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UCLA signing a $280 million shoe- and-apparel deal with Under Armour this week was the latest example of the hypocrisy so prevalent in college athletics, a flawed endeavor that celebrates the amateurism of its athletes while raking in stacks of cash for its institutions.

Ohio State announced in January that its deal with Nike is worth $252 million. Before that, Texas got $250 million. Michigan's deal could bring it up to $174 million. Other high-profile schools also have signed lucrative deals. Utah gets just $2.4 million annually from Under Armour in a deal that expires next year. UCLA's is for 15 years, and is the biggest ever in the NCAA.

It's no surprise, then, that the only real amateurs in the equation, whether it's apparel deals, billion-dollar television contracts, bowl and tournament payouts, merchandising money, coaching contracts worth up to $10 million a year, might have a bit of a problem with the whole setup.

To his credit, UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen responded forthrightly to the news about the money his school will get with a post on Instagram, where he wrote: "We're still amateurs though … Gotta love non-profits #NCAA."

Rosen subsequently deleted the post.

But he got his point across.

If you were a college football or basketball star, wouldn't the NCAA's core value of amateurism start to ring a little hollow and wear a little thin right now, as the spoils of big business roll past you and your efforts on the field and court, straight into the coffers of the member institutions singing the virtues of that amateurism?

No wonder schools like the status quo. It's as lopsided as a bad Michelin. It's cheap labor. It's servitude under the guise of educational altruism. It's a symbiotic relationship in which the universities do create a platform for players to compete, but it's also a convenient example of the golden rule: He who has the gold makes the rules. And those rules are what make it possible for big-time sports powers to collect their millions and billions, while the athletes that make the profits possible get a scholarship and a cost-of-living stipend. If they get a couple of nickels more, they are breaking NCAA rules.

Those who glorify amateurism — and there are a lot of college football and basketball fans who do — are missing a couple of points:

First, the whole reason the NCAA holds onto amateur status so firmly, the reason it started that way from the beginning, wasn't because of some noble mission. It was because colleges didn't want the responsibility and liability in matters of compensation, in salaries and in the case of injuries. It wasn't rooted in lofty philosophy as much as it was hatched out of financial advantage. It's been a legal defense more than any kind of upright ideology.

Second, sharing money more equitably with the student-athletes who generate it doesn't inherently sully the process or make it less righteous. Somebody's getting the cash, no matter what. Why is it more moral for professionals who lord over the college games to control the money than it is to abundantly share it with the people on the field or court, people who can't even profit from their own likenesses under current rules?

It isn't.

Some fans of the college games think if student-athletes get too much financial reward, it will cause the same excesses that plague pro sports, ruining the purity of college athletics. In truth, under the current system, there isn't much purity left. College sports is flat cash-driven, by way of some estimates to the tune of $13 billion.

The fairest way to distribute that kind of wealth is complicated. Some sports/athletes generate resources, some don't. As Stanford football coach David Shaw said a few years ago: "I like to say that our job is to teach these guys how to make a living and not have them make a living in college." He has a point.

Former Duke basketball player Gerald Henderson told The Charlotte Observer: "It makes sense that [players] should have money, but the idea of it is a little scary to me. One thing I've thought of would be setting it aside for them after they leave college. That would make the most sense."

It is a little scary. The right course is somewhere in a currently clouded mix, north of where it is now and south of full-blown professionalism. If student-athletes are supposed to be learning lessons, how to comport themselves ethically, it is counterproductive that the very schools doing the teaching are exploiting student-athletes as those student-athletes do their bidding in the competitive arena.

The shoes and shirts those amateur athletes wear as they do everything they can to win — in front of network cameras paying big dollars to be there — are bringing in immediate millions for everybody but them. That doesn't seem like a lesson worth teaching or learning.

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Big Show" with Spence Checketts weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone. Twitter: @GordonMonson.