Thad Williamson wrote the article, "Bad As They Wanna Be," about the ever increasing greed of college basketball and football teams and programs. He also questions their amateur status and says the way their players are treated needs to be drastically improved. The author grew up in North Carolina right between several of the NCAA's powerhouse teams. He is an author and a sports writer, during his career he has written several books and articles on a verity of different topics from theology and sociology to economics and sports, thus giving him a very broad stance and view point from which he writes this piece. Having seen most of the changes that have taken place in college athletics in the past four decades.
Williamson believes that there is vast corruption amongst the college staff and administration. He also says that the players are being used and exploited, they are not receiving enough benefit for the work that they put into generating these vast sums of money. He also believes that the endorsement and television deals are out of control and are far exceeding any form or prevision of the term "amateur". I believe his purpose for writing this piece was to enlighten the average sports fan, as well as anyone else in the general public who still has the romantic vision of college sports, about the real situation behind the scenes in all high profile college sports. He also passionately appeals to all fans who love the sports to act now and help increase pressure on the colleges to force them to stop this exploitation of their students. As well as to come clean on their sports financial dealings and funding. A case is made that the schools or governing bodies need institute some form of regulation on these sports where the players derive some more real benefits.
In the article there are several forms of evidence used by Williamson to try and convince us of his argument and it's nobility.