Somewhere right now the Grate One is orgasmic

[Zipmeister]

NCAA, Conferences Sued by Ex-Player - Alleges That Scholarship Value Is Illegally Capped

A former West Virginia football player is suing the NCAA and five leading conferences, alleging that college sports' governing body and member schools cap the value of football players' athletic scholarships in violation of federal antitrust law.

The suit, brought by ex-Mountaineers running back Shawne Alston, seeks class-action status, which would include major-college football players who played on teams in the power conferences and received a full scholarship in the last four years. The court filing, dated Wednesday, defines the power conferences as the Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern.

The suit alleges that the NCAA and those conferences have agreed to cap the value of a scholarship, which is "often several thousand dollars below the actual cost of attending a school." The value also is less than what a player would receive in a competitive market, the filing says.

The suit seeks an injunction enjoining the NCAA and the power-conference defendants from continuing to follow the NCAA bylaw that limits financial aid to the NCAA-defined scholarship, or "grant-in-aid." It also seeks damages for the difference between the grants-in-aid awarded and the actual cost of attending school.

The cost of attendance is a figure that the NCAA defines as "an amount calculated by an institutional financial-aid office, using federal regulations, that includes the total cost of tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, transportation and other expenses related to attendance at the institution."

The ACC, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC declined to comment. Alston was unavailable, according to Steve Berman, the lead attorney on the case.

Donald Remy, the NCAA's chief legal officer, said association officials "just received a copy of the complaint and are evaluating it as it relates to similar cases filed by the very same plaintiffs' counsel." The law firm on the case, Hagens Berman, is involved in six other NCAA-related lawsuits, according to its website.

The scholarship case is separate from the four-year-old class-action suit against the NCAA originated by former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon. That case seeks a portion of licensing and television-rights revenue for major-college football and men's basketball players, and is scheduled for a June trial, although the judge in the case has ordered settlement talks.

Public criticism of college sports has increased as the NCAA and associated conferences have negotiated billion-dollar, multiyear deals for TV rights and head football coaches are paid millions while NCAA rules limit player compensation primarily to an athletic scholarship.

The cost of attendance for Alston's senior year of 2012-13 for a full-time, nonresident, off-campus student was approximately $34,561, according to the filing, which cites information from West Virginia. The filing says that scholarship money Alston received "was substantially less than the full cost of attendance," and that he took out $5,500 in federal loans to "help bridge this gap."

The filing said Alston graduated from West Virginia and signed a free-agent contract with the New Orleans Saints. Alston was released in June 2013, retired from football and is in graduate school pursuing a Master's of business administration, according to the filing.

NCAA member schools have tried for several years to pass legislation that would allow schools to provide each athlete with a $2,000 stipend to help plug the cost-of-attendance gap. The power-conference schools generally support a stipend, but it so far has been rejected by lower-earning schools concerned that it would burden them financially.

Berman said that even if the stipends were enacted, "I think that it may be unsatisfactory to have a broad rule that applies to everyone. There should be competition between the power conferences. They compete for television rights; they compete among each other. There should be a competition for players."

[GP1]

The Great GP1 will stain his pants when the power conferences and NCAA start to lose these law suits. I'll send you the dry cleaning bill unless you want to hold on to the stained pants as a trophy like Monica Lewinsky held on to her dress.

Perfect person to use in the filing of the class action lawsuit. Out there, lots of people want college athletes to be a bunch of idiots (and a lot are). The want a guy who couldn't make it professional to only be able to read at a second grade level so it can reaffirm their secret attitudes about what they really are. They want to believe it is a sinister money grab by a guy who can't do anything other than play sports. Instead, they get a guy who graduated and is working on an MBA.

This article comes back to one of the tired arguments about player compensation...should the players get paid? Players should not receive a dime from the schools they attend other than the normal scholarship they receive. They should be able to capitalize on their fame, hold jobs and get a cut of merchandise sales of which they are a part. This way, everyone can stop pretending that college sports are something they are not and have never been.

If a person doesn't have to, why should they go into debt while in college just because the NCAA rules are so restrictive? Why does a guy like Alston have to take out a loan when he could easily make the money signing autographs or off the cut of his jersey sales? Forcing people into financial debt is immoral, but since the NCAA is amoral, the member schools really don't care.

[LZIp]

should work out about as well as the whole Northwestern and unionizing thing.

[GP1]

should work out about as well as the whole Northwestern and unionizing thing.

All of it together creates a big problems for the dinosaurs who run college athletics and will create the necessary change.

[Balsy]

Completely agree with GP1 on this. However I guess I would add that there needs to be an additional, and tighter, enforcement of university acceptance policies. To me, it is absolutely unacceptable that "students" an be admitted to a University without meeting ALL the requirements of that institution to get in.

[GP1]

However I guess I would add that there needs to be an additional, and tighter, enforcement of university acceptance policies. To me, it is absolutely unacceptable that "students" an be admitted to a University without meeting ALL the requirements of that institution to get in.

Where isn't this happening?

Athletes aren't just required to meet admissions requirement, they are graduating at a higher rate than non athletes.

Source

Believing otherwise is believing violent crime is up in the US because of the stories on the evening news. In fact, violent crime is on a steady decline.

[Balsy]

@GP1 Where? just about every academic institution that has Division-I athletics for starters. This story ran a couple of months ago on this same point.

Using stats for a generalized population of students (athletes in general) to represent all athletes is problematic. It easily whitewashes any outliers from the population . The achievement of most students can easily outweigh the under-achievement of the few at the bottom. What I was proposing is focusing on that bottom part. It serves them better, it serves the institutions better.

To use your analogy: Yes violent crime is on a steady decline, but that statement speaks for the entire system; not individual components of the system. While violent crime may be down throughout the system; violent crime may have increased in certain areas...causal specific violent crime may also have increased in certain areas as opposed to others. Understanding these individual outliers, or rather micro-systems within the system is equally important and shouldn't easily be dismissed away.

[Balsy]

@GP1...that source is also comparing a specific population to a more generalize population. But I'd imagine that if you compared any specific population of students of similar % of student athletes (Major is a perfect example of this) you'd find almost identical results when compared to the general population.

I used to get in arguments with several UA administrators who were (IMO) misrepresenting the success of "Learning Communities" by using a similar tactic.

[GP1]

What I was proposing is focusing on that bottom part. It serves them better, it serves the institutions better.

For a lot of reasons, graduation rates are going up for athletes. That means the people at the bottom are being served better, at least in athletics. There will never be 100% graduation rate with any population.

[Zip76]

For a lot of reasons, graduation rates are going up for athletes. That means the people at the bottom are being served better, at least in athletics. There will never be 100% graduation rate with any population.

There's a difference between graduating and being prepared to succeed in the real world. It's not difficult to graduate athletes that are poor students if you hire enough GAs and full time staff members to do their work for them...

There are some SEC schools that could probably graduate a gold fish if it benefited them to do so.

[Balsy]

@Zip76 Bingo.

[GP1]

@balsy, it is true that those things take place. None of us know how much that contributes to graduation rates increasing. Its sort of a 1950s view of the world I find strange. Should the goal of the NCAA be to inact even more rules restricting entry or try to help people succeed in the classroom. I don't believe schools are spending millions on tutoring just to do work for kids.

[zippy5]

I'd like to see a percentage of the athletes that graduated with a degree in general studies or criminal justice.

[Balsy]

@GP1, I think the NCAA should be enforcing rules that already exist as member organizations. Student athletes should not be admitted to universities without meeting the requirements to get in.

There's two things to the "spending millions on tutoring services just to do work for kids". First, that's millions the could be reallocated to other student programs because there isn't such a drastic need to help students whom are woefully behind. There are other institutions better suited to help those students. Once they succeed there, they then make the move to a bigger school. This is already a reality for non-athlete students. If you don't meet the admission requirements to get it, first you go to another institution and work your way up to a level in which you can succeed at the higher level institutions.

Continuing to prop of students who are woefully underprepared for higher-level institutions is damaging to higher-education.

The second: I'm not sure why you find it hard to believe. There's a profit margin involved. Spend millions to keep some students afloat, while making tens of millions on championship caliber teams. There's incentive to do it, so it only makes sense to do it. It also creates pressure on the academic staff to make curriculums and requirements that aren't too difficult for the students (who under normal circumstances would not have been admitted) to pass.

It's not a 1950's view of it at all. It's not even creating more rules...it's enforcing the ones that already exist, and disallowing exceptions to the those policies which the NCAA gleefully allows. It's rather a question of what Universities' priorities are and should be. Is it athletics, or is it education? It should be education.

[Dave in Green]

@Balsy, nicely thought out and well presented. There shouldn't be any question that the top priority of universities should be education. But there are powerful forces from many sources, both internal and external, also pushing universities to be successful in intercollegiate athletics. It's a tricky balancing act for which there's no perfect answer and many pitfalls. The trend in collegiate sports over the years has been steadily in the direction of more professionalism and less amateurism.

The final line in the sand is paying the players in cash over and above the long-accepted policy of exchanging a free education for student participation. At that point the players cease being student-athletes and become paid professionals, and it really doesn't matter if they're students or not. So why not just let universities set up their own professional teams that compete in an intercollegiate professional league that plays in campus stadiums and arenas with school colors? Universities should just go ahead and be honest about it and remove the already blurred line between professional sports and amateur sports at the collegiate level.

[GP1]

should work out about as well as the whole Northwestern and unionizing thing.

Northwestern Employee-Students win NLRB filing.

Long way to go, but a win for the Employee-Students.

Why Employee-Students? Someone said after this ruling that the term Student-Athlete can finally go away and be turned into Student-Employee. I always believed the schools made them athletes first and students second. Because of that, I'm sure they will want that importance to remain somehow and the term should be Employee-Students.

If this all crumbles for the NCAA, they have nobody to blame but themselves. Years ago, they could have allowed players to hold a jobs or capitalize off of their fame. Instead, they dug their heels in and made more rules. The NCAA is an institutional failure.

[LZIp]

Northwestern should just discontinue their athletic programs. Then the students can work wherever they want and pay for that elite private education.

[GP1]

Chicago Tribune

Good article. My only criticism would be he shouldn't give Presidents and Athletic Directors any ideas about outsourcing college football to third world countries. Given the ethical standards of at least Athletic Directors, they might just do it.

[Hilltopper]

This is a ruling by one guy at the NLRB. It will take years for this to go through the appeals process. I would expect Congress to step in if it goes too far. The only people who will benefit from this ruling are the lawyers who started this whole issue. Go to pay off those student loans somehow.

[ZipGrad93]

One thing I'm curious about is taxes... If they become employees, will they be taxed for the $40,000+ a year (at Northwestern) they are receiving in what I would call compensation (tuition, room & board, books, fees, etc.)? It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

[Dave in Green]

No one has yet thought through all the long-term implications of this. As Hilltopper notes, those driving it are primarily interested in short-term gain. The assumption that something like this would make things "better" for college athletics in general is built on a foundation of quicksand. No one has yet put together all the pros and cons so that they can all be measured against each other to determine if the net effect over the long-term would be positive or negative for college athletics. All we know for sure right now is that things would be "different."

[GP1]

The assumption that something like this would make things "better" for college athletics in general is built on a foundation of quicksand.

I would agree that this is not a good ruling that is going to be better for the NCAA and the member institutions. With that said, they have done this to themselves. The NCAA had the world by the balls in that they were raking in TV money hand over fist while the ADs and coaches lined their pockets and built one stadium after another. They didn't even have to share any of the money with the players to keep this issue quiet. All they needed to do was allow players to make some money with a job, capitalize on their fame and share in some of the royalties of merchandise. Two of the three wouldn't have cost them a dime. The third might have, but a jersey with a players actual name on the back is probably more valuable than the ones they sell now without the names so they could have made up the difference.

I have zero sympathy for the NCAA in this issue. They did it to themselves.

[Dave in Green]

Here's one of many little details that haven't been thought through yet: The Northwestern decision only applies to private universities. Attempts to form unions at state schools would fall under each state's varying laws on public employee unions such as for teachers, police, etc. So right off the bat you'd end up with inequities between private and public universities, and between public universities in different states with different public employee union laws. Public universities in states with generous public employee union laws would have a recruiting advantage over those in states with more restrictive public employee union laws. Oh yeah, this is one of the best examples of opening Pandora's Box since the original Pandora's Box.

[Hilltopper]

I have zero sympathy for the NCAA in this issue. They did it to themselves.

The ruling has nothing to do with the NCAA. The NLRB ruled that NU has to let them form a union.

[GP1]

The ruling has nothing to do with the NCAA. The NLRB ruled that NU has to let them form a union.

The NCAA (member institutions) created the atmosphere in which this could take place.