No Pay for Play

As part of its continuing series on how to improve sports, USA Today's suggestion for today is to pay college athletes to play sports. Mostly, of course, this meaning paying football and basketball players, since that's where the money is, anyway. I understand the arguments in favor - these guys make the colleges and universities an immense amount of money and deserve their cut. My only problem is that they actually get a cut, a scholarship. Not only a scholarship, but admission to the school in the first place when, in some (many?) cases, the players can't earn admission on academic merit. If you want to get rid of the wink-and-a-nod admissions and take away the scholarships and pay the athletes in lieu of that, fine by me. Of course, at that point, let's just separate the athletics from the schools completely. That's not a bad idea, actually.