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Jim Harbaugh

Pay college players? Jim Harbaugh weighs in at legal aid benefit

Nick Baumgardner
Detroit Free Press
Here's our best guess as to who'll be the starters for Jim Harbaugh and Michigan football for 2018.

TOLEDO, Ohio — Jim Harbaugh's never opposed to questioning things. 

Because he knows there's a better answer out there. 

Speaking at a legal aid benefit in Toledo on Thursday night, an audience member asked Harbaugh whether or not he believes college athletes should be paid. More than that, he was asked how difficult that situation might be to tackle and what type of obstacles would have to be overcome. 

His answer was a bit complex, though his final offering was to say he's always looking for ways to get as much as possible for his players. 

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"There's no doubt that education is the whole ball game, you go from high school (and you need) some form of post-high school education. That's your most guaranteed way to have a successful future in today's world," Harbaugh said. "If you pay players, if you made them employees in college sports, then they'll have to pay taxes and would the scholarship become a taxable benefit? If he's getting a $65,000 scholarship plus $30,000 or $40,000 a year, is the government going to look and say 'you owe us 40 percent in taxes' and are you paying more than you make back into taxes?

"I worry about making them employees. But maybe there's a way to do some kind of deferred compensation. I think that (could be) a possibility and we're exploring that right now." 

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Harbaugh said he began thinking about whether or not deferred compensation could be a route the NCAA could explore after the football program wrapped up its Amazon documentary. 

He said Thursday the program may take part in another film project like the one that chronicled Michigan's 2017 season. And if that's the case, he'd like to know whether or not his players could receive some type of deferred compensation package for being used as subjects for the film. 

One idea? Perhaps they could get Amazon stock. Perhaps something else. He says it's a question worth asking. 

"We don't know if it would work, but we want to find out and there's only one way to find out and that's to ask," he said. "Will it work or not? We don't know." 

Harbaugh was the keynote speaker at the event, Toledo's Access to Justice Awards ceremony, designed to support legal justice for underprivileged people. Harbaugh has been a member of the Legal Services Corporation's Leaders Council for two years now. 

At the end of the event, Harbaugh challenged the crowd to raise as much money as they could between now and Michigan's road game at Ohio State on Nov. 24. He said he'll match the fund, up to a to-be-determined amount, as he felt moved by several of the award winners. 

One in particular was Dr. Ceila Williamson, who won the Community Advocacy Award as the director of the Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute at the University of Toledo. 

"Ceila Williamson, I mean, why don't more of us know about her? She's a living legend," Harbaugh said. "I'll find out how I can donate to her cause (and others). Really moved by that." 

Contact Nick Baumgardner: nbaumgardn@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter nickbaumgardner. 

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