Some see major college sports as enjoyable events for spectators that provide great opportunities for athletes.

Ernie Chambers sees a cesspool of hypocrisy.

Some see the NCAA as an organization dedicated to promoting fairness in college sports.

Ernie Chambers sees a corrupt hierarchy getting rich off the accomplishments of others who aren't seeing the benefits.

Some see college athletes as the embodiment of amateurism, who, with a few exceptions, give it their all for the love of the game.

Ernie Chambers sees slave laborers who don't receive nearly enough for the money they generate for their universities.

And there's evidence that an increasing number of people are starting to see things like he does.

Chambers, a Nebraska state senator, long has advocated paying college athletes. For more than two decades, he has tried to enact legislation to allow just that, even getting a bill through the Unicameral legislature in 1988, which later fell victim to a veto by then-Gov. Kay Orr.

Last year, he managed to get a bill passed 26-9 and signed by Gov. Mike Johanns that allows the University of Nebraska to pay college football players a stipend.

"These athletes are building bakeries for everyone, so they should be getting some of the bread," Chambers said. "A lot of these athletes are recruited from impoverished families; they come to school and they have nothing, but all of these hangers-on are going on trips and having all of their expenses paid. Then they wonder why these athletes are taking illicit inducements. We should be wondering why more of them aren't taking them."

The key word in the Nebraska legislation is "allow" because it isn't required. Originally, the bill mandated payment of football players if four of the six other states with teams in the Big 12 conference passed a similar bill. The intent was to make athletes employees of the university and make them eligible for workmen's compensation should they be injured.

However, the bill was amended, and now the university won't be caught in a crossfire between its state government and the NCAA. It doesn't have to pay players, so it won't. Doing so would ensure instant ineligibility. To lessen the pay-for-play emphasis even more, an amendment was passed that would allow the university to either pay athletes in other Big 12-sanctioned sports, or lower the limit on the number of hours athletes could spend practicing for their sports.

A victory

While Chambers could have viewed the watered-down bill's passage merely as an attempt to pacify him, he said the amendments didn't make the legislation any less of a victory.

"I could've fought [the amendment], but I let that go," Chambers said. "I just wanted to get this bill passed to show the NCAA that the state legislatures are watching them and that they need to change their rules. The most important part about this bill is the legislative findings."

The legislative findings: that's where Chambers' true feelings on everything involving college sports are manifested in two sections filled with cobra-strength venom. In this space, which takes up about two-thirds of the bill itself, Chambers takes aim at every problem and myth he thinks is being perpetuated by the NCAA.

In the first section, the bill calls scandals rampant in college football, then talks about how players recruited from impoverished families are under the financial pressure that makes them susceptible to taking illicit money.

It also says that NCAA rules are "unduly restrictive, and unreasonable, promote unfairness, encourage dishonesty in recruiting and retaining players and would not be tolerated if applied to all students."

Section two takes another step toward tearing away any notion that college athletes are or should be amateurs. It says that college football is a business because it makes millions of dollars in ticket sales and television contracts, which in turn generates salaries for staff members in the athletic department and subsidizes the rest of the department's sports. The bill argues that athletes are recruited to be athletes, not scholars.

The bill is blunt and goes straight for the jugular. The language comes straight from the Ernie Chambers school of discourse. He's been known to tie up pieces of legislation he doesn't like by speaking at the podium for hours, even days, all the while pelting his fellow legislators with potent rhetoric reminiscent of that of 1960s civil rights leaders. He seeks out social injustice anywhere he can find it, and hits it as hard as possible.

Chambers has been in office for 33 years, the longest tenure of anyone in the Nebraska Legislature. He has been the only black senator in the state for all but two of those years. He is also the most outspoken senator, and possibly the greatest orator ever to take its floor.

"When he cares about something, he will fight to the end," said Johanns, who, in rare agreement with Chambers, announced in January that he would sign the bill if it passed. "He does not give up. If you ever heard him debate an issue that I've put out there, you would swear he despises the ground I walk on. He's a very worthy opponent."

Pure venom spews from Chambers' lips when he attacks the institutions he most despises. He is a rabid opponent of the death penalty, a strong backer of gay rights, and has been known to take on the Catholic Church, once calling it "a more effective criminal enterprise than the mafia."

Contempt for NCAA

He holds the same contempt for the NCAA, especially its means of enforcing rules against improper payment of athletes.

"The NCAA could've shown Saddam Hussein a thing or two," he said.

"When the enforcement officials come to town, it's like the Spanish Inquisition, the NCAA has so many rules, that you know when they come knocking on your door, they're going to find something you did wrong."

The NCAA is, of course, standing pat on its stance not to change anything. It knows there is a problem with the way athletes are compensated, but it doesn't think stipends are the way to change things.

"Ok, I want to be quoted on this," NCAA President Dr. Myles Brand said at a press conference at Penn State. "Paying college athletes would be an unmitigated disaster. If you want to kill college sports, start paying players. It will turn college sports into not just professional sports, but third-rate professional sports. It removes college athletes from the academic part of campus and makes them part of the labor force. Is that clear?"

As much as the organization despises the idea, it seems to be taking Chambers' efforts to make it happen in stride. Wally Renfro, the special adviser to the president of the organization and its spokesperson on the issue, has been at the NCAA for 33 years.

He has seen every one of Chambers' attempts at getting payment for athletes come and go without making any significant change.

"What Senator Chambers wants is the same thing as what intercollegiate athletics wants, and that's to close the gap between a full scholarship and the full cost of attending the university," Renfro said. "He just wants to do it with a stipend, and we think that goes against the definition of amateurism."

That, of course, is where the major difference lies: the concept of amateurism.

The NCAA has passed several measures to give athletes more financial aid, but it draws the line when talk of stipends begin. Its philosophy on amateurism is encapsulated by NCAA Principle 2.9:

"Student-athletes shall be amateurs in an intercollegiate sport, and their participation should be motivated primarily by education and by the physical, mental and social benefits to be derived. Student participation in intercollegiate athletics is an avocation and student-athletes should be protected from exploitation by professional and commercial enterprises."

Those words are essentially the dividing lines of the argument. To some it is an ideal, perhaps not an achievable ideal, but one to work toward. To others, it is hypocritical and a contradiction in and of itself.

In large part, it is a philosophical discussion, but one that forces a person to take in the reality of many practical matters.

Included are whether major college sports are really a business; if and to what extent, college athletes are exploited; and the financial possibility of paying athletes.