cost of attendance, in terms of meals now," Boeheim said. " ... I think basically players can get $1,200-$1,500 a month plus their full scholarship, and that's a good model. I think we need to continue to look at that.
"Coaches have asked for years to do more, and for a long time they said you couldn't do it, but then they did it with cost of attendance. So I think hopefully there's still some room to give more to the players."
Compare those monthly figures to the total money swirling in and around the game, and it's merely a drop in the bucket.
Look at the coaching salaries for the four coaches in Omaha this weekend, competing to win the Midwest Regional and secure a spot in the Final Four. Krzyzewski is the top-paid coach in NCAA men's hoops, according to a database compiled by USA Today. He earns $8.98 million annually. Self is at $4.95 million. Boeheim makes $2.15 million. And even Clemson's Brad Brownell _ the only one among the four in Omaha this weekend who is not in the Hall of Fame _ makes $1.8 million. That's $18 million between the four.
So the coaches make millions. The NCAA makes billions. The schools, the venues, the apparel companies _ they all get a cut, too.
But not the players you pay to see.
"I don't have the answers," Self said. "The model needs to change, though. I think everybody would be in agreement with that."
It's a dilemma that extends to all sports. But basketball has placed itself under the microscope given the recent FBI probe that uncovered a slew of "potential impermissible benefits and preferential treatment for players and families" at several high-ranking schools, according to a Yahoo Sports report last month. That story linked Apples Jones, the mother of former KU player and first-round pick Josh Jackson, to loans provided by an agent and money received from adidas.
Boeheim has said he doesn't believe paying players a salary will prevent agents from trying to secure business from college athletes while they are still operating under the amateurism rules.
As a result of that FBI investigation, NCAA president Mark Emmert established a commission on college basketball, designed to study ways to reform the sport. But he doesn't expect the payment of players to be one of the solutions offered.
"I haven't heard any universities say that they want to change amateurism to move into a model where student-athletes are paid by universities and universities are negotiating with agents for their relationships with a school," Emmert told the Associated Press this month. "I would be surprised if the commission came forward with that kind of recommendation."
All three Hall of Fame coaches said Thursday that the system needs at least some tweaks. But even that leaves much up for debate. How would athletes get paid? And how much? The Chronicle of Higher Education presents an argument to pay college athletes $750,000 annually.
Each.
For Boeheim and Krzyzewski, it's not just how and how much. It's when players should be allowed to receive payment and when they should be allowed to sign with agents or cash in signing bonuses.
"The model needs to be changed, especially in regards to what a kid and his family can do before they come to your institution, because the school and the coaches have no control over that," Krzyzewski said.
"I'd like for them to take a look at what happens before you get them to make sure that the kid are afforded the opportunity to max out _ like anyone else in our country _ what talent will give you."
