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RMU's Andy Toole Supports Stipends, Problem Is Implementation

PITTSBURGH (KDKA 93-7 The Fan)- Robert Morris Men's Basketball Coach Andy Toole sat in on "The Fan Morning Show" Tuesday as a special guest co-host. The guys discussed the idea of paying student-athletes, and Toole is in support of a stipend to go along with the scholarship.

"I do think that they should have a little bit of a stipend or whatever you want to call it, cost of attendance," Toole said. "The only problem is I have no idea how you do it, and I think that's the biggest stumbling block for everybody. 'Who gets it? How much do you get? How do you regulate it?' All of those kind of things."

Gregg Giannotti asked if it's more or less beneficial from a teaching standpoint for details to leak out when a player is in trouble.

"I think it's situational. I think there (are) times where, in order to protect the student-athlete or protect the university, obviously there are things you can't say from a legal standpoint. But, I also think there's times where when you hear 'violation of team rules' or you hear certain things, your mind races to the absolute worst. And I think that there's sometimes where kids get painted a little bit unfairly," Toole said. "I think that that's something at times where those details could come out, either to hold those student-athletes accountable or to be able to really have people understand, 'Hey, they made a mistake, they're getting punished, and let's move on, let's not hold it against them for an extended period of time.'"

The guys discussed incidents of academic fraud throughout college athletics. Toole said that increased communication between coaches and professors would be beneficial.

"I think if there was more communication, there'd be a chance that there's less fraud. Because now both parties are understanding these guys are student-athletes and not just saying, 'Hey, they're here to play basketball and this is a separate entity from our campus and our classrooms.' and all that kind of stuff," Toole said.

The guys talked about the theory that the BCS conferences might eventually try to break away from the smaller conferences and the NCAA.

"I think what you're going to start to see is basically those BCS conferences saying, 'This is what we're going to do, and if everybody else wants to do it, you can, but don't stop us from doing it,'" Toole said.

He added that it's not necessarily a terrible thing because it might provide a better experience for the student-athlete, but it causes him to wonder where things will end up.

RMU's Andy Toole Supports Stipend, Problem is How To Implement

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