# The NCAA Finally Faces a Reckoning



## CatParty (Aug 7, 2020)

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/ncaa-strike-covid/
		



The top college athletes in the revenue-producing sports knew which way the wind was blowing as soon as word of a deadly pandemic hit the airwaves. They knew that even if there were no vaccine, even if the rest of the campus were shut down, even if they had to be sent to a hermetically sealed bubble, they’d have to play. If they were to catch the virus, then “next man up,” and the train would keep rolling on. That’s the reality of the modern neoliberal campus; that’s the reality of NCAA; and no one knows that better than the college athletes themselves.


But these are not ordinary times. Discussions about the sundry injustices college athletes face have been on the fringes for decades—and now they’re entering the mainstream. Work stoppages, economic rights, and racial justice are now topics up for consideration. It is a startling reflection of our political moment, which has the potential to harpoon the NCAA.

In the Pac-12 conference, which includes teams like UCLA and USC, players have put forward a series of demands challenging the status quo of their assumedly powerless reality. The debates and discussions about what to push for began with concerns about reopening amid Covid-19, but after the police murder of George Floyd, they also became about racial and economic justice. Speaking to ESPN’s Bomani Jones, Jake Curhan, a redshirt senior football player at Cal, said,




> When we first got started, our only thought was coronavirus. We started talking to some of our teammates, and they said, “What about the Black Lives Matter issue? We don’t want to detract from their issue.” The more we started talking with them, it became clear the two were the same issues.


Valentino Daltoso, Curhan’s teammate, put it this way to Jones:



> Coronavirus is the most pressing issue of the moment, but it’s just put a spotlight on how college athletics works. They rely so heavily on us to bring this money in, and we don’t see a penny of it.


They are talking strike if their demands are not met.

Now the Big Ten—the power conference of iconic programs like those at Ohio State and Michigan—is organizing as well. In an open lettercalled “#BigTenUnited,” authored by “Players of the Big Ten,” on the Players Tribune website, a thousand athletes signed on to demand input in the opening of any kind of a season. They wrote,



> We are deeply disappointed with the lack of leadership demonstrated by the NCAA with respect to player safety during the COVID-19 pandemic. We believe that the NCAA must—on its own and through collaboration with the conference—devise a comprehensive plan to ensure the safety and well-being of players leading up to and during the upcoming fall season.


They also called for more economic support, including,



> Coverage for all out-of-pocket medical expenses related to Covid-19 (both short-term and long-term) incurred by active college athletes
> Scholarship protections (including room, board and stipend) in the event that the season is canceled due to COVID-19
> An adjustment to the cost-of-living stipend to account for the increase in personal expenses related to limited access that players have to facilities
> Reimbursement for stipends that were reduced during the summer


They referred readers to the website www.collegeathleteunity.org.


All of this comes after a summer when high-profile coaches like Mike Gundy of Oklahoma State and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney found themselves in hot water with their players and programs for being, at best, tin-eared about the demands and aspirations of the Black Lives Matter movement and, at worst, preening from the wrong side of the police line. All of a sudden, they were on the hot seat, the power dynamics dramatically altered at long last.

This all comes at a time when sports on college campuses could not look more imperiled. Earlier this summer, the Ivy Leagues and many historically black colleges and universities canceled fall sports. This week, the NCAA’s Divisions II and III have canceled championships in fall sports: The University of Connecticut has announced that football will be canceled; Louisville has announced that it will be suspending all activities for four athletic teams after 29 players tested positive for Covid all linked to one off-campus party. UCLA just announced that 10 football players have tested positive. There are similar stories peppered across the landscape. This is creating a reckoning for the plantation system of college football like we have never seen before. It’s the pandemic. It’s the racism. It’s the absence of economic justice. And it’s a volatile combination that could change the system forever.


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## Neil (Aug 7, 2020)

oh shit i'm the first to a catparty thread, time to say something bumfuck stupid.
*Sports drafts are modern day slave trade.*


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## Kiwi Lime Pie (Aug 7, 2020)

While I totally understand the desire to keep everyone involved with athletics (not just intercollegiate, but at any level) as safe as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic, I'm also reminded at how these college athletes -- especially those competing in NCAA Division 1 (the top division) -- really are privileged in that they get full scholarships so that they don't have to pay anything to attend college. Many decide to leave college early to go pro and make their millions. Some of those making the early jump to go pro eventually complete their degrees, but many don't.

As it stands now, these same athletes might be getting their wish to make money on their likenesses and such while they're still college athletes. Yet, they still find a way to claim some sort of oppression.  

Many of those demands seem more about entitlement than anything else. with so many schools, conferences, and associations postponing, rearranging, or cancelling sports schedules and facing budget crunches as the result of less state money and home game revenues coming in, they should be happy they're still getting their scholarships honored and the free education that non-athletes would love to have if given the chance.


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## King Daddy Telomerase (Aug 7, 2020)

Cool story athletes gifted so many things, keep on bitching about oppression. I can't wait until rabid sports culture finally dies and these fucks have to swallow some ego.


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## Liber Pater (Aug 7, 2020)

darkwingosonichugorl said:


> I can't wait until rabid sports culture finally die


Unfortunately, unlike athletes, the NCAA itself can't get terminal coof.


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## Milkis (Aug 7, 2020)

> They rely so heavily on us to bring this money in, and we don’t see a penny of it.



You rely so heavily on them for the fact that you're taking "general studies" at Stanford and not dealing crack in an alleyway in Oakland. You're a fucking jester in a padded suit they use to subsidize the cost of hard programs with real lab requirements.


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## Shroom King (Aug 20, 2020)

> When we first got started, our only thought was coronavirus. We started talking to some of our teammates, and they said, “What about the Black Lives Matter issue? We don’t want to detract from their issue.” The more we started talking with them, it became clear the two were the same issues.



I agree. Coronavirus was a bioweapon accidentally released by China. BLM was a bioweapon purposely released by the DNC at the request of China.


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## Absolutego (Aug 20, 2020)

The NFL needs to just start a proper feeder league like every other mainstream sport in the country. It'd take time to get the hardcore college football cultures like the SEC mainstays to switch over, but putting a feeder team in OK City, Birmingham, Louisville or St. Louis, and maybe one of the plains states, goes a long way towards establishing that.

Do that and AA Football or whatever they decide to call it can basically be the XFL from last year with better brand deals/media contracts. Up until COVID killed it, the XFL was doing pretty well, and would do better with support from the main league.


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## Super-Chevy454 (Aug 22, 2020)

NeilBreenLover69 said:


> oh shit i'm the first to a catparty thread, time to say something bumfuck stupid.
> *Sports drafts are modern day slave trade.*



South Park predicted it and before the Simpsons did it.


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