Charles Barkley sees helping Jefferson County, Alabama, and donating to HBCUs as a greater cause than spending on NIL contracts for Hugh Freeze's Tigers on the gridiron and Bruce Pearl's on the hardwood.
Barkley explained to Dan Dakich on his show why he doesn't fund his alma mater like Tom Brady does for Michigan or Carmelo Anthony does for Syracuse.
"I just gave ten million dollars to HBCU's, that stuff is way more important to me," Barkley noted to Dakich, per OutKick. "I just gave million dollars to ‘Blight’, in my hometown of Brimigham, to rebuild houses. That stuff is way more important to me than joining the cesspool that is college athletics. We're such a shitty country, Dan. We've ruined college athletics, and I don't wanna even get in that cesspool.
"This notion that you have to come up with tens of millions of dollars to pay kids to play basketball, and have them be free agents every year and transfer to another school and get more money every year. Like, we don't even get to do that in the NBA. Can you imagine if players in the NBA got to be free agents every year? I'm not opposed to players getting paid, I want to make that clear. But, this notion we gotta give college kids tens of millions of dollars a year, and basketball is the worst because you're only gonna get a great player for six months. I don't even see how you're gonna get the return on investment."
Barkley said the same thing 11 months ago to Dakich but with a lighter tone.
"My biggest pet peeve, and I've told them, y'all can't call me every year asking for millions of dollars, that's not gonna happen," Barkley said. "Ya'll need to stop. I love Auburn, I love Auburn. But the chances of me going back to black and broke again because I want Auburn to be good in football and basketball, that's not gonna happen.
"I love my school, but I don't love them that much."
We'll see if Barkley will crack or if this will become an annual PSA around the end of each scholastic calendar year.