O’Brien 1

Aidan O’Brien

Professor Bedell

CAS 138H

March 20 2018

The NCAA’s Mistreatment of College Athletes, And Why They Need to Be Compensated in

Something More than an Education

Introduction:

On October 26, 1974, The TCU Horned Frogs played The Alabama Crimson Tide in what

seemed like a routine football matchup in Birmingham. It wasn’t a close contest, but years later

no one would remember the score. One play highlighted that day, a play where TCU’s Kent

Waldrep took the ball on a run to the outside and was greeted with a violent hit that sent him

spiraling into the sideline and rendered him unconscious. When Waldrep awoke, he found

himself in a hospital bed, looking up at the face of Alabama’s coach, Bear Bryant. For any

player, a meeting with the coaching legend would’ve been humbling, and Kent Waldrep was no

exception. However, if Kent had tried to get an autograph, he would’ve been met with some

difficulty. He couldn’t lift his arms or feel his toes. Kent Waldrep had been paralyzed.i

At first, TCU was supportive of Waldrep and covered his medical expenses. But, after 9

months, TCU refused to pay any more, forcing Waldrep and his family to have to accept charity

to help pay his mounting bills.ii Waldrep was outraged. He claims that when TCU recruited him,

they made him a promise that should anything happen to him, TCU would help pay for it. Now,

they had broken that promise.iii All throughout the 90’s, Waldrep would file a lawsuit against
 O’Brien 2

TCU for workmen’s compensation, not because he thought he needed it, but in the interest of

getting what he was promised. Finally, in 2000, the court reached a verdict. It stated that

Waldrep had not been an employee of the university, and so he couldn’t receive worker’s

compensation.iv During the case, though, representatives from TCU said something even more

startling. They claimed Waldrep had been recruited as a student, not as an athlete.v He was not an

employee; Instead, Kent Waldrep had become something else, something with substantially

fewer rights. A student-athlete.

In fact, the term student-athlete was created precisely for situations like Kent Waldrep’s. The

term was coined in 1964 by Walter Byers, the first commissioner of the NCAA, in order to assist

with, in the words of sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, the “fight against workmen’s

compensation insurance claims for injured football players.”vi. Essentially, it defines all students

not as paid employees of the university (because then you would have to pay those pesky

insurance bills), but instead as something else. Operating under the assumption of the student-

athlete, the assumption is that the person involved is not really an athlete at all, instead becoming

a student who simply volunteers knowingly at his own peril to play a sport in supplement to his

or her actual studies. Because of this, schools have the ability to choose whether or not to pay for

an athlete’s medical bills, in addition to owning all the profits from their image and play on the

field. Of course, there’s always the argument that universties ‘pay’ their ‘student-athletes’ in an

education, but the quality of that education can be questionable, and when quantified next to the

billion dollars of revenue the NCAA made last year off of their athletesvii, it’s becoming very

clear, very fast, that players are not being proportionately compensated for their work, and that

the NCAA simply doesn’t care about exploiting its players.

A Questionable Education:
 O’Brien 3

The core of being considered a ‘student-athlete’ rests on the assumption that an education

takes priority for athletes over their sport of choice. On their website, the NCAA boasts, “In the

collegiate model of sports, the young men and women competing on the field or court are

students first, athletes second.” However, the priorities the NCAA upholds have shown to

sometimes be ineffective, with cases of schools funneling their athletes into joke courses in order

to ensure that they remain eligible to play for their respective sports seasons.

The most prominent of these cases revolved around UNC, where, over the course of 18 years,

‘thousands of athletes’viii were funneled into classes that never met, or where students were

required to do little or no work. In one particularly pathetic case, a student even received an A-

for a 146 word, grammatically inept essay on Rosa Parks.ix In some, advisors even accepted

plagiarism.x It was even indicated that coaches would directly give input as to what grades they

thought their players would need to receive to stay eligible.xi This was the ‘Top Tier’ education

that the NCAA boasts of being able to provide. In response to a lawsuit filed by UNC players

who said they had been cheated out of an education, the NCAA responded with the following

statement: “It’s not our job to ensure educational quality.”xii For the most part, the NCAA’s

position was that it was UNC, not the NCAA, who put players in paper classes, and that the

NCAA couldn’t be expected to interfere day to day in what classes every single one of their

athletes were involved in.

The problem with this statement is, of course, that it directly undermines the NCAA’s prior

statement that students are receiving a ‘Top notch education at one of the world’s top

Universities’.xiii Without the ability to enforce what they claim to provide for students, their

claim that students are being paid in an education simply can’t be guaranteed, which completely
 O’Brien 4

nullifies the entire student part of being a ‘student-athlete’. Effectively, in this way, students can

not be guaranteed any compensation at all, in the form of money or education.

Player Medical Problems:

The most egregious flaw in this entire system is the ability of a college or university to

potentially deny medical care to injured players due to their status as “student-athletes”. Though

this seems like a given that this should be mandatory if an athlete sustains an injury playing for

his university, it’s completely up to the university as to whether or not to cover the medical

expenses. Combine that with the fact that the vast majority of college athletes (90%) are on one

year scholarships that the university isn’t mandated to renew at the end of every year, and this is

a recipe for potential disaster if an athlete gets injured.xiv Although they often do make the right

choice and pay it, the fact that that they aren’t obligated to can be absolutely catastrophic for a

player’s family and quality of life when they’re left without the scholarship they needed to pay

for school, and with mounting medical bills.

Take, for instance, the case of Kyle Hardrick, a basketball player who committed to

Oklahoma when he was 14. During a practice in fall of his freshman year, a teammate fell on

Hardrick’s leg, injuring him for two seasons. After a test, it was determined Kyle had a torn

meniscus and would need an operation. Oklahoma disputed the findings, refused to pay for the

operation, and then, after Hardrick paid for it out of his family’s insurance, refused to renew his

scholarship, meaning Hardrick was out of luck.xv He was no longer able to afford Oklahoma’s

tuition and after transferring to junior college it was revealed that his knee problems hadn’t gone

away. He was never given another scholarship. By 2014, he was working a job at an oil field in

Halliburton, without the payment of an education that he’d been promised, but with mounting

medical bills for having elected to become a student athlete.xvi

 O’Brien 5

As bad as it sounds, Kyle Hardrick isn’t even close to being an isolated case when it comes

to paying for medical costs sustained in college himself, or when it comes to losing his

scholarship because of injury. There’s also the case of Stanley Doughty, who left South Carolina

for the NFL only to discover that he had a serious spinal injury. When he asked South Carolina

for help, they refused, with a spokesperson saying that Doughty had been provided with medical

care while he was a student athlete, but since he had left for the NFL, they wouldn’t help him.
xvii
There’s Jason Whitehead and Jon Clark, who were informed by Ohio State that their

scholarships wouldn’t be renewed after they suffered neck and knee injuries, respectively. xviiiFor

Clark and Whitehead, public pressure and news conferences caused Ohio State to reinstate the

tuition part of the aid, but the others were not nearly so lucky.

There’s no way to know how many other tragic stories there are of players losing or nearly

losing scholarships due to injury, but it could potentially be higher than many think. According

to the NCAA, there are approximately 20,716 injuries in college football every year, with 841

being spinal injuriesxix and The National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research has

recorded a steady rise in the amount of career ending spinal and brain injuries.xx In response to

this, as well as in response to a players’ growing need for security, the NCAA made it legal in

2012 to offer guaranteed multi-year scholarships to players for the first time since 1973, which

would go a long way to helping out injured players and offer them security, but instead of being

widespread, these have generally been reserved to recruit the top flight athletes. Indeed, of 28

Division 1 Schools surveyed, only 5 schools provided multi-year scholarships to 10% or more of

their athletes, while the other 20 provided them to 1% or fewer of their athletes.xxi

In response to criticism over a perceived inequality, colleges will often say that paying for

players injuries or affording players multiyear scholarships can sometimes become too expensive
 O’Brien 6

or costly for a program. However, this simply doesn’t add up. At the University of South

Carolina, for instance, the same school where Stanley Doughty was denied medical care, in 2015

athletics generated 89 million in total revenue. A little over 1 million was spent on the medical

care of athletes.xxii It is inarguable that more of that money should go towards the welfare of

athletes, first and foremost, and that new regulations are put into place that prevent colleges from

denying medical care to athletes based on the ‘student’ half of their title. If it doesn’t, athletes

will continue to have their lives ruined by universities who pay them in a questionable education,

and leave them riddled with injuries for life.

The Worth of An Athlete:

The NCAA generated 1 billion dollars in 2016. xxiiiThe players they generated the money

from received zero dollars of it. What’s more, some of them even ended up spending their own

money in the process of generating that revenue. According to a study by Drexel University, the

average FBS football player’s ‘full scholarship’ actually fell short of their own expenses by

about 3,222 dollars.xxiv Thus, while one can argue that the players are still being paid with an

education and opportunity and all the other things the NCAA willingly admits they have no

control over. From a dollars and cents perspective, how much athletes are actually worth is a

relatively large factor that should help determine if they’re being accurately compensated for

their work.

In short, they’re not. In that same study from Drexel University, findings indicated that the

average FBS football player is worth about $121,048 annually, while basketball players are

worth $265,027. xxvNo matter what quality of education a player is receiving, its value is not

worth more than the intrinsic value of the athlete’s revenue itself. And, in many cases, college

players simply aren’t being compensated enough even on full scholarship to cover the full scope
 O’Brien 7

of their annual expenses, meaning while the NCAA rakes in over a billion dollars in revenue,

some athletes can’t afford to eat at night.

As bad as it sounds, the financial state of these players oftentimes isn’t even close to what is

perceived. As stated earlier, the average full scholarship football athlete on average has about a

$3,222 annual scholarship shortfall, where athletes must pay for goods out of their own

pockets.xxvi On top of that, what players are compensated for (Food, Room and Board, etc), often

is shockingly low. In fact, around 85% of on campus “Full scholarship” FBS athletes are

compensated at levels below the poverty line.xxvii This makes it not so surprising when players

like former UCONN guard Shabazz Napier come out and say, on the eve of their NCAA

championship victory in 2014, that there are “Hungry Nights Where I’m Not Able to Eat” xxviii

This isn’t exactly rocket science. It is completely, 100% clear that if the NCAA cannot guarantee

compensation to players in the form of a quality education, it should at least be doing so in the

form of guaranteed medical care, and at least enough financial compensation to make sure its

athletes aren’t going hungry while playing and have a little bit extra to cover scholarship

shortfalls as well.

Where the Money Should Come From:

First, to clear the air, the NCAA can afford to pay and cover the medical insurance of college

athletes. Though it is true that very few athletic programs in college sports actually make profits,

this is often, in the words of Jon Oliver, “By design”xxix. Essentially, though programs receive

ludicrous amounts of revenue from athletics, they simply reinvest all of it into things like

Coach’s salaries and facility renovations, as evidenced by the graph below from USA today in
 O’Brien 8

2013.xxx

After looking at these charts, one trend becomes astonishingly clear: Coaches get paid a very

large amount, while players get a very small amount in comparison. In fact, according to the US

News And World Report, the top 25 coaches in college make anywhere from $2 million/year to

$6 million/year. xxxiFurther, Coaches, unlike players, have the ability under NCAA guidelines to

sell their likeness, and to make money off their respective camps, radio show appearances,

etc.xxxii However, even discounting these alternate forms of revenue, college coaches are

oftentimes the highest paid public employees in their state. According to a recent ESPN Study,

39 out of the 50 states fit this bill. xxxiiiThis is exemplified in this older infographic from

Deadspin belowxxxiv.
 O’Brien 9

As if this weren’t already flawed enough, the salary of college coaches greatly outweighs

even those of the governors in their respective states. So much more, in fact, that the just the 4

coaches who appeared in the College Football Playoff last year made $25.5 million combined,

whereas the salaries of all 50 governors amounted to a mere $6.3 millionxxxv, which, again is

before you factor in all the alternate revenue streams available to coaches outside of their inflated

salaries.

If it wasn’t already clear, this segment of the article is proposing that the money to fund

guaranteed player healthcare and to pay the players a nominal amount should come primarily out

of the coach’s already laced pockets. According to various economists, schools can afford it.xxxvi

With the amount of money being made by the NCAA and its member schools, it is absolutely

preposterous to argue that the players primarily responsible for making the money deserve zero

percent of it.
 O’Brien 10

Now, this article is not going to go into a fully-fledged, in depth plan on how to pay every

player, in every division, both women and men’s sports. That would take way too long for the

10-page limit. However, given the state of many of the players, juxtaposed with what the NCAA

is making, it is ludicrous to say that players deserve none of it. Even a nominal amount, enough

to cover player’s scholarship shortcomings even, would go a long way to bettering the state of

the players. It wouldn’t be difficult to make these changes, to redirect funds over to the athletes,

but the problem is still that the NCAA doesn’t have to pay players, or care for their health. The

term “Student-Athlete” has bailed out the NCAA in cases against athletes since the 50’s, and

because of it, University’s have never had to worry about player health or compensation. But, if

the idea of simple human fairness alone continues to be enough to deny player rights in the

future, here are some other reasons the NCAA should be worried if it doesn’t start caring about

its players.xxxvii

What the NCAA Should Worry About If They Don’t Change:

The most popular college programs are oftentimes they are the ones more populated with pro

level talent, who are forced by the rules surrounding their respective sports to play for some

amount of designated time before they leave for the pros. Oftentimes, these players have no

intention of getting a degree. Ben Simmons, for example, during his one-year tenure at LSU. He

was one of the most popular and highly ranked college athletes, Simmons admits he had no

intention of attending class.xxxviii Quotes like, “I’ve known I was going to play in the NBA since I

was 8” and “I Have to be getting better every day. I’m not worried about my oceanography

class”xxxix became commonplace for him over his tenure at LSU. Guaranteed to be a top pick in

the NCAA draft in May 2016, Simmons had a point. From the beginning, college served as no

purpose to Simmons but as a detour for a year between high school and the NBA. Even worse,
 O’Brien 11

Simmons expressed some verbal discontent with his inability to profit off of his own

documentary leading up to the NBA draft as a result of being an NCAA draft.xl

But discontent among pro prospects isn’t just limited to basketball stars. In 2012, Ohio State

quarterback Cardale Jones tweeted the now infamous line “Why do we have to go to class if we

came here to play football? We didn’t come here to play SCHOOL. Classes are POINTLESS.”xli

The NCAA’s two biggest moneymaking sports, top NFL and NBA prospects essentially MUST

attend college for the allotted time due to a lack of alternatives. Aside from basketball players

going overseas to foreign countries to play for a year (A very uncertain and unpredictable path),

there’s no other great option for prospects of either sport. However, because of animosity being

generated as a result of the NCAA’s unwillingness to change, rival leagues could be a thing of

the future. If that were to be the case, the top players like Simmons, Jones, and others would

have a route out of college sports where they could be compensated for their work, without the

hassle of useless classes.

In fact, in a few cases, these paid leagues for prospects are already beginning to develop.

Lavar Ball’s JBA (Junior Basketball League) has offered to pay players between $3-10 thousand

per year, and will begin to hold tryouts for its inaugural season in April of this year. The site for

registration received so much traffic within a few minutes of the announcement that it crashed.xlii

Lavar’s league isn’t the only alternative prospects may have though. Adam Silver has expressed

a lot of interest in rebranding the NBA’s developmental league, the G-League, to make it more

prospect friendly, and this actually appears to be working. Just last week, in an unprecendted

move, projected top-10 NBA draft pick Darius Bazley decided to forgo his commitment to

Syracuse, one of the NCAA’s top programs, and go straight into the G-League to develop and be

paid.xliii Football too has plans in the works for their own developmental league: Pacific Pro
 O’Brien 12

Football. Set to kick off this year in 2018, the league is endorsed by several notable NFL

personnel, including former NFL Coach Mike Shanahan, Tom Brady’s agent, Don Yee, former

longstanding NFL refereeing afficianado Mike Pereira, and former NFL wide receiver Ed

Mccaffery. Unlike Lavar’s league though, the PPL is set to offer players an average of $50,000 a

year.xliv

The draw of these leagues has yet to be tested, but one can assume, and rightly so, that if the

top athletes like Ben Simmons and Darius Bazley begin to forgo college in favor of being paid

and developing their skill somewhere else, the college game will suffer. Sure, college sports will

continue to draw eyes based on alum and student support, but the NCAA, and education can’t

hope to compete with cold, hard cash, worker’s compensation, and a reasonable alternative. If

the NCAA began paying players today, it could potentially squash the growth of their smaller

competitors. Prospects would have a harder time choosing the PPL over Alabama football if

there was money involved. But, if by some development one or two of these leagues catch on, it

will be only a matter of time before the NCAA is no longer able to generate a billion dollars off

the backs of athletes who receive nothing in return.

 O’Brien 13

Endnotes:

i
Joe Drape, COLLEGE FOOTBALL: A Question Of Responsibility; Injured Player's Case
Could Shake Up N.C.A.A. , New York Times,
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/15/sports/college-football-question-responsibility-injured-
player-s-case-could-shake-up.html( Last Accessed March 31)
ii
Taylor Branch, The Shame of College Sports, The Atlantic,
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/the-shame-of-college-
sports/308643/?single_page=true (Last Accessed March 31)
iii
Ibid.
iv
Ibid.
v
Ibid.
vi
Friendly Reminder: The NCAA created the Term “Student-Athlete” to Get Out of Paying
Worker’s Comp”, NU SBnation, https://www.insidenu.com/2014/1/28/5355988/ncaa-student-
athlete-kain-colter-union-workers-comp (Last Accessed March 31)
vii
Alex Kirschner, Here’s How the NCAA Generated A Billion Dollars in 2017, SBnation,
https://www.sbnation.com/2018/3/8/17092300/ncaa-revenues-financial-statement-2017
(Last Accessed March 31)
viii
Sara Ganam, NCAA: It’s Not Our Job To Ensure Quality Of Education, CNN,
https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/01/sport/ncaa-response-to-lawsuit/index.html (Last Accessed
March 31)
ix
Jordan Weissman, The Horrible Essay That Got a UNC Jock an A-? The Real Story, Slate,
https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/01/sport/ncaa-response-to-lawsuit/index.html (Last Accessed
March 31)
x
Sara Ganam, NCAA: It’s Not Our Job To Ensure Quality of Education
xi
Sara Ganim and Devon Sayers, UNC Report Finds 18 Years of Academic Fraud to Keep
Playing, https://www.cnn.com/2014/10/22/us/unc-report-academic-fraud/index.html (Last
Accessed March 31)
xii
Sara Ganam, NCAA: It’s Not Our Job TO Ensure Quality of Education
xiii
Last Week Tonight, The NCAA, HBO Entertainment,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX8BXH3SJn0, 6:00-6:13, (Last Accessed March 30)
xiv
Jon Solomon, School’s Can Give Out Multi-Year Scholorships, But Many Don’t, CBS Sports,
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/schools-can-give-out-4-year-athletic-
scholarships-but-many-dont/ (Last Accessed March 31)
xv
Ben Strauss, A Fight to Keep College Athletes From the Pain of Injury Costs, The New York
Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/sports/a-fight-to-keep-college-athletes-from-the-
pain-of-injury-costs.html (Last Accessed March 31)
xvi
Ibid
xvii
Ibid
xviii
Ibid
xix
Meghan Walsh, ‘I Trusted Em’ When NCAA Schools Abandon Their Injured Athletes, The
Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/05/i-trusted-em-when-ncaa-
schools-abandon-their-injured-athletes/275407/ (Last Accessed March 31)
xx
Ibid.
 O’Brien 14

xxi
Jon Solomon, School’s Can Give Out Multi-Year Scholorships, But Many Don’t
xxii
Maxwell Strauchan, NCAA Schools Can Absolutely Afford to Pay College Athletes,
Economists Say, Huffingotn Post, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/27/ncaa-pay-
student-athletes_n_6940836.html (Last Accessed MArch 31)
xxiii
Alex Kirschner, Here’s How the NCAA Generated A Billion Dollars in 2017
xxiv
Ramogi Huma and Ellen Staurosky, ED.D, The Price of Poverty in Big Time College Sport,
Drexel University, http://assets.usw.org/ncpa/The-Price-of-Poverty-in-Big-Time-College-
Sport.pdf, (March 30 2018)
xxv
Ibid
xxvi
Ibid
xxvii
Ibid.
xxviii
Rodger Sherman, Shabazz Napier: “There’s Hungry Nights When I’m Not Able to Eat”,
SBnation, https://www.sbnation.com/college-basketball/2014/4/7/5591774/shabazz-napier-
uconn-basketball-hungry-nights, (March 30 2018)
xxix
Last Week Tonight, The NCAA
xxx
Cork Gaines, Chart Shows Just How Little of College Sports Revenue Goes to Players,
Business Insider, http://www.businessinsider.com/college-sports-revenue-athlete-scholarships-
2014-9, (March 30 2018)
xxxi
Laura McKenna, The Madness of College Basketball Coach’s Salaries, The Atlantic,
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/03/the-madness-of-college-basketball-
coaches-salaries/475146/, (March 30 2018)
xxxii
Martin Greenburg, College Coaching Contracts: A Practical Perspective, Marquette
University,
http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1047&context=sportslaw,
(March 31 2018)
xxxiii
Who’s The Highest Paid Person In Your State? , ESPN,
http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/22454170/highest-paid-state-employees-include-
ncaa-coaches-nick-saban-john-calipari-dabo-swinney-bill-self-bob-huggins, (March 31 2018)
xxxiv
Reuben Fischer Baum, Is Your State’s Highest Paid Person a Coach? Probably, Deadspin,
https://deadspin.com/infographic-is-your-states-highest-paid-employee-a-co-489635228, (March
31 2018)
xxxv
Who’s The Highest Paid Person In Your State? , ESPN
xxxvi
Maxwell Strauchan, NCAA Schools Can Absolutely Afford to Pay College Athletes,
Economists Say
xxxvii
Friendly Reminder: The NCAA created the Term “Student-Athlete” to Get Out of Paying
Worker’s Comp
xxxviii
Kyle Neubeck, Ben Simmons Admitted He Didn’t Attend Classes at LSU. Why Should
He?, SB Nation, https://www.libertyballers.com/2016/10/20/13347848/ben-simmons-class-
attendance-lsu-one-and-done-nba, (April 1, 2018)
xxxix
Ibid.
xl
Ibid
xli
Ibid
xlii
Andrew Joseph, JBA League’s Site Crashes Immediately After Lavar Ball’s Announcement,
SBnation, https://ftw.usatoday.com/2018/03/lavar-lonzo-ball-jba-league-tryout-video-dates-site-
crashed-reaction-nba (April 1 2018)
 O’Brien 15

xliii
Shams Charania, Syracuse Commit Darius Bazley to Make Leap From High School to G-
League, Yahoo Sports, https://sports.yahoo.com/projected-top-10-draft-pick-make-leap-high-
school-g-league-193725979.html , (April 1, 2018)
xliv
Rick Maese, New Pro Football League Aims to Be a College Alternative, Washington Post,
chicago tribune, http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/ct-new-pro-football-league-
college-alternative-20170111-story.html (April 1, 2018)