Arian Foster was paid at Tennessee, he says, and he doesn’t sound too broken up about it.
With absolutely no shame or regret in his voice, Foster says in an upcoming documentary that he took money during his senior season at Tennessee. It was not a lot of money, he says, but just enough to put food in his dorm room fridge.
“I don’t know if this will throw us into an NCAA investigation — my senior year, I was getting money on the side,” Foster says in Schooled: The Price of College Sports. “I really didn’t have any money. I had to either pay the rent or buy some food. I remember the feeling of like, ‘Man, be careful.’ But there’s nothing wrong with it. And you’re not going to convince me that there is something wrong with it.”
Foster recalled several times in his career where he would rush for more than 100 yards and a couple of touchdowns, soak in the cheers of adoring fans, and feel like he had already made it big.
“Then I walk back, and reality sets in,” Foster says. “I go to my dorm room, open my fridge, and there’s nothing in the fridge. Hold up, man. What just happened?”
“I’m a firm believer that an employee should get paid for his work,” he adds. “And, 100 percent, I see student-athletes as employees. Hiding from it is just cowardly.”
