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The NCAA Erased My Career

222 points by 83457 5y ago

jdeibele 5y ago
There were other factors but what totally turned me against the NCAA is that the athletic scholarships are renewable every year. If you're hurt or are spending too much time in the classroom then your scholarship might not be renewed. Sure, that's not going to affect healthy star players. But if you have something that really would be suited to rest or you want to take a tough course load, well, maybe they'll let you "red shirt" and maybe they won't. You still count against the scholarship limit. If we could go back in time, maybe every town would have its football team and those teams could be promoted and relegated like many soccer teams. Players would be paid to play. Instead the college and university teams fill the need for people to have a local team.
zackbloom 5y ago
Ultimately everything is a system. If the NCAA is incredibly militant about enforcing these rules, the schools will be incredibly paranoid about giving athletes any financial incentive. If the NCAA is more lax, schools will put less effort and attention to detail into enforcement. I’m not saying these policies are good or ethical, but this type of militant enforcement absolutely changes how careful schools are.
- Sebguer 5y ago
  The entire point of the article is that the policies are bad and unethical. The NCAA is a system built to exploit college athletes from top to bottom.
  - HarryHirsch 5y ago
    Indeed. But where are the wokepeople from UMass Amherst? They are all about social justice, why can't they do something for their own students who are being taken advance of by college sports?
    - Sebguer 5y ago
      Did you actually look to see if they were doing anything before you made this comment? https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/umass-amherst-researchers-find-growing https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/umass-amherst-resea...
- Retric 5y ago
  It’s not just about enforcing the rules, it’s about the appearance of enforcing the rules. The NCAA need to seem important, which means they need people to break the rules regularly and be punished for it. That’s just one of many ways their fucking over students for the NCAA’s benefit. The appropriate response is for students to boycott the NCAA, but socially and financially that is a huge hit. Normally the way around this is a union, but good luck getting one started.
  - trhway 5y ago
    Can't the students start their own league? Internet broadcast the plays, etc. I mean NCAA is just a relic of the old TV epoch and is ready to be disrupted. Maybe we'll see some startup for it.
    - Retric 5y ago
      For a new sport sure, e-sports don’t play by NCAA rules. However like most monopolies it’s not just network effects, they heavily protect themselves. Anything that makes you a professional athlete permanently kicks you out of NCAA scholarships etc. So, students are going to have a huge issue getting something off the ground, but they have a lot more leverage if students suddenly boycotted the Rose Bowl etc.
- alexeldeib 5y ago
  It's a bad system - at least for athletes. It's inherently exploitative. I'd liken it to nearly-free labor. The athletes had no idea they were infringing. The NCAA and the schools make money off these athletes. The schools self-reported. There was no recourse for the affected individuals. The incredible power imbalance between banning these athletes from making money, and then turning around and doing it yourself while being judge, jury, and executioner, makes a mockery of the talent. These are barely "amateurs" in any real sense, the system exploits that fact and the seal of approval "amateur" status brings to rake in money.
  - bruceb 5y ago
    "It's a bad system - at least for athletes." No. It's a bad system for some athletes. Its a good system for athletes that are not stars and don't play big money sports. Free education, free trips, play something you really like to do. For other they are forgoing money they could earn. If the system changes, I am sure it will be good for some athletes, not so much of others.
    - dehrmann 5y ago
      > Its a good system for athletes that are not stars and don't play big money sports. Honestly, for the author, she was playing tennis and got an education out of it on the backs of those playing revenue sports. I don't fault her for this--she didn't make the system--but it doesn't look like she went pro, and it she wasn't kicked out while she was in school, so the only damage she's suffering is the NCAA saying she wasn't on the team. Unless she's coaching, and being a college athlete is almost a qualification, she seems to have done OK. That said, I still think she's right for calling out the NCAA.
      - throwawayboise 5y ago
        She wrote that as of 2020, "I had been playing professional tennis for three years" She graduated; they're not taking her degree away. And honestly nobody cares about the college record of a professional tennis player -- the fact that it was vacated on a technicality like this is not going to hurt her professional career at this point. Likely she could coach as well, there are coaches in the NCAA who have done far worse (intentionally, not accidentally) and still get jobs.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  They only this strict out of self-preservation. They know they're ~5 years or one high-profile screw-up away from having to actually pay football and basketball players, so they're delaying it as long as they can.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  I mean, a school could just disaffiliate from the NCAA. They could run independent sports programs and play other independent schools, or join the NAIA or some other association, or start a new association. They won't though, because ultimately it's all about the money. Also to your point about enforcement, you'll see that the money-making programs (i.e. Football and Basketball) at the big D1 schools get away with a lot more operating in the gray area than small schools and non-revenue sports. The NCAA isn't going to shit in their gravy train. They save the virtue-signal enforcement for schools and sports that don't make any money anyway.
  - notacoward 5y ago
    > They won't though, because ultimately it's all about the money. Sounds like an anti-monopoly case in the making.
- m-ee 5y ago
  The routinely let off much bigger violators with a slap on the wrist. See UNC shuffling college basketball players through fake classes for years.
Ekaros 5y ago
Maybe that level of athleticism should be separated from education and run as actual business with people paid as actual athletes for whatever their market value is.
- Sebguer 5y ago
  But then we'd damage their profits. The system you're describing is how it works in most of the rest of the world.
- kdmdmdmmdmd 5y ago
  The mods on this website are self serving nigggergagggggotss. You are not entitled to free, on topic and engagement with engineers to boost your rotten vulture capitalist garbage obfuscated products and pathetic “hacker” forum. That’s really nice surprise why the most applauded engineers never comment here anymore
  - jzwinck 5y ago
    Should we also stop using tax money to subsidize education for doctors? College athletics are education too. It's not like you become a tennis pro by just hitting the gym a lot. The best players study the rules, study physiology, study human nature....
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - corndoge 5y ago
      Comparing eg tennis players and doctors doesn't really explain anything about your position to me, one serves a critical public function and one does not
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - darig 5y ago
trentnix 5y ago
As Cartman remarked - 'student ath-o-letes...brilliant sir!' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZB0qsJuRDo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZB0qsJuRDo
sunstone 5y ago
Bureaucracy run amok.
- ARandomerDude 5y ago
  So...bureaucracy.
tims33 5y ago
Another disappointing story about the NCAA. I don’t know how to fix it, but since the NCAA represents the schools maybe there should be a parallel body to represent the athletes.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  >I don’t know how to fix it, Stop doing anything that gives them money for any reason and let them know why. If enough people do it, the problem solves itself one way or the other.
  - tims33 5y ago
    Definitely a good starting point. Most of us give them money by watching their sports on tv, so that will be the toughest thing to stop. In some way that makes many people complicit in way they don't realize.
  - GavinMcG 5y ago
    Every time discussions about big systems like this one come up, there's a comment that basically amounts to "just solve the collective action problem!" If enough people do it... but they won't. They need to be sold on the idea, en masse, and that doesn't just happen. Fortunately, we have a tool for collective action: government! Government regulation is how we can push institutions toward aligning with our values. Of course, entrenched interests don't want to be pushed, which is why there's been a massive campaign over the past few decades to scapegoat governments and paint them in a negative light. But they're the right tool for the job.
    - LegitShady 5y ago
      > Every time discussions about big systems like this one come up, there's a comment that basically amounts to "just solve the collective action problem!" I think you have it totally wrong. I didn't suggest collective action. That involves organizing, funding, etc. I just recommended stop giving them your money. Also, the law already has a process for which this could be solved. That isn't regulation - it's a lawsuit. They damaged her unreasonably for something beyond her control. She should sue. Regulating how the NCAA acts is not what the government should be involved in. Getting the government to regulate the NCAA is 1000x harder than just suing, and that's 1000x harder than just stop patronizing those organizations yourself. When you aren't emotionally tied into the NCAA, or when you're patronizing an alternative, NCAA fiascos don't both you.
cortesoft 5y ago
I hate the NCAA so much. I can't believe they have the gall to say they need to maintain amateurism while so many people and so many huge corporations make billions of dollars off it. Why does paying the player hurt amateurism but paying the coach doesn't? Why would a player making $50 to sign his name on some hats ruin the game, but CBS paying the NCAA billions for the rights to broadcast the game be totally ok? If they want to insist amateurism is so important, then fine. Be amateur. Have student volunteers do the broadcasting, don't show any ads during the game, and take all the money out of it. Otherwise don't tell me players are the only ones who can't make money off of this.
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
  The owner of the convenience store near me played football for Stanford on a full ride. He's had to walk with a cane, or a walker on a bad day, since his 30s. It's an impediment to his job today, as he struggles to get around restocking throughout the day. College football makes obscene amounts of money, while at the same time discarding a ton of young athletes with permanently broken bodies. The TBI stuff in particular is deeply disturbing. I heard a heartbreaking interview with a family where 3 generations are entering dementia simultaneously because the younger 2 both played college ball. Coaches, schools, broadcasters... true fortunes being made by this industry every single day. But somehow giving the dang kids a slice of that ruins the authenticity of the league. What a pile of nonsense.
  - syops 5y ago
    Schools are not making fortunes off of college football. With few exceptions football programs do not pay for themselves with their revenue. I haven't looked into it but I doubt any football program paid for the stadium they use so I wouldn't be surprised if there truly was no such thing as a profitable college football program.
    - kevinwang 5y ago
      Where did you hear this? The first Google result shows that many schools are making fortunes off of their football programs (also it's kind of common sense based on the fact that men's football coaches get paid millions and other sports coaches get paid normal amounts)
dehrmann 5y ago
Is there something like libel-by-omission for cases like this?
dmurray 5y ago
This athlete got a scholarship, elite coaching, a college degree and is now playing her sport professionally. She's a beneficiary of the system, not a casualty of it. The only harm that has been done is that the NCAA has written her out of its internal records (it's dishonest to say "My Career" when it explicitly refers to her achievements as a professed amateur). The NCAA does things that seem exploitative and wrong to me. But it also helps a lot of people. This young lady's outrage is not a good argument for the former.
- crooked-v 5y ago
  > it's dishonest to say "My Career" when it explicitly refers to her achievements as a professed amateur NCAA's claims of "amateurism" are blatantly dishonest in the first place. They control what are pro minor leagues in every way except for the denial of straightforward compensation to the players.
- notacoward 5y ago
  That's one of the worst ad hominems I've ever seen. Sure, the author herself might have done OK, but she's pretty explicit that the incident affected others and that there are many more who haven't been so fortunate. She even names several and tells their stories. She uses her own case only as an example, not as the basis for her entire argument. Dismissing it because "she's a beneficiary" is absurd.
  - dmurray 5y ago
    > she's pretty explicit that the incident affected others and that there are many more who haven't been so fortunate. She even names several and tells their stories. For the three other athletes mentioned by name, in each case the story is that they had medical issues caused by, exacerbated by, or at least neglected by the NCAA. That's a real injustice and a real story. What happened to the author is meh.
    - notacoward 5y ago
      > What happened to the author is meh. So ignore it. Any time you find one part of an argument or its presentation lacking, just look past it. You'll find that it often doesn't affect the validity of the whole, and when that's the case picking on the non-essential part just shows bad faith.
richwater 5y ago
The whole concept of college sports has been detrimental to what should be the true goal of these institutions: educating our next generation.
- GuB-42 5y ago
  The original idea was a good one: a healthy mind in a healthy body. With higher education for the former and sports for the latter. The point wasn't to make people fit for a particular job, it was just to make well educated and fit people for the elites of that time. But things have become twisted along the way. Higher education is still there, and it has become a bit more practical, which is not bad. However the "sports" part became completely broken. Instead of giving students a good body (a noble goal), it shifted to competition, taking subpar students with great athletic skills just to beat the other college team, and overworking and ultimately breaking them. The complete opposite of the original idea.
  - spaetzleesser 5y ago
    “a healthy mind in a healthy body” If that were the goal then they would offer daily aerobics or yoga classes and not engage in competitive sports. For most students college sports is a spectator sport and an opportunity to get drunk.
    - crooked-v 5y ago
      And, of course, some sports, like football, are arguably worse for your health than simply not participating in sports at all.
- nvrspyx 5y ago
  I wouldn't say that the "whole concept" of college sports has been detrimental to education. As a college athlete, sports allowed me to go to a school I otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford. It also taught me valuable lessons and it had no impediment on my education there. With that said, the current system sucks. Many athletes have lost their scholarships due to injury and were then on the hook for the costs of school, requiring some to transfer or drop out. There are some sports and programs that expect most of your time to be dedicated to the sport rather than your academics. The culture around some programs is toxic. But none of it is inherent to the idea of "college sports". Would you argue that other extracurricular activities like clubs, student government, etc., are detrimental to education? Or would you say that they provide education in other areas of life compared to pure academia?
turndown 5y ago
I always wonder about the upbringing(read: brainwashing) that fans of the NCAA who are such rabid defenders of its "heritage" had to have gotten to believe such childish things. The NCAA is the ultimate unpaid internship; if you are such a big fan of those, I encourage you to quit your paying job(if you have one) and pursue one. I remember in high school(~6-10 years ago for me) people would talk about situations with the NCAA like this, and people who had absolutely no stake whatsoever in the system would defend it, often with the kind of weak arguments many have mentioned in this thread. Disappointing that we can't simply agree that people working should be proportionately paid. Some mention scholarships and the like, and I don't think that this is a "terrible" system, but it's clearly incredibly weighed in favor of the NCAA and the schools themselves.
- underwater 5y ago
  An athlete has a 10 year career vs. an office worker's 40 years. It's more like an unpaid internship that lasts a decade.
  - protomyth 5y ago
    What's worse is that a women's career start's earlier and ends quicker, so an organization that won't let them profit off their talent controls more of their career and thus decreases their payout.
throwawaysea 5y ago
Leaving aside the ethics of exploiting labor, my question is why are athletics a matter of our education system? Why does our government get involved in it at all? Why not decompose our university system into its individual parts instead - and let college age adults choose which areas they what to gain development in - whether that’s a particular sport or subject or whatever.
- bilbo0s 5y ago
  why are athletics a matter of our education system? Why part of universities? Because in the 18th and 19th centuries a sound body was thought to be as important to a sound mind as a thorough knowledge of the great Western philosophers. Why did it end up in the spectacle we know today as college football and NCAA and so on? Because Princeton being Princeton, cheated at rugby.
spaetzleesser 5y ago
The NCAA is a similarly corrupt club like the olympics. Preaching “amateurism” while making tons of money for the insiders. I wouldn’t mind if both got closed.
1cvmask 5y ago
There is no equivalent to our college athletics in the whole world and anything that comes close to the scam that the NCAA is. If you want to become an athlete in the rest of the world you skip schooling after high school and go straight into professional sports. The academic sports complex is a massive scam that is two-fold. It makes money off the (mainly blacks) “student” athletes either from the sports (and NCAA) or the alumni contributions in division 1 schools with men’s basketball or football. The students get nothing in return (not even an education in most cases - many examples of them being “graduated” whilst being illiterate and innumerate - see link at bottom). In the division 3 schools that are ranked competitively academically they are used as quota systems to let more whites into the school with esoteric or “elitist” sports like the aforementioned tennis or fencing or squash. The rest of the world has the equivalent of our Minor League in Baseball for all competitive sports.Any sports in college is strictly intramural and for “fun”. Schools do not recruit athletes, as entrances are often based on exam results or some form of academic testing system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_League_Baseball https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_League_Baseball https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_athletics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_athletics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_athletics_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_athletics_in_the_Unite... My favorite story on our academic athletic complex is the bond issuance of over 60 million dollars to build a high school football stadium in Texas: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2639092-texas-town-approves-bond-to-build-628-million-high-school-football-stadium https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2639092-texas-town-appro... ———- https://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/07/us/ncaa-athletes-reading-scores/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/07/us/ncaa-athletes-reading-...
- xhkkffbf 5y ago
  First, no one is holding a gun to anyone's head. If the athletes don't like it, they don't have to go. Second, the non-athletes pay a pretty penny for those classes that the athletes may ignore. It's common for students and their families to part with $150,000 to more than $300,000 for the same access to classes. Now, I agree that many athletes fail to get an education, but I think it's a stretch to say that this is all the fault of the college industrial complex. At some point, the students have to go to class. Third, I realize that many coaches ask for long time commitments from athletes, but even then the value of the scholarship is still pretty sweet. For many, it may be the easiest money they make in their life. Even if they work out for 20 hours for the 25 weeks in a season, that's just 500 hours, about 1/4 of a normal full-time job. If the scholarship is worth $75,000 (as some are), then you're pulling down the equivalent of $300,000/year on an hourly basis. But it gets better because that scholarship is TAX-FREE. Your general attitude about college sports has much merit, but the athletes are compensated.
ecshafer 5y ago
I am firmly against the NCAA. I get a lot of flack for this typically, but the NCAA as a system relies on basically slave labor. Universities are for education. If there are university sports they should be actual amateur institutions, more like our intramural sports and clubs, which some do travel. There should be no sports scholarships, coaches shouldn't be paid large sums, and there should not be millions of merchandise sold or tv rights. The idea of scholarship in exchange for being an athlete should be banned. Universities should be on academic merit, and then afterward people should play what they want. Tuition should also be affordable enough (or free) for any who are able to attend should be able to.
m463 5y ago
I think this organization has trouble. I think the landline thing is just ... wrong. It should be reversed. I think there should be a reckoning. As to the author's stand on Name Image and Likeness, I don't know much about being a college athlete, but I don't think that should be allowed. At all.
MR4D 5y ago
The NCAA is an illegal monopoly if I ever saw one. The northwestern group was as close as I’ve seen to a real challenge, but nobody has had the guts to go the distance in a lawsuit. I wish someone would - the result would be enlightening.
thethought 5y ago
The NIL concept mentioned in the article is new and interesting to me. Who has issue/rights over the individual college athl. NFT?
- snapetom 5y ago
  The NIL question is basically answered at this point - the student athletes do. There's a lot of state legislation making its way through that are allowing its student athletes to profit off their name and likeliness. Legislatures basically steamrolled the NCAA and said, "you have no power over this." When California started, it basically caused more states to fall quite quickly because other legislatures didn't want to give the California powerhouses an advantage in recruiting. The NCAA is trying to rein things in and at least provide guidance right now, but their power is crumbling on this and many other issues.

222 points by 83457 5y ago

There were other factors but what totally turned me against the NCAA is that the athletic scholarships are renewable every year. If you're hurt or are spending too much time in the classroom then your scholarship might not be renewed. Sure, that's not going to affect healthy star players. But if you have something that really would be suited to rest or you want to take a tough course load, well, maybe they'll let you "red shirt" and maybe they won't. You still count against the scholarship limit. If we could go back in time, maybe every town would have its football team and those teams could be promoted and relegated like many soccer teams. Players would be paid to play. Instead the college and university teams fill the need for people to have a local team.

zackbloom 5y ago

Ultimately everything is a system. If the NCAA is incredibly militant about enforcing these rules, the schools will be incredibly paranoid about giving athletes any financial incentive. If the NCAA is more lax, schools will put less effort and attention to detail into enforcement. I’m not saying these policies are good or ethical, but this type of militant enforcement absolutely changes how careful schools are.

Sebguer 5y ago
The entire point of the article is that the policies are bad and unethical. The NCAA is a system built to exploit college athletes from top to bottom.
- HarryHirsch 5y ago
  Indeed. But where are the wokepeople from UMass Amherst? They are all about social justice, why can't they do something for their own students who are being taken advance of by college sports?
  - Sebguer 5y ago
    Did you actually look to see if they were doing anything before you made this comment? https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/umass-amherst-researchers-find-growing https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/umass-amherst-resea...
Retric 5y ago
It’s not just about enforcing the rules, it’s about the appearance of enforcing the rules. The NCAA need to seem important, which means they need people to break the rules regularly and be punished for it. That’s just one of many ways their fucking over students for the NCAA’s benefit. The appropriate response is for students to boycott the NCAA, but socially and financially that is a huge hit. Normally the way around this is a union, but good luck getting one started.
- trhway 5y ago
  Can't the students start their own league? Internet broadcast the plays, etc. I mean NCAA is just a relic of the old TV epoch and is ready to be disrupted. Maybe we'll see some startup for it.
  - Retric 5y ago
    For a new sport sure, e-sports don’t play by NCAA rules. However like most monopolies it’s not just network effects, they heavily protect themselves. Anything that makes you a professional athlete permanently kicks you out of NCAA scholarships etc. So, students are going to have a huge issue getting something off the ground, but they have a lot more leverage if students suddenly boycotted the Rose Bowl etc.
alexeldeib 5y ago
It's a bad system - at least for athletes. It's inherently exploitative. I'd liken it to nearly-free labor. The athletes had no idea they were infringing. The NCAA and the schools make money off these athletes. The schools self-reported. There was no recourse for the affected individuals. The incredible power imbalance between banning these athletes from making money, and then turning around and doing it yourself while being judge, jury, and executioner, makes a mockery of the talent. These are barely "amateurs" in any real sense, the system exploits that fact and the seal of approval "amateur" status brings to rake in money.
- bruceb 5y ago
  "It's a bad system - at least for athletes." No. It's a bad system for some athletes. Its a good system for athletes that are not stars and don't play big money sports. Free education, free trips, play something you really like to do. For other they are forgoing money they could earn. If the system changes, I am sure it will be good for some athletes, not so much of others.
  - dehrmann 5y ago
    > Its a good system for athletes that are not stars and don't play big money sports. Honestly, for the author, she was playing tennis and got an education out of it on the backs of those playing revenue sports. I don't fault her for this--she didn't make the system--but it doesn't look like she went pro, and it she wasn't kicked out while she was in school, so the only damage she's suffering is the NCAA saying she wasn't on the team. Unless she's coaching, and being a college athlete is almost a qualification, she seems to have done OK. That said, I still think she's right for calling out the NCAA.
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      She wrote that as of 2020, "I had been playing professional tennis for three years" She graduated; they're not taking her degree away. And honestly nobody cares about the college record of a professional tennis player -- the fact that it was vacated on a technicality like this is not going to hurt her professional career at this point. Likely she could coach as well, there are coaches in the NCAA who have done far worse (intentionally, not accidentally) and still get jobs.
dehrmann 5y ago
They only this strict out of self-preservation. They know they're ~5 years or one high-profile screw-up away from having to actually pay football and basketball players, so they're delaying it as long as they can.
throwawayboise 5y ago
I mean, a school could just disaffiliate from the NCAA. They could run independent sports programs and play other independent schools, or join the NAIA or some other association, or start a new association. They won't though, because ultimately it's all about the money. Also to your point about enforcement, you'll see that the money-making programs (i.e. Football and Basketball) at the big D1 schools get away with a lot more operating in the gray area than small schools and non-revenue sports. The NCAA isn't going to shit in their gravy train. They save the virtue-signal enforcement for schools and sports that don't make any money anyway.
- notacoward 5y ago
  > They won't though, because ultimately it's all about the money. Sounds like an anti-monopoly case in the making.
m-ee 5y ago
The routinely let off much bigger violators with a slap on the wrist. See UNC shuffling college basketball players through fake classes for years.

Ekaros 5y ago

Maybe that level of athleticism should be separated from education and run as actual business with people paid as actual athletes for whatever their market value is.

Sebguer 5y ago
But then we'd damage their profits. The system you're describing is how it works in most of the rest of the world.
kdmdmdmmdmd 5y ago
The mods on this website are self serving nigggergagggggotss. You are not entitled to free, on topic and engagement with engineers to boost your rotten vulture capitalist garbage obfuscated products and pathetic “hacker” forum. That’s really nice surprise why the most applauded engineers never comment here anymore
- jzwinck 5y ago
  Should we also stop using tax money to subsidize education for doctors? College athletics are education too. It's not like you become a tennis pro by just hitting the gym a lot. The best players study the rules, study physiology, study human nature....
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - corndoge 5y ago
    Comparing eg tennis players and doctors doesn't really explain anything about your position to me, one serves a critical public function and one does not
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- darig 5y ago

trentnix 5y ago

As Cartman remarked - 'student ath-o-letes...brilliant sir!' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZB0qsJuRDo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZB0qsJuRDo

sunstone 5y ago

Bureaucracy run amok.

ARandomerDude 5y ago
So...bureaucracy.

tims33 5y ago

Another disappointing story about the NCAA. I don’t know how to fix it, but since the NCAA represents the schools maybe there should be a parallel body to represent the athletes.

LegitShady 5y ago
>I don’t know how to fix it, Stop doing anything that gives them money for any reason and let them know why. If enough people do it, the problem solves itself one way or the other.
- tims33 5y ago
  Definitely a good starting point. Most of us give them money by watching their sports on tv, so that will be the toughest thing to stop. In some way that makes many people complicit in way they don't realize.
- GavinMcG 5y ago
  Every time discussions about big systems like this one come up, there's a comment that basically amounts to "just solve the collective action problem!" If enough people do it... but they won't. They need to be sold on the idea, en masse, and that doesn't just happen. Fortunately, we have a tool for collective action: government! Government regulation is how we can push institutions toward aligning with our values. Of course, entrenched interests don't want to be pushed, which is why there's been a massive campaign over the past few decades to scapegoat governments and paint them in a negative light. But they're the right tool for the job.
  - LegitShady 5y ago
    > Every time discussions about big systems like this one come up, there's a comment that basically amounts to "just solve the collective action problem!" I think you have it totally wrong. I didn't suggest collective action. That involves organizing, funding, etc. I just recommended stop giving them your money. Also, the law already has a process for which this could be solved. That isn't regulation - it's a lawsuit. They damaged her unreasonably for something beyond her control. She should sue. Regulating how the NCAA acts is not what the government should be involved in. Getting the government to regulate the NCAA is 1000x harder than just suing, and that's 1000x harder than just stop patronizing those organizations yourself. When you aren't emotionally tied into the NCAA, or when you're patronizing an alternative, NCAA fiascos don't both you.

cortesoft 5y ago

I hate the NCAA so much. I can't believe they have the gall to say they need to maintain amateurism while so many people and so many huge corporations make billions of dollars off it. Why does paying the player hurt amateurism but paying the coach doesn't? Why would a player making $50 to sign his name on some hats ruin the game, but CBS paying the NCAA billions for the rights to broadcast the game be totally ok? If they want to insist amateurism is so important, then fine. Be amateur. Have student volunteers do the broadcasting, don't show any ads during the game, and take all the money out of it. Otherwise don't tell me players are the only ones who can't make money off of this.

jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
The owner of the convenience store near me played football for Stanford on a full ride. He's had to walk with a cane, or a walker on a bad day, since his 30s. It's an impediment to his job today, as he struggles to get around restocking throughout the day. College football makes obscene amounts of money, while at the same time discarding a ton of young athletes with permanently broken bodies. The TBI stuff in particular is deeply disturbing. I heard a heartbreaking interview with a family where 3 generations are entering dementia simultaneously because the younger 2 both played college ball. Coaches, schools, broadcasters... true fortunes being made by this industry every single day. But somehow giving the dang kids a slice of that ruins the authenticity of the league. What a pile of nonsense.
- syops 5y ago
  Schools are not making fortunes off of college football. With few exceptions football programs do not pay for themselves with their revenue. I haven't looked into it but I doubt any football program paid for the stadium they use so I wouldn't be surprised if there truly was no such thing as a profitable college football program.
  - kevinwang 5y ago
    Where did you hear this? The first Google result shows that many schools are making fortunes off of their football programs (also it's kind of common sense based on the fact that men's football coaches get paid millions and other sports coaches get paid normal amounts)

dehrmann 5y ago

Is there something like libel-by-omission for cases like this?

dmurray 5y ago

This athlete got a scholarship, elite coaching, a college degree and is now playing her sport professionally. She's a beneficiary of the system, not a casualty of it. The only harm that has been done is that the NCAA has written her out of its internal records (it's dishonest to say "My Career" when it explicitly refers to her achievements as a professed amateur). The NCAA does things that seem exploitative and wrong to me. But it also helps a lot of people. This young lady's outrage is not a good argument for the former.

crooked-v 5y ago
> it's dishonest to say "My Career" when it explicitly refers to her achievements as a professed amateur NCAA's claims of "amateurism" are blatantly dishonest in the first place. They control what are pro minor leagues in every way except for the denial of straightforward compensation to the players.
notacoward 5y ago
That's one of the worst ad hominems I've ever seen. Sure, the author herself might have done OK, but she's pretty explicit that the incident affected others and that there are many more who haven't been so fortunate. She even names several and tells their stories. She uses her own case only as an example, not as the basis for her entire argument. Dismissing it because "she's a beneficiary" is absurd.
- dmurray 5y ago
  > she's pretty explicit that the incident affected others and that there are many more who haven't been so fortunate. She even names several and tells their stories. For the three other athletes mentioned by name, in each case the story is that they had medical issues caused by, exacerbated by, or at least neglected by the NCAA. That's a real injustice and a real story. What happened to the author is meh.
  - notacoward 5y ago
    > What happened to the author is meh. So ignore it. Any time you find one part of an argument or its presentation lacking, just look past it. You'll find that it often doesn't affect the validity of the whole, and when that's the case picking on the non-essential part just shows bad faith.

richwater 5y ago

The whole concept of college sports has been detrimental to what should be the true goal of these institutions: educating our next generation.

GuB-42 5y ago
The original idea was a good one: a healthy mind in a healthy body. With higher education for the former and sports for the latter. The point wasn't to make people fit for a particular job, it was just to make well educated and fit people for the elites of that time. But things have become twisted along the way. Higher education is still there, and it has become a bit more practical, which is not bad. However the "sports" part became completely broken. Instead of giving students a good body (a noble goal), it shifted to competition, taking subpar students with great athletic skills just to beat the other college team, and overworking and ultimately breaking them. The complete opposite of the original idea.
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  “a healthy mind in a healthy body” If that were the goal then they would offer daily aerobics or yoga classes and not engage in competitive sports. For most students college sports is a spectator sport and an opportunity to get drunk.
  - crooked-v 5y ago
    And, of course, some sports, like football, are arguably worse for your health than simply not participating in sports at all.
nvrspyx 5y ago
I wouldn't say that the "whole concept" of college sports has been detrimental to education. As a college athlete, sports allowed me to go to a school I otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford. It also taught me valuable lessons and it had no impediment on my education there. With that said, the current system sucks. Many athletes have lost their scholarships due to injury and were then on the hook for the costs of school, requiring some to transfer or drop out. There are some sports and programs that expect most of your time to be dedicated to the sport rather than your academics. The culture around some programs is toxic. But none of it is inherent to the idea of "college sports". Would you argue that other extracurricular activities like clubs, student government, etc., are detrimental to education? Or would you say that they provide education in other areas of life compared to pure academia?

turndown 5y ago

I always wonder about the upbringing(read: brainwashing) that fans of the NCAA who are such rabid defenders of its "heritage" had to have gotten to believe such childish things. The NCAA is the ultimate unpaid internship; if you are such a big fan of those, I encourage you to quit your paying job(if you have one) and pursue one. I remember in high school(~6-10 years ago for me) people would talk about situations with the NCAA like this, and people who had absolutely no stake whatsoever in the system would defend it, often with the kind of weak arguments many have mentioned in this thread. Disappointing that we can't simply agree that people working should be proportionately paid. Some mention scholarships and the like, and I don't think that this is a "terrible" system, but it's clearly incredibly weighed in favor of the NCAA and the schools themselves.

underwater 5y ago
An athlete has a 10 year career vs. an office worker's 40 years. It's more like an unpaid internship that lasts a decade.
- protomyth 5y ago
  What's worse is that a women's career start's earlier and ends quicker, so an organization that won't let them profit off their talent controls more of their career and thus decreases their payout.

throwawaysea 5y ago

Leaving aside the ethics of exploiting labor, my question is why are athletics a matter of our education system? Why does our government get involved in it at all? Why not decompose our university system into its individual parts instead - and let college age adults choose which areas they what to gain development in - whether that’s a particular sport or subject or whatever.

bilbo0s 5y ago
why are athletics a matter of our education system? Why part of universities? Because in the 18th and 19th centuries a sound body was thought to be as important to a sound mind as a thorough knowledge of the great Western philosophers. Why did it end up in the spectacle we know today as college football and NCAA and so on? Because Princeton being Princeton, cheated at rugby.

spaetzleesser 5y ago

The NCAA is a similarly corrupt club like the olympics. Preaching “amateurism” while making tons of money for the insiders. I wouldn’t mind if both got closed.

1cvmask 5y ago

There is no equivalent to our college athletics in the whole world and anything that comes close to the scam that the NCAA is. If you want to become an athlete in the rest of the world you skip schooling after high school and go straight into professional sports. The academic sports complex is a massive scam that is two-fold. It makes money off the (mainly blacks) “student” athletes either from the sports (and NCAA) or the alumni contributions in division 1 schools with men’s basketball or football. The students get nothing in return (not even an education in most cases - many examples of them being “graduated” whilst being illiterate and innumerate - see link at bottom). In the division 3 schools that are ranked competitively academically they are used as quota systems to let more whites into the school with esoteric or “elitist” sports like the aforementioned tennis or fencing or squash. The rest of the world has the equivalent of our Minor League in Baseball for all competitive sports.Any sports in college is strictly intramural and for “fun”. Schools do not recruit athletes, as entrances are often based on exam results or some form of academic testing system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_League_Baseball https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_League_Baseball https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_athletics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_athletics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_athletics_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_athletics_in_the_Unite... My favorite story on our academic athletic complex is the bond issuance of over 60 million dollars to build a high school football stadium in Texas: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2639092-texas-town-approves-bond-to-build-628-million-high-school-football-stadium https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2639092-texas-town-appro... ———- https://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/07/us/ncaa-athletes-reading-scores/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/07/us/ncaa-athletes-reading-...

xhkkffbf 5y ago
First, no one is holding a gun to anyone's head. If the athletes don't like it, they don't have to go. Second, the non-athletes pay a pretty penny for those classes that the athletes may ignore. It's common for students and their families to part with $150,000 to more than $300,000 for the same access to classes. Now, I agree that many athletes fail to get an education, but I think it's a stretch to say that this is all the fault of the college industrial complex. At some point, the students have to go to class. Third, I realize that many coaches ask for long time commitments from athletes, but even then the value of the scholarship is still pretty sweet. For many, it may be the easiest money they make in their life. Even if they work out for 20 hours for the 25 weeks in a season, that's just 500 hours, about 1/4 of a normal full-time job. If the scholarship is worth $75,000 (as some are), then you're pulling down the equivalent of $300,000/year on an hourly basis. But it gets better because that scholarship is TAX-FREE. Your general attitude about college sports has much merit, but the athletes are compensated.

ecshafer 5y ago

I am firmly against the NCAA. I get a lot of flack for this typically, but the NCAA as a system relies on basically slave labor. Universities are for education. If there are university sports they should be actual amateur institutions, more like our intramural sports and clubs, which some do travel. There should be no sports scholarships, coaches shouldn't be paid large sums, and there should not be millions of merchandise sold or tv rights. The idea of scholarship in exchange for being an athlete should be banned. Universities should be on academic merit, and then afterward people should play what they want. Tuition should also be affordable enough (or free) for any who are able to attend should be able to.

m463 5y ago

I think this organization has trouble. I think the landline thing is just ... wrong. It should be reversed. I think there should be a reckoning. As to the author's stand on Name Image and Likeness, I don't know much about being a college athlete, but I don't think that should be allowed. At all.

MR4D 5y ago

The NCAA is an illegal monopoly if I ever saw one. The northwestern group was as close as I’ve seen to a real challenge, but nobody has had the guts to go the distance in a lawsuit. I wish someone would - the result would be enlightening.

thethought 5y ago

The NIL concept mentioned in the article is new and interesting to me. Who has issue/rights over the individual college athl. NFT?

snapetom 5y ago
The NIL question is basically answered at this point - the student athletes do. There's a lot of state legislation making its way through that are allowing its student athletes to profit off their name and likeliness. Legislatures basically steamrolled the NCAA and said, "you have no power over this." When California started, it basically caused more states to fall quite quickly because other legislatures didn't want to give the California powerhouses an advantage in recruiting. The NCAA is trying to rein things in and at least provide guidance right now, but their power is crumbling on this and many other issues.