Mayar Zokaei Mayar Zokaei invests in
Krispy Kreme stock and wants to be a Cash Money Millionaire. If you
know how he can get more dough, e-mail him at [email protected].
So I opened my copy of the Los Angeles Times last week and read
that Lakers center Shaquille O’Neal signed a contract
extension for $88.4 million smackers over three years. This amounts
to about a $26 million salary for the 2003-2004 season.
Another newspaper said, “Superdeal for
Superman.”
Now, I’m not an expert on superhero salaries, but if I was
the real Man of Steel-via-Krypton’s employer and had to put a
value on Superman’s miraculous efforts, I doubt it would even
be a quarter of Shaq Daddy’s.
With the political elections looming in the near future and the
high probability that you, the reader, are a UCLA student, I have
decided to put things in perspective with two simple
comparisons.
First, in 2003-04 Shaq will make $25 million more than the next
president of the United States will earn the entire four years he
will serve as the commander-in-chief. Keep in mind that the U.S.
president is considered the highest-ranking and most prestigious
post in the world.
If that’s not fathomable, consider this: my friend Amir, a
top pre-medical student at UCLA, could probably have his salary
reach $26 million in 2003-04 when he will begin his paid residency,
after roughly four more years of medical school after UCLA.
The disparity here, however, is that he will only make this much
if his salary is multiplied by 100 and added to the salaries of 700
of his peers.
The problem permeates UCLA in other sectors as well. While you
might assume that the highest paid employee at UCLA would be a
Nobel Prize-winning, world-renowned professor who discovered
Tylenol, or perhaps the chancellor, it is in fact UCLA head
football coach Bob Toledo. The figure: more than half a million
dollars a year.
The chancellor makes about half that and my sociology professor
makes about $50,000 a year after enduring years of education,
teaching and research. She doesn’t have a win-loss record,
and an occurrence equivalent to one loss in her field of play would
probably cost her a job
Yet while UCLA has stumbled to a relatively mediocre 4-3 record,
Toledo also serves as one of the highest paid employees in the
state of California.
If tmoney is the root of all evil, then what are sports when an
exorbitant amount of money is the fruition of athletic
excellence?
It is society that is the cause of this paradigm. When did we
decide that the efforts of a medical professional is less valuable
than the relatively simple exploits of a tall man who throws a ball
through a hoop?
The pattern starts in college. I always hear how UCLA allocates
thousands of dollars for scholarships to outstanding intellects who
pursue their academic careers in UCLA, yet I don’t know one
non-athlete with a full ride. I’m not saying there
aren’t any, but there obviously aren’t many.
I ain’t mad at you, Bob. Any man who can do what he loves
for a living and make a ton of money in the process is, in my eyes,
successful.
Ditto for you, Shaq. You can go out the next day and buy each of
your teammates, including a college Class of 2000 rookie, an $8,000
Rolex watch.
But when I see my teaching assistants clamor for that much money
in stipends after two years of service, it makes me think.
When I see the escalating salary of first-year professional
athletes and college coaches, and the decreasing salaries of
first-year UCLA professors, it makes think some more.
And soon, when my friend who should be fixing my heartaches and
other ailments no longer wants be a doctor because his body
can’t stand the 60-hour work weeks for which he earns about
$10 an hour, there will be no motivation for him to go on.
What happens then, when the $26 million man can’t find the
qualified doctor to prevent a leg injury from ending his
career?
Nothing ““ money will have spoken and it will be too
late.