D.J. Fluker should have been paid by Alabama

The latest accusations against five SEC players reflect worse on the NCAA than on the athletes involved.

D.J. Fluker celebrates after Alabama’s win in the 2012 SEC Championship.
(Photo: Daniel Shirey-USA TODAY Sports)

A Yahoo! Sports investigation alleged Wednesday that five SEC football players, including former Alabama and current San Diego Chargers rookie offensive lineman D.J. Fluker received payments from an intermediary for agents and financial advisers while they were still active college athletes.

The report says that a series of transactions that included cash payments, money for hotel stays for Fluker’s family and furniture were found, including an invoice that appeared to total $33,755 in expenditures.

While those numbers and Fluker’s involvement remain alleged, here are some more certain numbers.

In the 2011-12 fiscal year, Alabama football made $82 million in revenue and $45.1 million in profit. D.J. Fluker was the starting right tackle on the team that won a national championship that year, as well as the following.

In 2005, after losing their New Orleans home in Hurricane Katrina, Fluker, his mother and three siblings were living in their car, trying to survive on a $25 Wal-Mart gas card and loose change,according to this powerful feature from the San Diego Union-Tribune last month.  Here’s just one anecdote from that story, after a concerned high school coach allowed him to temporarily stay at his family’s house.

Before the Flukers moved to Biloxi in 2007, had their trailer burned down by kids toying with matches, and then moved to Foley, Ala. where Fluker played offensive tackle his senior year for the first time, Fluker grew close to Savarese.

Savarese and his wife have a daughter who was off to college, and Fluker occasionally slept in her old room. After Fluker was shown the bed for the first time, he walked downstairs and asked Savarese and his wife before bedtime if there was a toothbrush.

“Sure,” Savarese said. “But what’s the matter, D.J.?”

Fluker had tears in his eyes. He wasn’t sad. He wasn’t scared. That he was finally about to do something so simple, something most take for granted, had made him overwhelmed. After getting by for so long on the barest of necessities, it felt strange to look up and admit at age 15.

“I’ve never slept in a bed by myself before,” Fluker said.

D.J. Fluker helped the University of Alabama make millions of dollars and wasn’t allowed to be paid a dime for four years of labor, money that his family clearly needed. While his $6.6 million signing bonus with the Chargers certainly turned his family’s fortunes around, the fact that he possibly had to “break the rules” to get by in the meantime certainly indicts a system of “amateurism” more than it indicts him. It’s time for the NCAA to figure out a way to compensate their athletes fairly.

Today’s other winners:
A couple of  Gamecocks fans: These guys pulled off a fantastic prank on their Clemson loving friend.

Ryan Wheeler: The Colorado Rockies infielder has some serious beatboxing skills.

Arian Foster: The Houston Texans running back wrote a great essay about the values he wants to instill in his four-year-old daughter.

Eric LeGrand: The paralyzed former Rutgers football player will give an inspirational speech to the team today before his number 52 is retired at halftime of Saturday’s game versus Eastern Michigan.