The battle has begun.
Well, actually the battle has been going on for some time now. Northwestern University and a group of its current and former players have stormed the beach at Normandy in an attempt to get the NCAA (and probably one really inspirational labor law professor) to stand up and take notice.
I struggle with fully engaging in this debate because my anger towards the herd mentality of major college sports seriously infuriates me. When people are involuntarily treated like cattle we invoke laws to fix it. When it is our "so-called" student athletes, we pretend that access to an education is a fair trade off even though we don't insure they get the support they need to succeed in school. Sports scholarships are not even guaranteed, but are a year to year evaluation of the herd to determine who you keep and who gets sent to slaughter.
Don't be mistaken. Success in college takes preparation that begins long before college. Success in college is often the by product of a lot of prodding and pushing from family and someone to push you pass that "I want to quit" wall. In fact, success in college is a lot like success in sports. Somehow we invest highly in the cost of creating top notch college athletes, and then we sugar coat their class schedule and slap them on the head to make sure they are staying on top of Basket Weaving 101.
It is fairly clear that every college is much more invested in the financial return of the athlete and not the resource drain of the student, even though we will never have one without the other. This system is rigged against the success of the student, especially if they never had the foundation for success to begin with. Some endure as long as they can and run off to make the money that they crossed the college bridge to make in the first place. Most fight like hell to get educated because going pro is a real long shot, staying pro even longer. Every one of them performs a service to the university that demands better compensation.
Even the worst of college coaches can make a sizable penny in the job. The upper echelon make pro coaches look like they are in the wrong line of work. As for the schools? Some schools cover all of their sports budget on the backs of the major sports, with money to spare. Every few years the NCAA negotiates a new deal, and the television ratings for college sports have given them true negotiation power.
They don't call it March Madness for nothing. Famous Jameis Winston is a household name now, and for more than his scandal. Now that the NFL and NBA (both sports with large minority populations) are fully in cahoots with the NCAA by restricting access ONLY to US high school kids, our student athletes are now forced to run with the herd before they can make money for themselves. The NFL and the NBA win because they are not paying for potential (which can cost too much). The NCAA wins because they get to force a herd of young people through their turnstiles and leech a penny or two from them before freeing them to get a fair share of the pie.
Title 9, which legislates an equity of treatment between all athletes on a college campus, was created to improve sports standards in college for women, but creates another challenge. Money maker sports in college support the money taker sports that do not generate a profit. The NCAA sports revenue model involves dumping the lion share of the money into a bucket and dividing it up among the masses. If this pie it to be divided any further, Title 9 says it has to be divided equally among all athletes in a school.
Despite this hurdle, some believe that it can be done. I believe that it can only be done at the schools who have enough to do it. The rest of the schools will struggle from such a mandate creating a scenario worse than the one we currently have. This is where I usually disengage because its a reality that is not easy to fix and I struggle with rehashing debates that have no sensible resolution. I honor the efforts of those Northwestern players, but what they earned for themselves could not work for that Division 3 school just down the road.
Scholarships are an awesome thing when they fulfill their complete purpose. They succeed in luring a herd of talent onto the college campus but fail to insure they succeed. Since schools do not have to honor any commitment towards achievement, they are free to cut the athlete and evict the student as well.
I say no more. Colleges can not pay student athletes, so they must be held to account for their graduation rates. Only an athlete that earns three years of professional income will be exempted from a school's athletic graduation rate. If you don't invest into the success of your athletes, you will sacrifice a portion of your NCAA payment as a penalty. The NCAA is making lots of money here too and should be forced to intervene with resource support for any school that is not achieving a minimum graduation rate among athlete's. The penalty underachieving schools will pay can go directly to an athlete education assistance fund to insure proper resources for this effort.
As a special caveat, students should have a reasonable window to complete their degree. I think 5 years of paid education and 10 years to complete it. Student athletes with life disruptions (illness, injury, family emergency) should get the opportunity to return to school in a reasonable timeline and cash in on the only benefit that their athletic prowess can earn them. Labor laws are going to struggle to encompass the role of a student athlete for various reason's. However, if the college can't be called an employer, they must make sure that they tend to the cattle.
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