While NCAA officials are busy crying about ‘pay-for-play’ in the NCAA, the soon to be players union at Northwestern and the organization behind them, known as CAPA, have stated their goals publically in writing and only one of them has anything at all to do with more money for the athletes.
You see, the basic premise argued before the National Labor Relations Board by Kain Colter and his compatriots was that the student athletes at Northwestern and elsewhere, are already being paid in the form of scholarships and the NLRB agreed.
But the movement to unionize is not restricted to the Northwestern Evanston campus. Out in California a guy named Ramogi Huma, a former linebacker at UCLA, has formed NCPA, the National College Players Association. Huma and Colter have been working closely for some time now in an attempt to take the movement before the nation.
The response of the NCAA president Mark Emmert was predictably off target. Emmert brought up, time and again, the pay-for-play issue where none exists. In fact, it does not seem that Mr. Emmert had even bothered to read the CAPA proposals before going on TV to refute them.
Mark Emmert’s tenure as president of the NCAA has not been a pretty spectacle to watch. First there was Penn State and then Miami, Emmert’s office bungled both cases by punishing student athletes for actions by boosters and criminals that had nothing whatsoever to do with their teams.
Here is a brief list of just what it is that CAPA is asking for. See if you can find where they talk about pay-for-play.
The first thing on the CAPA list is obvious. Minimize the chances of concussions and other brain trauma risks to student athletes. Revenues for the NCAA have been breaking records year after year and yet the association, which supposedly was formed to protect student athletes, has done little or nothing that actually addresses the subject.
Recent studies have found and the NCAA concurs that the scholarships being offered to student athletes today do not adequately cover all of the expenses incurred by the student during the school year. CAPA is asking that the scholarships, at least cover all expenses.
As it stands today, a student athlete who is injured on the playing field may well end up paying his own medical expenses down the road. CAPA would obviously like to see this gross oversight overturned.
One of the most obvious goals that should be shared by both sides is the drive to increase the graduation rates of student athletes. Who can argue with that one?
Put more emphasis on education, eliminate weeknight games, etc. etc. etc.
