College football lawsuit

[whitworthnut]

I think they have a case. Certainly it can be argued that their decisions are made of free choice. However, like all the broke NHLers of the Sixties, once they're in the game, they are at the mercy of the system and there isn't much of a safety net.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

I played defense for a high school that saw the entire varsity defensive line handed scholarships to several SEC teams my senior year. I visited the team's practice at Alabama and decided that I could probably live much longer if I took my place in the stands, not on the field. I was the smallest guy on the line at 200 pounds. These guys could put me between two slices of bread, eat me whole and still want seconds. I think Bear Bryant recruited them by having them point to Birmingham with a 4 bottom plow.

Honestly, everybody on the line in high school was bigger than me. A lot of the guys on the other teams were, too. But I always believed I could outplay them, and more often than not, I did. That's the key. That's how people got seriously hurt. Belief that makes a coach think he has done his job in the locker room pep talk is the foundation of serious injury. Taming the game is much more important than compensation for people who are injured by the game as it is. Closing the barn door after the horses are loose serves no purpose at all.

We weren't completely neglected for safety. The neck exercises they made the linemen do made my neck 19.5 inches around by graduation. I have had to have my shirts extensively altered my entire adult life. A 20 inch neck is assumed to be associated with knuckle-draggers. My shirts' sleeves have to be taken up as much as 6 inches sometimes now that my neck is 23 inches. Its all because I wanted to play defensive line- once a tackle, always a tackle, as they say. They also made the linemen wear those stupid neck rolls that later were proven to actually cause neck injury.

I love my LSU football, but I worry about the game. We have to stop making idiotic rule changes for no reason and make rule changes that matter. And officials who are incompetent need to be sued by the NCAA and the schools. Competency increases with financial risk for incompetence. Intentional injury after the play should be treated just like any other criminal assault. A few years back a creep from University of Virginia stomped an opposing player's knee sideways while he lay on the ground well after the play. The officials missed it. TV didn't. NCAA didn't do anything. Criminal charges were never made. UVa suspended the creep for a few weeks' games. The victim never played football again. The creep plays in the NFL.

The bottom line is, amateur athletics are by definition unpaid and uncompensated for. The sport is played for the honor of sport itself and the honor of representing your school. Altering that in any way results in endless problems that all erode the dignity and honor of sport. It is crazy for schools or players or (god help us), lawyers to even consider these compensation questions when the safety of the players is so much in jeopardy. That's what I think, 44 years after my last game.

[Ember]

As an outsider looking in, its rather disgusting the sort of money that can be available to folks who show aptitude for what was intended as a fun game to play. Not just the American version, but Rugby, Aussie Rules and even worse the World Game, Soccer. Come to that it goes beyond the many games that masquerade as football and into other games like tennis, basketball, baseball, cricket, golf... The list goes on.

There is something wrong with the world when someone is considered more valuable to the world because he/she is good at a sport than another person who has an ability to paint pictures with words that could make them the next Shakespeare, or an ability with science that gives them the potential to cure disease.

Anyway. That's my mini rant. Carry on.

[FootScoot]

I agree Ember. They seem to have their priorities backward in regard to what athletes make. You will not see a teacher, police officer, fireman, or anyone else in a vital teaching or public service job make what they do. Yet the work they do is much more important than some jock getting millions of dollars to play a sports game. The way I look at it is if it wasn't for their teachers they wouldn't be where they are, yet when it comes to paying them what they are worth they certainly don't get it. Sorry for the rant, but it's so true. :)

[Ember]

[Harry Slotter]

When I first came to the USA, I was amazed at the level of intensity in high school sports even, compared to the UK. In my schooldays, as a member of the rugby team, we played an inter-squad scrimmage mid-week, and a couple of general gym classes, then a match against another school on Saturday. The PE master from the host school would be the referee, the linesmen a couple of parents - if any were there to volunteer, otherwise any available schoolkid. Being British, I was asked to help coach soccer at a local small private school. I was astounded to find that there was practice everyday after school with coaches being paid, and paid officials at games. I was totally astonished that large high schools also had a stadium with floodlights, electronic scoreboards, grandstands, announcers, ticket office, concession stand, etc - some had facilities better than my local home town professional soccer team in England.

I also could not quite understand the level of support for college sports in America, and the extent of the coverage in the media. It was several months before I discovered that Ohio State was a university as well as a football team. Every person in Central Ohio seems to own a complete wardrobe of OSU clothing. The Columbus Dispatch makes the Buckeyes front page news and local TV stations report every minor detail. The capacity of the Horseshoe stadium is, I think, larger than most English Premier League grounds. In contrast, the Major League Soccer team in Columbus (Crew) usually draws a crowd of around 15,000 for their home games. So I see that college athletes might feel that they deserve higher financial reward and compensation.

However, many of the "student-athletes" are provided with generous scholarships (full rides?). Whereas their non-athlete classmates fund their own tuition though loans and grants (or maybe some academic scholarship) to the tune of $60k-$100k. And as college students, the athletes should be encouraged to focus on their academic studies as well as sports participation - not all will make it to the NFL, NBA, MLB. On which point, the income earned by a professional athlete may be needed to support them long after retirement from their sport (especially if early due to injury). At which time, as long as they have completed their college education, they would have the qualification to transition to a new career.

Not all professional athletes here in the USA are making vast fortunes in their sport. In MLS, with the "salary cap" rule, many players earn less than $100k. The Columbus Crew recently changed ownership - reputedly, the new owner paid US$68m in the deal - for the team, stadium, etc. At the same time in Europe, a single player transferred from one team to another for more than that amount!

So, as to the question whether college student-athletes should get compensation for injury (either season-ending or career-ending) - would it not be a case of proving the loss in any claim for damages? Actual loss of a sport scholarship. Or foreseeable loss of income from a lucrative professional career - which may only be proven if a contract with a professional team had been negotiated?

[FootScoot]

I know there are college players who get injured and can never play again, but as far as them suing for said injuries is crazy. They play at their own risk, and I'm sure they sign waivers saying that. Most play in hopes of landing a professional career in sports of which it only happens to very small percentage of them. So I would say to them make sure you keep up with the studies in your chosen field. :)

[Czar]

Big time college sports is the last open vestige of slavery.