College Players Protest NCAA

In an athlete-driven national movement, football players from Georgia Tech, Georgia, and Northwestern took the field Saturday wearing gear they had marked up in protest to the NCAA’s treatment of athletes on issues ranging from compensation to player safety. Student athletes from these teams marked their wristbands and towels with APU standing for---All Players United----in a show of support against how the NCAA treats college athletes.

The issue at stake is whether student athletes should be compensated by the NCAA. The argument the APU makes is that these student athletes risk their bodies for the profit of others. This hot topic of debate has some feel as though student athletes are compensated enough by scholarships, while others feel as though a scholarship is not enough. The NCAA has stated that they will not compensate student athletes. They are also currently battling a lawsuit from current and former student athletes regarding to how the NCAA profits off the names and likableness of its student athletes. (See my article on the O’BannonLawsuit) The NCAA has continued to see their support drop and public showings such as these by the athletes will only draw more criticism. I understand where critics of compensating student athletes come from; however, I feel that college athletes should be compensated in some way other than just from scholarships.

Arian Foster came out recently on how he received benefits while playing football at Tennessee. He stated that there was a time when his house had no food, so he called his coach and told him that they were hungry and needed food. His coach came with 50 tacos to feed the house which is a NCAA violation in itself. The fact is that a scholarship is not enough for a student to survive. Student athletes must pay for food, housing, school supplies, and often time’s transportation to practice. This can lead them to make poor decisions such as taking money, because they are tight on cash. If they get caught then they will be ineligible to compete. Just remember how Dez Bryant was suspended for the season for going to lunch with Deion Sanders. When the athletes have great success on the field and gain attention to themselves and their sports program, it is the coaches, the NCAA, and their University’s who profit. Their coaches gain promotions and pay increases, the NCAA profits from merchandise sales, and the schools see an increased share of television revenue, money from boosters, and applications to enroll in the university.

Proponents to not paying student athletes argue that student athletes go pro and cash in on their talents but that is not so. Only one sport (baseball) had more than 2% of NCAA student athletes go pro and many college athletes have their playing careers ruined from injury. Being a student athlete is a full time job, they are required to practice 5 times a week and then show up and perform on game day. If you add up the total hours a student athlete spends to prepare for competition and divide that by their scholarship amount then you will realize that they make less than minimum wage. Not only are they required to spend hours on the field preparing for competition, but they are also at college to get an education and have to attend classes around their practice schedule and maintain a certain grade point average. While the NCAA does not have an intensive requirement on players GPA’s employers do, and in a very competitive job market for college grads, there is no formula for employers to inflate student athlete GPA’s based on them playing a sport.

The most important argument to why student athletes should be compensated is that the majority of college sports have less money in scholarships than the “big money” sports such as football and basketball. Student athletes in these other sports are required to make up the difference between their scholarship and tuition on their own. This means working a job on top of a busy workload or taking out high interest loans. Many times these athletes feel pressured by their coaches to compete when they are physically unable to in fear of losing their scholarships. The fear of being cut forces student athletes to compete before they are medically cleared to play as coaches have been known to threaten to cut athletes if they sit out competition or practices from concussions or serious injury.

NCAA athletes are not treated as employees under current law. The NCAA has come under fire from critics who contend that the organization has not done enough to ensure that schools minimize the risk of concussions with players, such as by minimizing contact in practices.

From televised game feed, it is unclear how many players in total participated in the protest. None were made for comment immediately after their games and more student athletes are expected to join the APU movement this coming weekend. The NCAA did not respond to questions asking if any rules prohibited the wearing of wrist slogans. As the college season comes in full motion, the more attention the All Players United movement gains the tougher it will be for the NCAA to continue to dodge questions about its significance.