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Reflecting on the history and current moment of NCAA sports, we should think about what we really are talking about when we say the “collegiate model.” In practice. Not ideologically or theoretically. https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/ncaa-expected-to-table-planned-vote-on-name-image-likeness-rights-amid-supreme-court-case-senate-changes/
In practice, the collegiate model means something made distinctive by what it is not: college sports are not professional sports in the sense that athletes may receive college scholarships but have many restrictions on their ability to make money
(See: the history of the term “student-athlete” and Walter Byers’ NCAA’s effort in the 1950s to make sure state industrial labor relations boards would no longer treat athletes as employees and grant-in-aid as an employment contract, and stop awarding injury and death benefits)
The collegiate model means some athletes (like me!) come out ahead. I played elite college sports, jet-set around the country to compete, earned a world-class education. I turned pro in school (PhD, faculty) and sports (Nike, Brooks). https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-jackson-college-sports-20180111-story.html
But my big-time experience was made possible because the collegiate model rests on the backs of the under-compensated labor of football athletes—in the Power 5, esp stars, are mostly Black. And these athletes do not, as a class, enjoy comparable educational experiences & outcomes
Right now every NFL draft pick comes from the NCAA; 75% from Power 5 schools. The NFL is 70% Black. Higher ed runs a farm team for the NFL. Higher ed also uses football to sell the college experience, because college is about more than education (Also, the Power 5 is mostly PWIs)
Historically and currently, schools care about football, football money, and, especially, how football is the most important imagery triggering thoughts of what the “college experience” is in American minds. Check out @ianbogost https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/10/college-was-never-about-education/616777/
When we witnessed ND students rushing the field during pandemic football when ND beat Clemson in double OT, making maskless athletes on the field vulnerable, we saw students exercising what they thought was their right to “experience college”
FB/BB athletes are entertainment for others, including other students’ college experiences. FB/BB athletes subsidize many industries, including the other sports in intercollegiate athletic departments. Essentially, we expect them to pay 4 other athletes’ athletic experiences too
When we group all sports together in one “athletic department,” and all divisions & conferences in one policy-making council, we get inertia in reforming one sector of the enterprise: with the athletes. It allows us to pretend they’re all the same & should be treated the same way
Sports in schools played by students is a thing that takes on many forms. The “collegiate model” pretends there is only one.
It is time for schools to start designing policies that accept reality and create a new, more optimal approach that respects the substantial differences across sports internally, & divisions, externally
The cleanest way to do this? Spin off football https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/23/opinion/cancel-fall-college-football-season/
