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Just stop it. College athletes aren’t slaves.

Dorf

College Football Slavery

This is an open letter to all the current and former college athletes that insist they are slaves to the colleges and universities…

You aren’t slaves to the colleges/universities. So just stop saying it.

Calling yourselves slaves is disingenuous and an affront to those who were slaves during one of the darkest times in American history and those who remain slaves in different parts of the World today.

You can debate the merits of athletic reform that gives players the ability to profit off their likeness and not sacrifice their eligibility.

But that’s not what this letter is about and that can be discussed at a later time.

Before you disqualify this opinion as a guy who never played and has no understanding the plight of the college athlete understand something. I did play football in college and I was injured and was forced to retire after just one season. My injuries forced me to spend the next two years away from academia getting healthy enough to be able to attend class again. Thankfully I still had insurance through my father and 99 percent of the costs were taken care of. Unfortunately I still have the lasting effects of these injuries today and will deal with them for the rest of my life. So I do understand the plight of the college athlete and I find the comparison to slavery personally insulting.

Dear College Athletes,

You aren’t slaves to the college or university that you attend. Stop calling yourselves slaves. It not only makes you sound stupid, it shows a very shallow understanding of the plight of slaves throughout history and those who are currently owned as property of other humans in the world today. You don’t have it as bad as most of the people throughout the world let alone the students that you share a college lecture hall with.

Stop whining and realize how fortunate you are.

Here’s why you aren’t slaves with the added notion to all the extra privileges you get as a student athlete:

You aren’t property of the college/university

1.  The college/university cannot buy you. The college/university cannot sell you. You can leave the college/university at anytime as well as the college team you play for.

2.  There isn’t any legal standing allowing the schools to hold you as a member of an athletic program against your will. You can just stop participating in college athletics and just be a student at the university. Your status as a member of the university isn’t conditional on your participation in athletics.

3.  Sure, you’d lose any athletic scholarship money if you got any if you leave your team, but that doesn’t prevent you from completing a college degree and being a successful member of society. You can pay your own way like the rest of us. Welcome to the not so wonderful world of student debt.

4.  There are rules and regulations governing what the colleges and universities can do to you. You have regulations in place limiting your total time that the college/university can make you participate. Here’s a great article by Notre Dame’s compliance department on how it works for those who don’t know. There is no such regulation in place for actual slaves.

You get so much from the college/university than a scholarship

Sure, the college/university doesn’t hand you a check when play for the school. They do however (in most cases) pay for your school, books, housing, food, and much more. They also set you up for future success, whether it is turning professional as an athlete or as a regular citizen within society.

Yes, less than one percent of the athletes that play college athletics end up playing professionally but nonetheless being a college athlete is an invaluable line item on a resume.

Do you know how many companies want and love to hire former athletes? Employers love former athletes because they are more motivated than the average Joe and they hate to lose. That is a benefit that is hard to quantify numerically and is something that isn’t accessible to non-athletes.

Schools also treat you better than the average student during your time on campus. Your tuition comes at no financial cost. You get brand new copies of all your text books from the bookstore for free. You get to live in a dorm room or get a housing allowance at no financial cost to you. Not to mention not only is your food free but you get better, more nutritious food than what is available to the general student body.

Then comes the academic support you receive.

Student athletes get a whole department that is all about getting them to pass their classes. Each player that needs one gets a tutor for each subject that works on their schedule. Many schools have academic support departments available to regular students, but they often aren’t adequate. There is no way that a regular student gets a private tutor without having to pay for it.

Then all the other things that you get, the clothing and shoes, the travel, and the preferential treatment. Those also add to the value of being an athlete.

Be thankful and fortunate that you aren’t actually a slave and enjoy the privileges that being a college athlete brings you.

Some of the major complaints of the “college athletes are slaves” folks are as follows. I will address why they are absolutely baseless and offensive to the notion of slavery.

  1. Athletes don’t get paid.That argument is dispelled above in my open letter to college athletes. Yes, no currency changes hands, but the financial value of the education and other benefits that the student athlete receives is more than enough payment.
  2. Players live in poverty.If you call free food and housing on top of an education that costs between $80,000 and $250,000 dollars over the course of its completion. The federal poverty line for 2015 was $11,770 for a single individual and the cost of housing and feeding these athletes for the year is that and then some. Not to mention all the other benefits outlined in the open letter above.
  3. Scholarships aren’t guaranteed. No scholarship is guaranteed whether they are athletic or otherwise. If you don’t meet the terms and conditions of the scholarship, you can lose it. Now it is a very scumbag move for a coach to yank a scholarship for no other reason than to give it to another recruit because he over-signed, but it’s not technically against the rules. It’s no secret that this can be done so don’t be surprised that it can happen.
  4. Injured players get tossed aside like scrap parts. First off, injuries are part of the game. There’s a risk of injury in any profession and unfortunately in college athletics the percentage of getting injured is increased.The NCAA carries catastrophic insurance on every athlete. Here is more information about it from the NCAA. Yes the deductible is outrageous, but the policy still exists. Insurance is something that can still be carried through an athletes parents or be acquired cheaply because these athletes are usually young and healthy.There are provisions built into the scholarship structure to handle athletes who can no longer play physically. Players can take an injury disqualification which prevents them from continuing to play, but the school will continue to honor their scholarship for the remainder of the time at the institution.

The bottom line is athletes aren’t slaves. They are not forced against their will to play college athletics. They can leave at any time if they don’t like it. The system isn’t perfect but calling it slavery is disingenuous and shows a lack of understanding of what slavery really was and continues to be.

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