NCAA related NYTimes op-ed

[Dan_ref]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/01/opinion/01BLOO.html

Show Us the Money
By JEREMY BLOOM


OULDER, Colo.
When I was a kid, I remember my parents telling me that going to college would broaden my horizons and give me all the opportunities in the world. What I've found out, though, is that the benefits of being a student become clouded when you add the word "athlete." That's because the National Collegiate Athletic Association not only rules college athletics, it also limits the opportunities of the 360,000 student-athletes it purports to serve.

The N.C.A.A. was formed a century ago to establish rules for intercollegiate competition, and it did an admirable job. Today, however, it has become a multibillion-dollar organization that holds a monopoly on college athletics. Much of the television royalties and other revenue of college athletics go directly to the N.C.A.A., which distributes the money as it sees fit to its 1,200 member institutions. As the organization has smoothly adapted to the big-money era of college athletics, it has kept the student-athletes themselves from benefiting from the changes.

Division I basketball players, for example, won't receive a dime of the $6 billion deal that the N.C.A.A. has made with CBS for the rights to broadcast its national tournament. And not only do the student-athletes not share in this wealth, the N.C.A.A. has plenty of rules to keep us from making money on our own.

It prohibits us from having sponsors or appearing in advertisements, even if the products have no relation to the intercollegiate sports we play. In my case, to be allowed to play wide receiver for the University of Colorado football team, I had to give up endorsement opportunities I had garnered as an Olympic moguls skier.

Or consider the plight of Aaron Adair, a third baseman for the University of Oklahoma who also happens to have survived brain cancer. He wrote a book about his recovery intended to help others with the disease, only to receive a call from a compliance officer informing him that his college baseball career was over because his name was attached to a "corporate product."

When I voice my complaints, the usual response I hear is: "The N.C.A.A. provides a free college education for these kids and that should be enough." I address that question in two parts. First, "free"? We football players get up at dawn, do an hour of wind sprints, go to classes, spend two hours in the weight room, devote a of couple hours to seven-on-seven drills, study for school, and try to have something of a social life. And this is our off-season — the hours only increase after the games start. Even if you consider the scholarships we receive to be "payment," we are recompensed at far less than the minimum wage.

Second, the N.C.A.A. doesn't pay for athletic scholarships, the universities do. Many universities rely on wealthy alumni who create endowments to cover tuition, room and board.

My solution? I have drafted what I call the Student-Athletes' Bill of Rights and have sent copies to state legislators across the country. Among other things, my proposal would allow student-athletes to "secure bona fide employment not associated with his/her amateur sport" and collect money generated by the sale of apparel that bears their names and jersey numbers. At the very least this will help student-athletes cover school-related costs, like travel and books, over and above what their scholarships pay for. Also, because the N.C.A.A. doesn't allow universities to cover a student-athlete's health insurance during the summer, the bill would assure student-athletes a full-time policy. It would also help financially burdened family members travel to post-season tournaments.

I am not alone in this. Kevin Murray, a California state senator, has introduced a bill along these lines to apply to all universities in his state. The athletic director at Stanford called the bill "onerous" and warned that if it passed, every athlete in California would be ineligible under N.C.A.A. guidelines.

But that's exactly the point: if states start ensuring that us student-athletes received fair treatment, would the N.C.A.A. really ban us all? I doubt it — I bet the organization would understand that its reign was in jeopardy and come to the bargaining table.

Responding to my initiative, an N.C.A.A. spokesman pointed out that the organization gives 94 percent of every dollar it receives to the universities, where it supposedly trickles back to student-athletes. I'm curious about where that other 6 percent goes — after all, 6 percent of the basketball tournament contract alone is $360 million.

He might also have explained the television commercials made for the N.C.A.A. I see lots of ads featuring student-athletes who say things like "I'm a swimmer, I'm a business major, I am a student-athlete." I guess it's O.K. for student-athletes to do promotional commercials so long as the beneficiary is the N.C.A.A. itself.

Some may say that my efforts are only self-serving — that not many student-athletes have endorsement opportunities like mine. But by the time such laws could be fully adopted I will be long gone from the college football field. My goal is to improve the circumstances of the next generation of student-athletes. That seems to be a goal the N.C.A.A. has forgotten.


Jeremy Bloom is a sophomore at the University of Colorado.