CHICAGO – A group of Rutgers football players was headed to a store in downtown Newark to buy some new clothes at a good price when Keith Lumpkin noticed one teammate’s reluctance to join the shopping spree.
“I was like, ‘C’mon, let’s go. You can ride with me. I’ll drive,’” Lumpkin said, at the time naïve to a hard truth. “He’s saying, ‘I don’t have no money.’ I’m like, ‘I’ve got you. Don’t worry about it. We’re family.’”
Stories like that one – or the one Rutgers star Leonte Carroo told Friday at Big Ten media day about student-athletes piling up parking tickets on campus because they can’t afford to buy a parking pass – are the reason that the $1 billion NCAA finds itself under intense public pressure to give a little money back to its amateurs.