Transcriber:
In college sports, American universities are exploiting, disproportionately,
Black athletes
for billions of dollars,
while diminishing their education, health and safety.
Let me start with a bit of history.
In November 1984,
an undersized quarterback from Boston College named Doug Flutie
threw a game-winning touchdown pass against the defending national champions,
University of Miami.
As the Hail Mary pass floated through the fall air
in front of a packed stadium,
millions more watched with excitement on TV.
After the dramatic win,
undergraduate application rates at Boston College shot up by 30 percent,
revealing to universities the enormous marketing value
of building high-profile sports programs.
That same year, the United States Supreme Court heard a case
in which the Universities of Georgia and Oklahoma
challenged rules that limited the number of football games they could play on TV.
Those schools saw the opportunity to not only make money
by televising their games,
but to also market their universities to the world.
The Supreme Court agreed that the broadcasting restrictions were illegal
and schools began to negotiate TV deals worth millions.
That case opened the floodgates to money in college athletics,
and with it, ever-growing conflicts of interest
that prioritize sports over education,
promote wins over health and safety
and reinforce the disturbing racial and economic inequities in our country.
Since then, the growth in college sports has been extraordinary
and schools have earned record revenues year after year.
The spending during that same time period
has increased at almost the same dramatic pace,
as universities engage in an arms race to the top of the rankings.
Massive expenditures on new stadiums, bigger staffs and record salaries
have made it appear, on the books at least,
that athletic departments are losing money,
while they build lavish facilities
and make multimillionaires out of coaches and administrators.
In fact, in 40 out of 50 states,
the highest-paid public employee is now a college football or basketball coach.
Meanwhile, college athletes, whose elite talents generate these massive revenues,
are not only denied the ability to share in the riches they create,
too many of them are not given the education they're promised, either.
Today, college athletes are exploited to the tune of almost 15 billion dollars.
That's how much money is generated by college sports each year.
And I'm all too familiar with the exploitation,
because I used to be responsible for enforcing it.
Following my own college baseball career at the University of Dayton,
I went on to law school before becoming an investigator
at the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
I traveled to college campuses across the country
and helped enforce a 400-page rule book that denies athletes the right to get paid
for their performance
or even profit from their own name.
For instance: unlike the music student who, in addition to their scholarship,
can get paid to record a song,
or the English student who, in addition to their scholarship,
can get paid to write a book,
college athletes cannot profit from their talents
or even take a free meal
without being ruled ineligible and risking their scholarship.
During my time as an investigator,
I questioned hundreds of athletes and their families
about their financial transactions,
dug through their personal bank and phone records
and scrutinized their relationships to a humiliating degree,
all for the possibility that someone gave them something beyond a scholarship,
no matter how petty.
In one case, I questioned Ohio State football players
who received free tattoos and cash in exchange for memorabilia.
The case received national attention and became known as "Tattoo Gate,"
as if it were a scandal on par with political espionage.
The players were suspended and had to repay the cash
as well as the value of the tattoos.
In effect, unpaid athletes were fined by a billion-dollar organization
that gets paid by sponsors to decorate the athletes in corporate logos.
I was told my job was to promote fairness, but there was nothing fair about that.
Shortly thereafter, I left the NCAA and started fighting for the athletes.
It became increasingly clear to me
that rules supposedly designed to prevent exploitation
instead allow a collection of universities and their wealthy corporate sponsors
to profit off the athletes,
who are promised an education and lured by a chance at the pros
but who too often end up with nothing.
Now, some people believe college athletes get a free ride.
However, there is nothing free about risking health and safety
while working 40 to 50 hours per week
as you fight to keep your scholarship.
In football alone,
there are over 20,000 injuries a year,
including 4,000 knee injuries and 1,000 spinal injuries.
Since 2000, forty players have died.
Beyond football, a recent study revealed
that an estimated 60 percent of Division 1 college athletes
suffer a major injury in their career,
and over half of them endure chronic conditions
that last well beyond their playing days.
There is nothing free about that,
especially as the NCAA refuses to enforce health and safety standards
and has denied in court it even has that responsibility.
And about that education they're promised --
according to the College Sports Research Institute,
Black football and basketball players in the top five conferences
graduate at 22 and 37 percent lower
than the undergraduate population.
Those who do graduate are often shuffled into majors with watered-down courses
that conform to their athletic schedules to simply keep them eligible.
The time demands and required focus on sports
makes it challenging for even the most well-intentioned athlete
to get a meaningful education.
This is unacceptable for a 15 dollar billion industry
run by institutions whose mission is to educate young people.
Although plenty of athletes succeed,
their achievements don't require rules that deny pay
or a system that limits educational opportunities
or neglects health and safety.
The fact is,
American universities oversee a multibillion-dollar entertainment industry
that denies fundamental rights to its essential workers,
a disproportionate number of whom are Black,
while making millionaires of largely white coaches and administrators.
This dynamic has not only deprived many young people of a meaningful education,
it has shifted generations of wealth away from mostly Black families
and represents the systemic inequities plaguing our society.
The good news is that people are starting to see the truth.
The NCAA's own public polling
has revealed that a staggering 79 percent of the public
believe that colleges put money ahead of their athletes.
State and federal lawmakers, both Republican and Democrat,
have also taken notice and started to act.
Several US senators have rightly described the problems in college sports
as a civil rights issue.
Meanwhile, college athletes from across the country
have started to stand up to demand greater health and safety protections,
representation rights,
attention to racial and social justice issues
and economic fairness.
Those who think the players should just stick to sports
fail to recognize how rarely college athletes speak up
and ignore the great personal risk they take
in confronting a powerful industry,
especially without any representation.
More importantly, critics fail to acknowledge
that college athletes are simply seeking rights
that are afforded to virtually everyone else in this country
and basic protections that shouldn't even be in question.
I agree that college sports should be an enjoyable distraction,
but not when they're distracting us from the very injustice they enable.
In his retirement,
the NCAA's first and longest-serving executive director, Walter Byers,
described college sports as
"the plantation mentality resurrected and blessed by today's campus executives."
This is a telling quote from the man who designed this system
and the one who knew it best.
But you don't have to be an insider
to recognize the exploitation of young people.
You don't have to be a Republican or a Democrat
to be troubled by the irresponsible spending or the disregard for values
at our universities.
You don't even have to be a sports fan.
You just have to believe in basic ideas of fairness
and the values of higher education.
So let's require that all college athletes
are given a chance at a meaningful education.
Let's demand responsible spending by our universities
and fairly allocate the billions of dollars being generated.
Let's create robust health and safety standards
to protect those who entertain us with their bodies
and enforce those standards.
Let's provide college athletes with a representative body
so they have recourse when things go wrong
and a voice about how to make things right.
Finally, let's rise to the challenge of our time
and once and for all correct
the persistent racial and economic inequities
that apply to college sports and beyond.
Change is long overdue,
but there has never been a better time than now.