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Kain Colter, a star quarterback and receiver who completed his college football career in December, announced in January that several Northwestern football players wished to join a labor union.The National Labor Relations Board has ruled the players can indeed unionize.
(Antonio Perez/MCT)
By Paul R. Brown
When the National Labor Relations Board ruled Wednesday that football players at Northwestern University can unionize, it drew even more attention to the dichotomy on display during March Madness between colleges and universities with athletics programs based on a professional model and those based on an amateur model. From my perspective, as president of Monmouth University, the gulf between the two competing models continues to widen.
As educators, putting the needs of students at the center of what we do is a serious calling, and resisting the siren call of new revenue streams is difficult, especially when every higher education budget is under scrutiny. Professional sports is a serious business, and for 80 or so professional-model Division I schools, college athletics are generating serious revenue. But for those of us engaged in the mission of higher education, there is nothing more serious than providing a meaningful education to our students.
At the heart of the debate are the students we are charged with developing into more capable young women and men, by exposing them to new ideas, stimulating their intellectual energies and challenging them to think beyond their comfort zones.
Without question, sports are one great way for students to develop maturity, by learning time management, self-control and the importance of teamwork.
Larry Brown, former NBA coach and now head coach of the men's basketball team at Southern Methodist University, said in a March 5 interview that young basketball players should not go directly from high school to the NBA because colleges serve as "the greatest minor-league system in the world" for the development of professional players.
Is this what collegiate athletics is about? For about 80, or 22 percent, of the 350 schools competing in Division I, the answer is clearly "yes."
These programs already effectively serve as the minor-league system for the NBA and NFL, chasing big money derived from lucrative licensing deals and media rights. Little wonder that some student-athletes feel cheated when they are cut out of the revenue streams they help generate.
We have reached a point where students at the professional-model schools are viewed more as “players,” who are paid to compete — over and above, or in lieu of, tuition, room, board and books — rather than as traditional student-athletes.
I can envision a day in the not-too-distant future when five super-conferences agree to break from the NCAA, pool their media rights and sell them to the highest bidder, just like their professional counterparts in the NFL and NBA.
A narrow group of student-athletes might derive more financial compensation from the new “minor leagues,” and some of the programs may even use revenue streams to fund academic programs outside of the athletic sphere, but in the landscape of higher education, we all lose something more profound.
At Monmouth, just like at Lehigh and Yale (two of my former institutions), student-athletes are also serious scholars who compete hard in the classroom, involved members of the university community and excellent ambassadors as alumni. Many student-athletes at Monmouth, Lehigh and Yale later serve in critical volunteer roles, including as trustees.
What do our athletic programs have in common? We are committed first and foremost to providing an education for our students. In practice, this means finding the proper financial balance when investing in athletics programs relative to our overall academic mission and not compromising the integrity of the admissions process in the name of winning games.
If the professional model programs declare their independence, maybe we should, too. Let’s agree that paying student-athletes for their ability to generate revenue is off the table, even when it is disguised as a “cost-of-attendance stipend.”
Let us wave the flag of amateur athletics proudly, and celebrate the core values that make athletics at every level — from Division I teams to intramural squads — so vital to the life of every college or university campus.
Paul R. Brown is president of Monmouth University.