COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR : COLLEGE BASKETBALL / GENE WOJCIECHOWSKI : How Two Athletes Survive

By Gene Wojciechowski

March 31, 1995 12 AM PT

SEATTLE — It would have been nice if Duke senior guard Kenny Blakeney and Utah junior guard Mark Rydalch had been here Thursday afternoon. That’s when Cedric Dempsey, the NCAA’s executive director, said that NCAA member schools probably couldn’t afford any increased scholarship payments to student athletes. As for, “laundry money,” forget it.

“I do not see any attempt to increase or provide direct payment,” said Dempsey, adding that such payments would be “contrary to the basic philosophy” of the NCAA.

Had Blakeney been at the news conference, he could have shown Dempsey the two-week budget he kept recently that shows how little a scholarship check actually covers in a town such as Durham, N.C. The African-American son of a single working mother in Washington, D.C., Blakeney could have asked why nearly 3,600 Division I men basketball players aren’t served a larger piece of the $1.725-billion TV deal with CBS.

And Dempsey might have been interested to learn of the financial situation of Rydalch--point guard, husband, father of one. Rydalch, who kept a monthlong budget, would have been happy to show the executive director why he thinks the rules sometimes stink.

No such luck.

Instead, for more than an hour Thursday, Dempsey explained, almost line by line, the intricacies of the 1994-95 NCAA budget, which totals $203.5 million. He emphasized that 32% of the 301 Division basketball programs in 1993 lost money and that about 85% of the revenue generated by the NCAA is funneled back to the institutions to “assist” student athletes.

In essence, Dempsey conducted an accounting seminar, and when he was done, he could do no better than to say that the NCAA needs to examine the possibility of cutting the gap between the value of a scholarship and the cost of living. And a decision on that issue might not be made until May, at the earliest, when the NCAA Executive Committee convenes to discuss what to do with the new dollars generated by the CBS contract.

For Blakeney and Rydalch, it isn’t enough. A scholarship isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. On sheets of handwritten notebook paper, they kept their budgets in an effort to show why Dempsey needs to pay more attention to the athletes and less to the bottom line.

KENNY BLAKENEY / Duke University

There have been months--more than he would like to admit--when Blakeney’s checkbook balance dropped to $2, when a “date” consisted of a $2 rental movie, a dollar’s worth of pasta and cheapie spaghetti sauce, when his morning meal was Gatorade and a Snickers bar.

“Breakfast of champions,” said Blakeney, a Blue Devil senior guard.

His “hoopty,” which is slang for an own-a-wreck, is a 1986 Toyota Corolla. The odometer is pushing 80,000 miles, but, Blakeney said, “It’s paid for.” So is his athletic scholarship, to the pricey tune of $25,473 a school year. Duke picks up that tab.

In return, Blakeney played in or was available for Duke’s 33-game schedule. He observed a six-days-a-week schedule that included practices, film sessions, conditioning and weightlifting. He adhered to a dress code. He made satisfactory progress toward graduation. He occasionally missed classes because of team-related travel. He suffered injuries. He played hurt.

Blakeney’s playing career is probably finished. He was a sometime starter for a Blue Devil team that finished 13-18. He has an invitation to one of the postseason NBA scouting camps, but realistically, his chances for a pro career aren’t good.

Blakeney will leave with a Duke degree, no small compensation. But he also will leave with some bitterness, not only toward the basketball program itself, but toward an NCAA system that he and some of his teammates consider antiquated and unfair.

“We talk about it all the time,” he said. “End of the month, we all talk about it. We’re hanging together--broke. A scholarship just isn’t enough.

“Since I’ve been here, we’ve won two national championships and been in three Final Fours. I think the university generated a hell of a lot more than that scholarship.”

According to Joe Alleva, Duke’s associate athletic director, the basketball program has received an average of $750,000 a year from the Atlantic Coast Conference’s revenue-sharing plan during Blakeney’s stay.

Meanwhile, Blakeney struggles to make ends meet on a $725 monthly scholarship payment. Under NCAA rules, he is not allowed to have a job during the season. And even if he were, Blakeney said very few, if any, major college basketball players could find time for school, practices, games, travel and a part-time job.

The off-season isn’t much better.

“One of the things coaches tell you is that you need to get better over the summer,” he said. “Well, that takes about three or four hours of your day right there. You’ve got conditioning. Playing. Working on your game. How can you work, too?

“You can’t really have an internship. The emphasis is playing basketball instead of getting a job.”

Blakeney doesn’t come from a rich family. His mother is a clerk at a Washington grocery store. She tries to send him about $60 each month.

“And if I didn’t get some money from home, I’d be dead,” he said.

Of his $725 monthly scholarship payment, $337.50 went to pay rent for his off-campus apartment, $66 went to the electric company, $77 to the phone company, $20 to the cable company. That left Blakeney with $224.50.

Because Duke requires its players to adhere sometimes to a travel dress code, Blakeney also spends about $32 a month on dry cleaning.

“I don’t think you can stick a suit in a washer and dryer,” he said.

He spent $180.55 on food--training table doesn’t cover all meals--about $82 of which was paid by a travel per diem. So make it $98.55 out of Blakeney’s pocket. Now he’s down to $93.95.

He spent $24 on gas for his car, $10 for a haircut. That left him with $59.95.

In retrospect, Blakeney said, he would have played somewhere other than Duke. Part of that has to do with playing time, but part of it also has to do with comfort level.

“One of the things that’s especially tough is that most of the kids here are really wealthy, or at least, their families are,” Blakeney said. “It’s a reality check. They’re driving Saabs, Porsches. I’ve got a hoopty, a car that’s just a bomb. It can bother you sometimes. Some of the kids are your friends, but it’s very difficult. They live a very different life than you. It’s difficult just because of your financial situation.”

Blakeney said he doesn’t want a Porsche. But a monthly stipend-- so-called “laundry money”--or even a university-issued credit card with a predetermined limit would be reasonable. The way Blakeney looks at it, the NCAA owes its athletes that much.

“I don’t understand where the TV money is going, where all the money goes from the NCAA tournament, where all the shoe money goes,” he said. “If you’re watching a game--and let’s use Nike and Jerry Stackhouse, because he’s hot--you say, ‘I want a pair of those shoes Jerry Stackhouse is wearing.’ You don’t look on the sidelines and say, ‘I want those shoes because of Dean Smith.’

“But those coaches, they’re making money off those guys wearing those shoes.”

They’re also making money off basketball camps. Before the NCAA changed the rules, players were compensated for speaking and teaching at those camps.

“You could really make a killing,” Blakeney said.

Then the NCAA revised the legislation, saying players could be paid, but only on a prorated basis. Later, it said players couldn’t be paid for speaking at camps.

As the number of NCAA-allowed revenue sources dwindle, players turn to alternative methods, many of them against the rules. Blakeney wouldn’t name names, nor did he suggest any of these practices occur at Duke, but he did say there were ways to make extra money.

Blakeney said he is aware of one method by which a booster will walk into a store, buy an inexpensive item, hand the clerk a $100 bill and say, “Give the gentleman behind me the change, please.”

The gentleman will be a player.

There are also sweetheart summer-job arrangements. Or the “million-dollar handshake,” in which the booster passes over some crisp cash. Or someone sends the player’s parents money, who then send the money to the player.

“I don’t think any coach would agree with that,” Blakeney said. “But that’s what’s going on.”

As for that remaining $59.95, Blakeney splurged. He bought a $62 video game, but he needed to dip into his mom’s $60 safety net to make up the $2.05 shortfall, leaving him $57.95 to cover any remaining day-to-day expenses until his next scholarship check.

The game: “Coach K’s College Basketball,” endorsed and partly designed by Blue Devil Coach Mike Krzyzewski, who received financial compensation for lending his name and expertise. Blakeney, whose jersey number and playing skills are represented in the game, didn’t get a nickel.

Not even a free game?

Blakeney shook his head and said: “Are you kidding?”

MARK RYDALCH / University of Utah

Rydalch is Mormon, married and making it only because his wife, Amy, a broker’s assistant for a Salt Lake City securities firm, earns enough to support them and their 23-month-old son, Trevor.

“If I wasn’t married, I’d need two roommates because there’s no way you can get by on what they give you,” said Rydalch, a junior point guard. “If you live off campus, rent’s going to be $500. We get $517 a month in scholarship money. That’s for everything: rent, bills, miscellaneous.”

Don’t bother asking if the Rydalch family could survive on that monthly Utah check.

“No, not even close,” he said. “Not with having a little boy and having a family.”

It was during the first two rounds of the recent West Regional at Boise, Ida., when Utah defeated Long Beach State and then lost to Mississippi State, that Rydalch found himself questioning the NCAA’s treatment of student athletes. At issue: the players’ piece of the $1.725-billion television contract paid the NCAA by CBS.

“They make billions this time of the year, and we don’t see any of it,” said Rydalch, whose annual scholarship is worth $7,631. “We’ll get an extra pair of shoes from Reebok, but that’s it. I asked if my wife could stay with me at our hotel in Boise. The athletic director said he’d check on it. He did; they said no. It was against NCAA rules.”

So husband and wife stayed in separate rooms.

Rydalch has done some rough calculations on the money generated by men’s Division I basketball. He sees the packed arenas, the ticket sales, the TV deals, the shoe deals. Then he sees his $517 check. Something doesn’t make sense.

“You just kind of wonder,” he said. “With $1.725 billion, where does all that go? Someone’s making a killing off that. For me, it’s almost like a job. (Basketball) pays for school and all that, but it is a job.”

Including car payment, car insurance, rent for a two-bedroom apartment, utility bills, cable TV, groceries, gasoline, a small allowance for nights out and miscellaneous purchases, such as a $90 calculator for a finance class, Rydalch spent $1,224.14 in February.

Meanwhile, Amy spent $45 on parking, $100 on health insurance, $350 on child care and $100 on child-related expenses such as diapers, clothes and baby food.

The monthly total: $1,819.14. Counting Mark’s scholarship check and the $100 he saves by hoarding per diem money and Amy’s $1,250 paycheck, the Rydalch family is left with $47.86.

“I’m kind of in the real world,” he said. “There’s no room for saving money right now.”

When Trevor was born, Amy didn’t work for a few months. Without the financial assistance of Amy’s and Mark’s parents, who live in Salt Lake City, Rydalch isn’t sure how the bills would have been paid.

“We’re never going hungry,” he said. “Our parents would never let that happen. But if we didn’t have our families, if we didn’t live in Salt Lake City, I think it would be a lot harder.”

Rydalch isn’t greedy. He would settle for something as simple as an increase in per diem money. Instead of $27 a day for meals when the team is on the road, make it $50 or $60.

“I’m sure there are people out there, students in my own classes, who probably look at athletes and say, ‘They’ve got it easy,’ ” Rydalch said. “I mean, we are getting paid.

“The NCAA always worries about us getting more than the normal student. But a normal student gets stuff we don’t get. They get to be a normal student.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Crunching Numbers

A look at how two students make ends meet on athletic scholarships:

KENNY BLAKENEY

(From Feb. 21-March 7)

* Income:

Scholarship check $725

Check from his mother $60

Total $785

* Expenses:

Rent $337.50

Cable TV $20