FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

Lots and lots of bodies have marched through the Carlson Tower basement and into the offices of the football staff since the season ended -- easily more prospects than I can ever remember NPU bringing onto campus. But as to how many have actually sent in their deposits for next fall, the answer is, "Not all that many ... yet." This is still on the early side for recruiting decisions, both in terms of verbal commitments and actual tuition deposits.

I think that there will be a much better read on North Park's recruiting a month from now.

[Langhorst_Ghost]

Coach Planz in his first team meeting as a Bluejay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuyeir3w5dI

[ExTartanPlayer]

We bantered a few weeks ago on this board about the Northwestern unionization case.  This article, published today on Grantland, has a few key passages which I agree with:

http://grantland.com/features/northwestern-ncaa-college-athletics-union/

In particular, one thing I tried to hammer in my comments here:

"Let's say, as a hypothetical, that you have a cousin/daughter/friend/niece named Julie. Bright kid. Fiddling around in her dorm room junior year, she invents a new kind of combustion engine that makes cars 50 times more fuel-efficient. It's worth a billion dollars. Julie wants to sell it to GM, but — whoops — it turns out the university owns it and she gets nothing, because she's on an engineering scholarship. Tough break, but Julie can't really complain, right? Because at least she got the college experience.

Or say Julie has a brother named Max. Max writes a novel sophomore year that's the biggest thing since Harry Potter. Months on the best-seller list, major movie deal, the works. Only Max not only can't see a penny from his work — that all goes to the school; thanks, English scholarship! — he also makes the mistake of selling an autographed copy at a book fair. Boom, Max is banned from writing for a year. Not touching a pen will teach Max discipline, because Max obviously has character issues. Probably comes from a troubled home.

Now, if Max and Julie were your cousins/kids/friends/whatever, would you be OK with this deal for them? Of course not, right? In any area other than sports, where decades of rhetoric have beaten us down till we can't see the obvious, you would say that someone who creates a product of enormous value from their own talent and hard work is entitled to many, if not all, of the rewards resulting from that product.  You would say that any contract that worked like an athletic scholarship is padded-wallpaper insane."

And another passage later that I particularly agree with:

"One of the neat strategies you'll see the NCAA's defenders deploy in the wake of the Northwestern ruling is to start throwing out a million practical questions that have yet to be resolved, as though, if you can't immediately answer all of them, they must be totally impossible to solve. "I don't know what happens to their meal cards!" you're supposed to cry in this situation, throwing your hands up to the heavens. "Therefore change is futile and I have no choice but to agree that the student-athlete system is the key to success in the classroom, on the field, and in life!"

But this is ludicrous. Reform of a big organization like the NCAA is inevitably going to involve a lot of tough questions. Maybe Ultimate Frisbee at Middlebury isn't a job in the same way basketball at Kentucky is. Maybe some provision will be necessary to make sure women's sports are treated fairly. But you know what? People build multinational corporations and reasonably functional democracies. People deal with trickier problems than college-sports revenue distribution all the time. Raising objections as though the mere existence of practical difficulties shuts down the conversation is the stalling tactic of an exhausted debater. It's the move of someone with nothing left to defend."

[emma17]

We bantered a few weeks ago on this board about the Northwestern unionization case.  This article, published today on Grantland, has a few key passages which I agree with:

http://grantland.com/features/northwestern-ncaa-college-athletics-union/

In particular, one thing I tried to hammer in my comments here:

"Let's say, as a hypothetical, that you have a cousin/daughter/friend/niece named Julie. Bright kid. Fiddling around in her dorm room junior year, she invents a new kind of combustion engine that makes cars 50 times more fuel-efficient. It's worth a billion dollars. Julie wants to sell it to GM, but — whoops — it turns out the university owns it and she gets nothing, because she's on an engineering scholarship. Tough break, but Julie can't really complain, right? Because at least she got the college experience.

Or say Julie has a brother named Max. Max writes a novel sophomore year that's the biggest thing since Harry Potter. Months on the best-seller list, major movie deal, the works. Only Max not only can't see a penny from his work — that all goes to the school; thanks, English scholarship! — he also makes the mistake of selling an autographed copy at a book fair. Boom, Max is banned from writing for a year. Not touching a pen will teach Max discipline, because Max obviously has character issues. Probably comes from a troubled home.

Now, if Max and Julie were your cousins/kids/friends/whatever, would you be OK with this deal for them? Of course not, right? In any area other than sports, where decades of rhetoric have beaten us down till we can't see the obvious, you would say that someone who creates a product of enormous value from their own talent and hard work is entitled to many, if not all, of the rewards resulting from that product.  You would say that any contract that worked like an athletic scholarship is padded-wallpaper insane."

And another passage later that I particularly agree with:

"One of the neat strategies you'll see the NCAA's defenders deploy in the wake of the Northwestern ruling is to start throwing out a million practical questions that have yet to be resolved, as though, if you can't immediately answer all of them, they must be totally impossible to solve. "I don't know what happens to their meal cards!" you're supposed to cry in this situation, throwing your hands up to the heavens. "Therefore change is futile and I have no choice but to agree that the student-athlete system is the key to success in the classroom, on the field, and in life!"

But this is ludicrous. Reform of a big organization like the NCAA is inevitably going to involve a lot of tough questions. Maybe Ultimate Frisbee at Middlebury isn't a job in the same way basketball at Kentucky is. Maybe some provision will be necessary to make sure women's sports are treated fairly. But you know what? People build multinational corporations and reasonably functional democracies. People deal with trickier problems than college-sports revenue distribution all the time. Raising objections as though the mere existence of practical difficulties shuts down the conversation is the stalling tactic of an exhausted debater. It's the move of someone with nothing left to defend."

I'm not saying your opinion is wrong or right, however, I don't agree with your examples of the combustion engine or the book.
If the research was done in the university's research center using the university's physical and intellectual capital to allow for the invention of the new combustion engine, then I say the university has a claim to some or all of the product.

As for the book, if the book was the result of a group project somehow tied into a larger university project, then I can see the university staking a claim.
If, however, both the engine and the book were built/written entirely independent of the university and other students, then by all means they belong to the inventor and writer.

College Football players don't invent, write or perform anything entirely independent of the university and other students/athletes. The football player didn't build the stadium or hire the coaching or contribute any other capital to the program prior to arriving. The university made the investment in the venue (ie a football program) long before the athlete was even a thought.

My daughter plays club volleyball and the club owner makes a profit from my daughter's participation. Is my daughter somehow entitled to employee benefits? 

[wally_wabash]

My daughter plays club volleyball and the club owner makes a profit from my daughter's participation. Is my daughter somehow entitled to employee benefits?

Is the club owner making money by selling tickets to people who want to watch your daughter play volleyball?  Or making money by using your daughter's likeness on hot-selling merchandise?  If so, then I'd say, yeah- your daughter is being unfairly exploited and probably deserves a cut. 

[emma17]

My daughter plays club volleyball and the club owner makes a profit from my daughter's participation. Is my daughter somehow entitled to employee benefits?

Is the club owner making money by selling tickets to people who want to watch your daughter play volleyball?  Or making money by using your daughter's likeness on hot-selling merchandise?  If so, then I'd say, yeah- your daughter is being unfairly exploited and probably deserves a cut.

Exploited- I hate that word. Woe is me.
If I want to make the money off my daughter's volleyball likeness than all I have to do is plop down thousands of dollars to rent a facility, thousands of dollars to bring to market my new club and thousands of dollars for all the coaches I'll need for all the teams in my shiny new club. Then, I can reap the financial rewards that come as the result of the hard work I did to build a successful program. People and organizations took the financial risk to build the venue. I respect that reality and I am thankful they did it. The owners of the club gets to reap the reward for the risk they took.

[Mr. Ypsi]

My daughter plays club volleyball and the club owner makes a profit from my daughter's participation. Is my daughter somehow entitled to employee benefits?

Is the club owner making money by selling tickets to people who want to watch your daughter play volleyball?  Or making money by using your daughter's likeness on hot-selling merchandise?  If so, then I'd say, yeah- your daughter is being unfairly exploited and probably deserves a cut.

Exploited- I hate that word. Woe is me.
If I want to make the money off my daughter's volleyball likeness than all I have to do is plop down thousands of dollars to rent a facility, thousands of dollars to bring to market my new club and thousands of dollars for all the coaches I'll need for all the teams in my shiny new club. Then, I can reap the financial rewards that come as the result of the hard work I did to build a successful program. People and organizations took the financial risk to build the venue. I respect that reality and I am thankful they did it. The owners of the club gets to reap the reward for the risk they took.

e17, wally was being sarcastic.  I assume the club owner making money is simply from charging players (teams) for use of the facility (and probably selling refreshments).  The situation with big-time athletic universities is a bit different, making millions off TV and merchandise.  While the athletes didn't pay for the facilities or pay the coaches, etc., they DO provide the 'show'.  TV is not paying millions for the rights to the chess club, not are people buying 'jerseys' from the math stars.

See, I can be as sarcastic as wally!

[emma17]

My daughter plays club volleyball and the club owner makes a profit from my daughter's participation. Is my daughter somehow entitled to employee benefits?

Is the club owner making money by selling tickets to people who want to watch your daughter play volleyball?  Or making money by using your daughter's likeness on hot-selling merchandise?  If so, then I'd say, yeah- your daughter is being unfairly exploited and probably deserves a cut.

Exploited- I hate that word. Woe is me.
If I want to make the money off my daughter's volleyball likeness than all I have to do is plop down thousands of dollars to rent a facility, thousands of dollars to bring to market my new club and thousands of dollars for all the coaches I'll need for all the teams in my shiny new club. Then, I can reap the financial rewards that come as the result of the hard work I did to build a successful program. People and organizations took the financial risk to build the venue. I respect that reality and I am thankful they did it. The owners of the club gets to reap the reward for the risk they took.

e17, wally was being sarcastic.  I assume the club owner making money is simply from charging players (teams) for use of the facility (and probably selling refreshments).  The situation with big-time athletic universities is a bit different, making millions off TV and merchandise.  While the athletes didn't pay for the facilities or pay the coaches, etc., they DO provide the 'show'.  TV is not paying millions for the rights to the chess club, not are people buying 'jerseys' from the math stars.

See, I can be as sarcastic as wally!

I'm completely unsure of what you mean by sarcasm in both posts.  I think both of you are saying that it's wrong for big time universities to make money off of the student athletes- and not share with them in some way beyond a scholarship.  Is that right?

Is it because of the amount of money the universities are making?  If they made significantly less, or let's say, broke even, would they then not owe the college athlete anything more than the scholarship?  What if the university markets the heck out of an athlete and the athlete and team fail miserably- resulting in horrible tickets sales and an actual loss of income to the university- should the athletes have to pay something back for their poor performance?

       

[wally_wabash]

I'm completely unsure of what you mean by sarcasm in both posts.  I think both of you are saying that it's wrong for big time universities to make money off of the student athletes- and not share with them in some way beyond a scholarship.  Is that right?

Is it because of the amount of money the universities are making?  If they made significantly less, or let's say, broke even, would they then not owe the college athlete anything more than the scholarship?  What if the university markets the heck out of an athlete and the athlete and team fail miserably- resulting in horrible tickets sales and an actual loss of income to the university- should the athletes have to pay something back for their poor performance?     

No, it's not a co-op.  The way major college athletics seems to work, when you strip away all of the nonsense about amateurism, is that those kids get recruited primarily to put on a show (on Saturdays if we're keeping the conversation limited to football).  They are required to spend an enormous amount of time preparing for that show on Saturday.  It's a job.  Those kids are employees of the school and as such ought to be able to negotiate their compensation (individually or as an organized body).  If that's room and board, so be it.  If it means some kind of additional salary beyond room and board, that's fine too.  If it means the freedom to be able to profit from signing autographs or whatever, even better.  I think the main thing is that it's probably about time that the athletes get some basic employee rights or even just the same rights afforded to every other non-athlete on campus.   

[ExTartanPlayer]

I'm completely unsure of what you mean by sarcasm in both posts.  I think both of you are saying that it's wrong for big time universities to make money off of the student athletes- and not share with them in some way beyond a scholarship.  Is that right?

Is it because of the amount of money the universities are making?  If they made significantly less, or let's say, broke even, would they then not owe the college athlete anything more than the scholarship?  What if the university markets the heck out of an athlete and the athlete and team fail miserably- resulting in horrible tickets sales and an actual loss of income to the university- should the athletes have to pay something back for their poor performance?     

No, it's not a co-op.  The way major college athletics seems to work, when you strip away all of the nonsense about amateurism, is that those kids get recruited primarily to put on a show (on Saturdays if we're keeping the conversation limited to football).  They are required to spend an enormous amount of time preparing for that show on Saturday.  It's a job.  Those kids are employees of the school and as such ought to be able to negotiate their compensation (individually or as an organized body).  If that's room and board, so be it.  If it means some kind of additional salary beyond room and board, that's fine too.  If it means the freedom to be able to profit from signing autographs or whatever, even better.  I think the main thing is that it's probably about time that the athletes get some basic employee rights or even just the same rights afforded to every other non-athlete on campus.

Emma, with respect, you're doing exactly what I pointed out with that second quoted passage from the original Grantland article: throwing out some practical questions that have yet to be resolved as though that invalidates the entire discussion of whether collegiate athletes should have any rights beyond what they currently receive.  Hold on, I'll come back to this in a moment.

As for your question: "I think both of you are saying that it's wrong for big time universities to make money off of the student athletes- and not share with them in some way beyond a scholarship.  Is that right?"

Almost, but not exactly.  Moving on to wally's last post, I think this bolded passage is the key here.  The whole "they're already compensated with a scholarship and access to world-class coaching, training, nutrition" is a misdirected argument, IMO, because it ignores that some schools would pay athletes a whole lot more than that.  Some schools would have gladly forked over a hefty sum for Johnny Manziel or Cam Newton (or even, in some cases, pretty obscure players - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Means).  I don't think my question is exactly that "it's wrong for big time universities to make money off of the student athletes and not share beyond a scholarship" but rather that "athletes should be able to negotiate their level of compensation"

(A slightly different issue, and one that I feel much more strongly about than whether athletes should receive stipends, is the ability to accept endorsements and profit from their own likeness - discussion of this at the end of my post)

So, emma, let's revisit one of your hypotheticals: if athletes are paid employees, would they have to pay back their scholarships if the team plays poorly, ticket sales plummet, or ad revenue falls?  I don't know whether any schools would insist on such a provision, but don't you think lawyers and agents might be able to write employment contracts covering these questions?  Schools could make that part of the package if they wanted.  Likewise, schools that wanted to give "only" scholarships would still have the right to do that.  But I'll guess that the schools which have turned their programs into monster cash cows would start paying athletes more than a scholarship.

A few other worthwhile passages from a different article:

"Ohr, though, is not in the system. Ohr's opinion reads like that of someone who has not watched college football for one minute of his life, was told the basic premise for the sport's existence and amateurism rules, and rejected all the inherent contradictions."

And that's the whole wonderful point.  Many of us have become so conditioned to this definition of the student-athlete that it took someone who looked at this with a totally clean slate and saw the following:

"And when you've successfully decoupled athletics from academics, finding that those players are employees is not a big leap. To Ohr, [1] the letter of intent and scholarship offer is the employment contract, [2] the hours of practice and play that generates millions of dollars of revenue for the school are the employer's benefits, [3] the coach's rules are the control, and [4] the scholarship itself is the pay. Players are employees, and it didn't take any stretch in logic to get there."

So the question here isn't necessarily whether all athletes should get paychecks above and beyond what they already do; it's that they are, in fact, employees.  If that is the case, as wally said, they should be able to negotiate their own level of compensation.  Right now, they're stuck with the deal that's given (a scholarship) with no possibility of renegotiating.

In conclusion: look, I'm not a lawyer, and I don't have all of the answers to each practical question (the NCAA and some coaches that oppose the move will continue to employ this tactic of raising questions like "What about nonrevenue athletes?" and "What about Title IX?" to redirect the conversation).  I've said before that I don't think unionization and bigger stipends is really the appropriate endgame here, but I am glad the Northwestern players won the NLRB case because this will keep the conversation alive and eventually might get the NCAA to give the athletes a place at the table to negotiate compensation.  If that takes the form of million-dollar payments for star athletes and reductions to half-scholarships for benchwarmers or athletes in non-revenue sports...why is that such a bad thing?  The market for college athletes would start operating like any other labor market, right?  People with extremely valuable skills would be compensated as such. 

As I alluded above, a possibly simpler solution would be for the NCAA and schools to relent on the issue of whether athletes can profit from their own likeness and accept endorsements. 

[badgerwarhawk]

This legal battle isn't simply about money.  Though I have no doubt compensating athletes above and beyond a scholarship will be central to the action at some point in time.  Personally I have mixed feelings about that and I'm not sure where I stand at this point though I do think they should get some sort of stipend because even with a full scholarship they still will have expenses.  However another issue at stake here is that of due process.  As it stands today a scholarship can be revoked for any reason.  There are athletes losing scholarships after an injury or because the program needs one to secure the services of another athlete.  The athlete has no recourse and that just doesn't seem right to me.  You would like to think that the university would act responsibly but if you've read the Oklahoma State expose in Sports Illustrated you'll realize that there are those that don't.   

[emma17]

Ex T,
On the surface it may appear that I am "throwing out some practical questions that have yet to be resolved as though that invalidates the entire discussion of whether collegiate athletes should have any rights beyond what they currently receive."

The primary purpose of attending college must be to receive an education, this is the subject that should not be "invalidated" by practical questions that have yet to be resolved.  In fact, the subject of "rights of the college athlete" is a true example of invalidating what should be the most important discussion subject- How do we get parents and their children to value education to the degree it must be valued for their future and the future of this country? 
All we are accomplishing by looking to give college athletes more "rights" to quick financial gain is contradicting the most important message.       

If ensuring a college education and degree is the number one priority of the NCAA, parents, schools and all others, then the rest of it will fall into place easier. 
I'm not saying there shouldn't be any changes to the current structure, for instance I would like to see protections in place for losing scholarships. 
However, I'm absolutely not in favor of a stipend.
Yes, I understand there are poor kids on scholarship that don't have spending money or travel money.  Get a loan.  When our culture shifts to prioritizing the degree over the Combine, then it's easier to explain to kids they must have Skin in the Game of Life.  A small college loan for the incidentals they had during their scholarship career is a small price to pay. 

Now, if you want to argue the NCAA or the universities are profiting too much, go ahead, but in my opinion you are only "throwing out some practical questions that have yet to be resolved as though that invalidates the entire discussion" of how do we improve the commitment to education in this country.

On the positive side, according to this article graduation rates are slowly rising among the student-athlete population. 
[urlhttp://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/9873192/notre-dame-comes-winner-graduation-rates][/url]
 



     

[urlhttp://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/9873192/notre-dame-comes-winner-graduation-rates][/url]

[ExTartanPlayer]

Nor am I in favor of a stipend; apologies if that has not been clear in my rambles.  I am in favor of granting collegiate athletes the right to profit from their own likeness and accept endorsements, and I see the Northwestern players' victory as a hopefully-useful bargaining chip that may eventually force the NCAA to acknowledge that the current model is unreasonable.  A nice quote from Stewart Mandel today:

"There is plenty of gray area in between those who are salaried professionals and those who are not allowed to accept a free sandwich."

Perhaps this is a better way to express my feelings.  I don't necessarily want to see all collegiate athletes gettin' dem checks, but I do think the draconian restrictions on what they are permitted to accept need be lifted or changed.

"And an athletic director is receiving a near-$20,000 bonus because one of his wrestlers won an NCAA title. Meanwhile, that same wrestler would be ineligible if he signed an autograph for $20. That dichotomy is no longer ethically tenable."

[emma17]

Nor am I in favor of a stipend; apologies if that has not been clear in my rambles.  I am in favor of granting collegiate athletes the right to profit from their own likeness and accept endorsements, and I see the Northwestern players' victory as a hopefully-useful bargaining chip that may eventually force the NCAA to acknowledge that the current model is unreasonable.  A nice quote from Stewart Mandel today:

"There is plenty of gray area in between those who are salaried professionals and those who are not allowed to accept a free sandwich."

Perhaps this is a better way to express my feelings.  I don't necessarily want to see all collegiate athletes gettin' dem checks, but I do think the draconian restrictions on what they are permitted to accept need be lifted or changed.

"And an athletic director is receiving a near-$20,000 bonus because one of his wrestlers won an NCAA title. Meanwhile, that same wrestler would be ineligible if he signed an autograph for $20. That dichotomy is no longer ethically tenable."

Again I say, the purpose of college for all students should be to earn a degree. The more you promote college athletics as a means for the athletes to profit during their extremely short-lived days of athletic glory, the more difficult it will become for high schools to prepare students for success in college. It's hard enough for many athletes to resist thinking of college as a mandatory and temporary stop before their time in the pros. What will happen when high school athletes know they can get paid for their likeness once they go to college?

Patience is a virtue. The athletic director earning a bonus based on the success of the programs paid his/her dues. That AD undoubtedly reached their position in the very manner we should all encourage for our kids. The college athlete's time to make money will come all in due time.

[wally_wabash]

Nor am I in favor of a stipend; apologies if that has not been clear in my rambles.  I am in favor of granting collegiate athletes the right to profit from their own likeness and accept endorsements, and I see the Northwestern players' victory as a hopefully-useful bargaining chip that may eventually force the NCAA to acknowledge that the current model is unreasonable.  A nice quote from Stewart Mandel today:

"There is plenty of gray area in between those who are salaried professionals and those who are not allowed to accept a free sandwich."

Perhaps this is a better way to express my feelings.  I don't necessarily want to see all collegiate athletes gettin' dem checks, but I do think the draconian restrictions on what they are permitted to accept need be lifted or changed.

"And an athletic director is receiving a near-$20,000 bonus because one of his wrestlers won an NCAA title. Meanwhile, that same wrestler would be ineligible if he signed an autograph for $20. That dichotomy is no longer ethically tenable."

Again I say, the purpose of college for all students should be to earn a degree. The more you promote college athletics as a means for the athletes to profit during their extremely short-lived days of athletic glory, the more difficult it will become for high schools to prepare students for success in college. It's hard enough for many athletes to resist thinking of college as a mandatory and temporary stop before their time in the pros. What will happen when high school athletes know they can get paid for their likeness once they go to college?

Patience is a virtue. The athletic director earning a bonus based on the success of the programs paid his/her dues. That AD undoubtedly reached their position in the very manner we should all encourage for our kids. The college athlete's time to make money will come all in due time.

Setting the ethics of Gene Smith getting two stacks of high society because a wrestler at tOSU won a national championship aside, that sort of bonus structure was no doubt negotiated by Gene Smith (or his people) as is his right as an employee.  My whole thing is that the athletes should have the same right to negotiate compensation for their work as Gene Smith does.