Stanford coach David Shaw comments on college sports issues

Stanford coach David Shaw cautioned that NCAA rule changes could force athletic departments to drop certain non-revenue sports.

Shaw spoke on a range of issues related to college sports in an interview with Fox Sports' Bruce Feldman.

"It's still a zero-sum deal," Shaw said. "At Stanford, we have 36 varsity sports. I'm under no delusion that football is not paying for a lot those sports, which is great. I am excited to go to the field hockey games. We go to the lacrosse games. We go to these sports that don't have the money to sustain themselves. We're putting all of our money in a big pool to make sure that all of these student-athletes have the ability to be great in their sport. But now if we're going to add money to it -- well, at a place like Stanford, we'll find a way to make it happen. But if the money increases so much, there's going to be a lot of places that drop sports because they can't afford to because we have Title IX, which is phenomenal. We need to have Title IX. We need to treat all student-athletes the same and not just football and basketball players because they play revenue-producing sports. That's just not a smart way to go about it."

Shaw said he believes there is a "hard line" between college athlete unionization and the commercial use of their names, images and likenesses.

"I think where people don't completely understand it, is that there is a hard line in the difference between unionization and paying players and using the player's image," Shaw told FOX Sports. "Those are two completely different worlds. I don't believe at all that we should be paying student-athletes. I think they should remain student-athletes. I think they should remain amateurs. I do think we should do more for them and make their lives better, which I'm excited about doing. On the other side, I think there are a lot of things that we have to work on with players' images and what they can do with their own image and what we can do with their own image, and that is going to bear out in the courts. A lot of people have mixed all those things in together, but I think there is hard line between those two worlds.

"One is truly an individual thing, 'This is my face. This is my body. This is me, and no one should be able to make money off my image. And I completely understand that. But at the same time, you're a student-athlete. If we're going to pay for your education, if we're paying for your schooling, if we're paying for room and board and if we're paying for all those other things -- to say that we need to pay you more money on top of that just because we have a TV contract, to me, is a little bit different because now you're skewing what they're there for, which is to play great football, yes, but it's also is to go to school to learn and to learn how make a living. I've been saying this for years: It's our job to teach them how to make a living at the university and not to give them their living at the university. Then, we're not teaching the proper lessons at the school."  

The NCAA Board of Directors is scheduled to vote Aug. 7 on a proposal for a new governance structure that would grant more autonomy to the five major conferences.

U.S. District judge Claudia Wilken has yet to issue a verdict on the Ed O'Bannon class-action anti-trust lawsuit.

Shaw has coached the Cardinal to a 34-7 record and three BCS bowl appearances over three seasons.

More: O'Bannon v. NCAA: With trial over, what comes next?

- Chris Johnson