Rand Paul says college basketball players will own ‘a Bentley or a Rolls.’ Yeah, so.

Some unsolicited advice for athletic programs at Kentucky colleges and universities: Don’t hire Rand Paul as a recruiter.

At a Senate committee hearing on the PGA-LIV merger Tuesday, the Kentucky senator drew some attention for his complaint about how antitrust laws have kept the NCAA from invoking its rules governing amateur athletics.

“Now everybody that plays basketball in college is gonna be driving a Bentley or a Rolls,” Paul said. “I mean, we’re gonna be seeing rap stars instead of basketball stars.”

You mean college athletes now have the right to be fairly compensated for their services — at market value, no less — and the right to use that compensation in the manner they might choose?

The horror.

With Paul being a conservative Republican, you’d think he’d be for a free market system when it comes to college athletics. Apparently not.

And the “rap stars instead of basketball stars” comment did more than merely brush up against racial stereotypes considering the vast majority of college basketball players are African-American.

“So they’ve completely screwed up college athletes,” Paul continued. “Many of us loved watching amateur athletes who weren’t paid.”

You know who was getting paid? Coaches. (Some coaches were being paid millions of dollars per year.) Athletic directors. (Some ADs were making high six figures, if not seven.) Conferences and schools. (Television rights poured millions of dollars into the coffers of athletic departments around the country.)

Truth be told, select student-athletes were being paid, too, just under the table. It’s the main reason why so many athletic programs have found themselves on NCAA probation over the years.

Quick anecdote from a friend who attended a college football powerhouse in the 1970s: A particular player made a key play in a big bowl victory. When classes resumed after Christmas break, the particular player was driving a new sports car around campus. Everyone knew how and why.

Still, there remains a segment of sports fandom, and society, that just can’t wrap its head around the fact that student-athletes deserve more than just an athletic scholarship.

The old way of doing things might have worked when the 60-year-old Paul was attending school at Baylor in the early 1980s. Since then, however, college athletics has mushroomed into a multi-billion dollar entertainment industry in which athletic departments can’t make or spend enough money.

It’s why Texas and Oklahoma are leaving the Big 12 to join the SEC. It’s why USC and UCLA are leaving the Pac-12 to join the Big Ten. It’s why schools put their student-athletes on planes or buses and send them across the country to compete when there are classes the next morning.

College sports stopped being college sports a long time ago.

“Name, Image and Likeness” is an off-shoot of that, a common sense conclusion that the old amateur model was far too hypocritical to be believable. Even now, some entities, including the NCAA, are trying to add rules and restrictions on who and who can’t have what.

John Calipari has his own view about NIL

UK coach John Calipari said recently that NIL should be “transformational, not transactional.” That marketing slogan echoes what the coach has said previously, that athletes should not attend a school solely for the NIL money.

Cal also repeated his idea that players be allowed to use some NIL money to take care of their families, but the remainder should be put in a trust fund for when the athlete leaves school.

Yet, many a coach has changed jobs to make more money, whether it be from one school to another, or moving up the professional ladder from a mid-major program to a high-major program. And that coach can use the personal earnings in any manner the coach wishes. There’s nothing wrong with that.

And there’s nothing wrong with student-athletes using their NIL money in any fashion they so choose. It’s the way the American capitalist system works. One I thought Sen. Paul supported.

So let basketball players buy Bentleys or Rolls. College athletics will survive.

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