The role of student-athletes in an increasingly business-oriented college sports world has been thrust back into the spotlight this week as Northwestern University quarterback Kain Colter, together with former University of California at Los Angeles football player Ramogi Huma, announced the establishment of the College Athletes Players Association. The group aims to give athletes a greater voice in NCAA policy, and would essentially function as a labor union. Among the demands on its agenda: prevention of brain injuries, scholarships that cover the full cost of tuition, funding for continued education and guaranteed retention of scholarships for athletes whose careers are ended due to injury.
Let’s think about this movement in three ways. What does it say about the current state of college athletics? What momentum will it generate, even without formal legal recognition? How have conferences have already begun to address some of the group’s biggest concerns?
First, there is little doubt that these calls for greater representation are symptomatic of the growing corporate mentality in college sports. Many top programs focus on generating revenue, often through lucrative television contracts. Players are expected to play through injuries and travel mid-week during the academic year. Schools and athletic directors put tremendous pressure on their football and basketball coaches to consistently produce winning teams that help generate revenue.
Additionally, programs actively seek ways to transition to athletic conferences that promise better television deals, which undermines the tradition in which those schools have long been embedded. It’s about time that athletes starting having some say in an atmosphere tailored to the interests of university administrators.
Even if CAPA doesn’t gain official status as a labor union, it could bring long-neglected medical and educational issues into the public spotlight. Cementing these issues in public discourse will provide an important reminder that athletes are also students. This has implications, for example, on extending scholarships for further education — once it becomes abundantly clear that such funding would align with promoting athletes’ academic and professional success, administrators may be more likely to cooperate. After all, the NCAA’s television ads tell us that most athletes “go pro in something other than sports.” And consider the NCAA chief legal officer’s response to the news about CAPA’s formation. He said that it “undermines the purpose of college: an education.” Implicit in his thinking is that college sports administrators have a responsibility to promote the academic life of athletes. Even without a union, there is still the possibility that conferences and universities can unilaterally respond to concerns raised by student-athletes and the public.
The Ivy League has already made great strides in combatting brain injuries. In 2011, the League reduced the number of permissible full-contact football practices to two per week, compared with the NCAA’s limit of five, following the recommendations of a committee co-chaired by former College President Jim Yong Kim and Cornell University President David Skorton. Big Green head coach Buddy Teevens went so far as to eliminate contact from practices altogether. The League also has a research partnership with the Big Ten conference that studies concussions among athletes.
In regard to scholarships for injured student-athletes, Colter and Huma must point to existing models — namely the Ivies. Athletes’ need-based financial aid is not at risk of vanishing even if injuries prevent them from competing. Though the Ivies cannot technically offer athletic scholarships, I’d argue that their generous need-based financial aid packages perform a similar function.
