Are college football players students or employees?
The question has dogged the NCAA, universities and students for years. Tensions have recently come to a head, concomitant with mounting concerns over safety and athlete mental health issues that were brought to light most recently by the 2011 suicide of former Missouri swimmer Sasha Menu Corey, and the subsequent cover-up of the alleged rape that preceded Corey's suicide by the university.
Fed up -- presumably on behalf of thousands of players -- with not reaping any of the windfall from this cash cow, now-former Northwestern quarterback KainColter co-founded the Collegiate Athletes Players Association.
On Feb. 18, Colter testified before the National Labor Relations Board as part of his bid to unionize, saying that Northwestern decidedly placed athletics before academics, which forced him to abandon the pre-med track. He asserted that the school footed his $75,000-per-year scholarship so that he might perform a particular service, one that has amassed a net figure of nearly $90 million over the past decade.
But CAPA claims it does not seek to negotiate wages; rather, as articulated by David Berri, expert witness and professor of economics at Southern University, because college football has burgeoned well beyond the scope of typical extracurricular activities, it seeks compensation in the form of protection - from injury, from fending for oneself after one has rendered due service to the school and ineluctably forsaken education.
Still, there remains one seemingly insurmountable obstacle: the law prohibits students pursuing a degree from organizing.
CAPA is the first case of its kind regarding athletes, so the players face a grueling, uphill battle to overturn precedent. (Graduate students at NYU, in light of a favorable decision handed down by the NLRB, voted to unionize in December.) Expectedly, skepticism abounds in legal circles as few anticipate that the NLRB will rule in favor of the athletes; even Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald testified against his current and former players.
Then, about a month ago, the NFL Players Association voiced its support for Colter and the legions of fellow players trying to reform the system. Though brother organizations of the NBA and the MLB declined to comment, this could be a watershed in the midst of a protracted war, despite the legal hindrances.
If, like the players assert, it becomes clear that the objective -- stated (certainly not) or otherwise -- of big-time college football is to churn out professional-caliber players while making gobs of money in the process, the NCAA may have to accede to its players' demands in order to avert a crisis among its alumni. The NFLPA holds tremendous sway in its own realm, and it could easily pressure the NCAA into providing adequately for its athletes; should it not, the NCAA could emerge only with a pyrrhic victory, both in terms of public relations and standing with players -- its lifeblood.
No one is clamoring for a pay-for-play system. Thus, it is reasonable that the players, girded with harrowing data on their predecessors' ailments and penury, fight to insure their present and future. Universities furnish for all their students a whole host of services, which makes the NCAA's reluctance to do so seem asinine by comparison, especially considering the palpable nature of injuries.
The NCAA knows the solution -- or temporary fix, depending on the school of thought -- to this problem, and it can stop it dead in its tracks with a few unremarkable gestures.
It's not like it doesn't have the means.
Sam is a junior who is majoring in religion. He can be reached at Samuel_l.gold@tufts.edu
