Editorial: Changing the collegiate athlete landscape
0By Ryan Wilson
The on-going college athlete labor movement initiated by former Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter and teammates is not about pay-to-play. It’s not about the NCAA paying players. At this point, it’s more about looking out for the collegiate athlete. Be informed. These are the top two things the union athletes actually want via the National College Players Association, which is handling the ongoing debate.
1. Minimize college athletes’ brain trauma risks
Football is potentially life threatening. While it will never be risk-or-injury free, those players who play each week are putting their future lives and careers in jeopardy without a significant change to the way colleges and universities are treating the way they handle these injuries. Does anyone object to better protecting the brains of talent?
2. Raise the Scholarship amount
The NCAA admits that a “full scholarship” does not cover the basic necessities for a college athlete, but it refuses to change its rules to incorporate the athletes on the field. According to Northwestern University website, the total cost of attendance for undergraduate student is $63,228. That covers room and board, tuition, books, and fees. According to NCAA football rules, each division 1 team is allowed 25 out of 83 to give a “full scholarship.” A full scholarship at the University of Northwestern after it’s all said and done leaves these students with $5,000 to pay out of pocket and more including personal expenses. You can be a medical student and get a full-cost scholarship. You can be a music major and receive a full scholarship. It’s an existing model all around the country. Now let’s consider this: the ocean of money circulating and flowing from fans and television networks towards coaches and campus facilities. For example, the conference TV deals are averaging $200 million going to support the university as a whole. Players could be rewarded from these TVs deals by adding it to their scholarships.
For decades, the major college sports have functioned on the concrete principle of the student-athlete, with players receiving scholarships to pay for their education in exchange for their hours of practicing and competing for their university. But Peter Ohr, the regional National Labor Review Board director, tore down that familiar construct in a 24-page decision that has now been approved for Northwestern players to form a union and bargain collectively.
Ohr ruled that Northwestern’s scholarship football players should be eligible to form a union based on a number of factors, including the time they devote to football (as many as 50 hours some weeks), the control exerted by coaches and their scholarships, which Ohr deemed a contract for compensation.
At Northwestern, the graduation rate for football is the highest in division 1 at 83.7 percent. Most of the players at Northwestern do not go on to compete in the NFL and are left with lingering injuries and just the thoughtful reminder of what they put their body through.
So, why unionize?
Unionization has its risks for players. Though collective bargaining may sound good in theory, even professional athletes can have trouble getting their respective leagues to meet their demands. Could college athletes really be successful, or would they be better off if the NCAA reformed to allow substantial player representation within the current structure? This union also only includes football and men’s basketball players. Could Title IX regulations strike a union force to include those athletes who are on scholarship in other sports?
Northwestern’s appeal could go as far as the U.S. Supreme Court, and it could take years before there is a definitive decision. About 15 percent of men’s football, baseball and basketball players said they would have had different majors had they not been athletes. Twelve percent of Division I football players said athletics prevented them from majoring in what they wanted. The average time spent on athletics in-season hovered around 40 hours per week for all three sports, according to the survey given by the NCAA in 2012 to Men’s Athletics.
That flies in the face of the NCAA 20-hour rule, which states that, no matter the sport, coaches can’t take more than 20 hours of their players’ time.
“While improvements need to be made, we do not need to completely throw away a system that has helped literally millions of students over the past decade alone attend college,” said Donald Remy, the NCAA’s chief legal officer. “We want student-athletes, 99 percent of whom will never make it to the professional leagues, focused on what matters most: finding success in the classroom, on the field and in life.”
But, perhaps most important to the NCAA is that if athletes are deemed employees, its current definition of amateurism, a definition that helps justify the current power and monetary structure would likely end. When you think about amateur athletics at the highest level, it’s a vast commercial enterprise; there is hardly any amateur, so if Northwestern can win this unionization, it would be revolutionary for college athletics.