After three crazy weekends of NCAA football filled with buzzerbeaters and last-play victories, what’s even crazier are the conditions that university athletes have to work under and the pressures they face on the field, at practice, in the classroom, and to simply make ends meet.
Student athletes have come together to try to improve these conditions, just like other workers on our campuses who USAS has been fighting alongside for more than a decade. The National College Players Association (NCPA) is an advocacy group for college athletes, started by former UCLA linebacker Ramogi Huma as an organization that would be a space for college athletes to bring forth their concerns. Players have joined together to voice their concerns about the conditions they have to work and study under, similar to how workers in our dining halls or our housekeepers who USAS campaigns with organize and take collective action to demand respect and improve their work lives.
When we talk about fighting for the rights of campus employees, college athletes may not immediately come to mind, but they face a unique set of challenges and hardships for the sake of university revenue and corporate profit. While the NCAA, sponsoring brands like Nike and Adidas who are exploiting garment workers around the world, and our big-shot university administrators are raking in hundreds of millions of dollars, players on so-called “full”-scholarships are left with a $200-$10,000 shortfall in annual expenses.
Workers slave over sewing machines to produce the university-logo apparel worn by every single fan at the game. Our universities hire subcontractors to operate our stadium concessions to skirt the responsibility to companies like Sodexo, who pay poverty wages, harass, and intimidate the employees who serve us in the crowds at halftime. Players who are putting it all out there on the field are living below the poverty line. Nike, Adidas, Sodexo and our university administrators ride on the backs of these workers who make our experience, from the sweatshop factory abroad, to our stadium concession stand, to our home fields and courts, all the way to the bank.
With football season just starting off and another gameday just around the corner, take some time at your tailgates to think about why you’re at the games. It’s likely that you’re not out there every weekend grilling in the parking lot with your body painted in the crisp cold of fall because you love to see Nike go out there and win big. It’s the energy, the cheers, the spirit, the wave in the student section, and the players who are out on the field–their game and their heart out there playing to win. For more information, check out ncpanow.org.
Here is a transcript of a part of our interview with NCPA President Ramogi Huma:
USAS: What would you say to students who may not understand why players need the NCPA?
RH: Players kind of pay their way in a different form and you know if you talk to some athletes they say, “look I don’t want any long term debt, I don’t wanna go work another job, I wanna be an athlete….” Especially when you start talking about some of the concussion issues –now these are very long term threats, serious threats to your health. Would you rather put your health up on the line and have to work so many long hours year-round or would you rather go through school the way that you are going through school?
It’s helpful to look at what the true payoff is supposed to be. The true payoff is not the scholarship. The scholarship is very important –it’s a means to get an education for a lot of athletes–but the payoff is supposed to be the degree, and if you look at graduation rates for football and basketball players, the people who generate all the money playing the only profitable sports in all of college sports, they have the lowest graduation rates. In football it’s about 50%, and in basketball it’s about 40%….We look at college athletes and ask, are they in a fair situation or not? They generate $11 billion a year, and they have all of these health risks, and a host of other issues, we ask, is this fair in our country?
The NCAA has done a masterful job of putting the word “student” in front of the word athlete to give the impression that the athletes are there to be students first, but that is really not the case. You are there to be an athlete first–that is why they are giving you money, that is why they are giving you a scholarship, that is why you can actually miss class to go to practice or a game, but you can’t miss a practice or a game to go to class. You are providing a service, you are an employee for all intents and purposes. It is just like any student working at the bookstore. So when the question is asked why are they getting paid–well, they provide a service. Yes, just like the student working at the bookstore, they are also a consumer, a consumer of the educational product, but they are also providing a service. They are employees of the university, just like the student who works at the bookstore.
It is a unique dilemma, students who receive “full-ride” scholarships that in EVERY case do not actually cover all needs. Athletes who make millions for our universities, but receive no monetary reward for their service. Students who have to attend week day games and practices all while holding down full course loads living their lives as “student athletes” but treated as an expendable commodity. Used by our universities and organizations like the NCAA to support a billion dollar industry.
