RST: Gordon, you took a little more time than usual to get back to me, because you were busy with the Senate bill regarding collegiate athletics. He testified two weeks ago, after spending years trying to settle the matter.
PARTICIPATION: It’s funny that I’m in a position to talk about football. I’m 5-foot-5 and weigh 140 pounds, and at 82, I should be playing canasta on the beach.
RST: Stop right there. Those are three truths and a lie. Maybe two lies—are you sure you’re 5-foot-5? I know you hate the beach like me.
PARTICIPATION: Well, I miss the return of the college game. I still remember sitting in the studios with the students when he sexually assaulted me after we met. Unfortunately, we lost the game, which ended my surfing days.
RST: My contributions to this field include writing one opinion THERE where I argued that football should be banned because of all the research on head injuries. However, as an admissions officer at Duke, I can tell you that I was always annoyed by the students the coaches forced us to admit, especially in certain sports.
PARTICIPATION: Rachel, you are an athlete and have run many ridiculously long races. My athletic ability is to get on the treadmill every morning and move for 30 minutes, lifting a little and stretching a lot. I have done this consistently for 50 years; that’s a lesson I learned from watching student players. They are more self-disciplined and do better in class because of it. Indeed, the highest grades among football players are the semester they play. Fact: 50 percent of CEOs of Fortune 100 companies were student-athletes, and 80 percent of female C-suite leaders were student-athletes. So what about that? Does that change your little mind about athletics?
RST: Actually, what changed my mind was when I started teaching. I’ve said before that I’d be happy with a class that included farm kids, vets and athletes. Because I agree: Talent without work ethics is rare. But still, I didn’t like to admit it a mound rather than dirt golfers from wealthy families who did not have nearly the educational qualifications of many of the applicants.
PARTICIPATION: Don’t get your work done. In all institutions, but especially those that are very selective, you should think of the classroom as a mosaic. For example, if you have a university orchestra, you need oboe players. Talented oboe players often do not do as well academically as physics majors.
RST: Gordon! Are we going to get a flood of hate mail from oboists?
PARTICIPATION: I played the oboe! But we need that oboe player to play Mahler. And we need that comeback to beat Michigan. When considering filling a class with the talent needed, it makes sense to have different values for different people. Do you buy that?
RST: Yes, now I see, because I understand that universities are in serious financial trouble, even fancy pants like Duke. And I know that for many athletes, a college degree is a ticket to the middle class. But it’s the money part that makes me think big-time athletes have jumped the shark. Things are gone cuckoo bananas. I had to ask Doug Lederman to explain why Duke is now playing Stanford and Notre Dame. Students fly across the country to play games the Atlantic Coast Conference. That’s nuts.
PARTICIPATION: Rachel, I believe we are facing an existential crisis in college athletics. And a lot of that was delivered by my presidential colleagues and myself. In many ways, I may be a bad guy: paying coaches and athletic directors huge salaries, not allowing student-athletes to be respected and recognized as students by creating strange and stupid requirements that take them out of normal academic life, then abrogating my responsibilities as a university president to athletic directors and conference commissioners. The result is that we now have an unsustainable system that, more than that, will destroy the best American collegiate spirit-which is inspired by college sports-unless we take bold steps.
RST: When I talk to the president these days, athletics is up there with the budget of what consumes their time. I have many questions, because I can’t find it. Can we have a little primer on the money—the House settlement, the SCORE Act, NIL—and how it all plays out?
PARTICIPATION: It’s a morass. High Summary: Universities operate under a membership organization called the National Collegiate Athletic Association. This organization, like the universities, has become bureaucratic and does not focus on the student-athlete but focuses on stupid rules that affect athletes and among other things we stopped raising the salaries of the coaches.
RST: Where did you go wrong, didn’t you, Gordon?
PARTICIPATION: I already claimed the position of poster boy, Rachel! How many mea culpas do you need? In any case, some very good lawyers recognize that universities and coaches make money while the student-athlete does not receive a fair share of the revenue. Lawsuits were filed and the NCAA lost in the courts trying to save the situation, which led to a settlement called “House,” which allows students to be paid for their contributions (NIL, or name, image and likeness) to the sports department. But because the place has so many holes in its structure and so little ability to put up surveillance equipment, the world is currently in the wild, wild West. The NIL has become a paid sport, and the NCAA has created portals that allow students to transfer without penalties. Morass turned into chaos.
RST: A big mess. Many presidents have told me that it will take an act of Congress to clear it up.
PARTICIPATION: Fortunately, Senators Cantwell-
RST: My senator!
PARTICIPATION: —and Cruz introduced a bipartisan bill that would grant limited antitrust exemptions to universities and colleges by expanding the Sports Broadcasting Act to include educational institutions. This expansion will create the right avenues to raise money and especially preserve women’s and Olympic sports. Just writing about this is exhausting, but we have a problem that needs to be solved.
RST: So what is the solution? Bring it. It. Opened.
PARTICIPATION: My solution would be to make football players major in philosophy and wear leather helmets. In short, the next best solution is to follow the lead of the Cruz/Cantwell bill by having limits placed on NILs and sites, limiting the growth of the athletics budget, and using a strong antitrust exemption to allow universities to negotiate as a single group and pool resources so that there are enough dollars to keep all institutions competitive. Of course, there would have to be parity for the Ohio States, Texases and Notre Dames of the world to be rewarded for their market power. But together, all ships will rise.
RST: They’re from Texas! How likely is this loan to succeed? What kind of push did you get from the audition?
PARTICIPATION: I got three and a half hours of pushing. It’s a bill that doesn’t give either party what it wants, which means it’s good legislation. And of course, every armchair coach has an opinion, so there’s a lot of discussion. But it represents thoughtful provisions that address many of the challenges facing the athletics sector but also leaves room for further negotiations and compromises. This bill is our last best hope to prevent the Armageddon of athletes.
RST: Should players be considered employees? Are we exploiting their work?
PARTICIPATION: That is the third rail issue.
RST: You know me. Those are the only rails I want to touch.
PARTICIPATION: When we do non-athletes, we just slap the word “student” on the student athlete. I would not be against collective bargaining, which would bring some structure to athletics management. But to answer your other question, we have undoubtedly exploited athletes, as have graduate students, medical residents and others. The word “exploitation” is probably too harsh. We have not treated our students well, now we are faced with the fact that the law and policy have taken the universities personally. But at the moment without the rules governing NIL, we suddenly turned student-athletes from being bullied to being bullies.
RST: As with all exploitation, very few come out on top. Women and track athletes will not be successful in all of this. And you certainly agree that, ahem, female runners, especially distance runners, are the best, the smartest and, let’s be honest here, the fittest (and funniest) athletes.
PARTICIPATION: Rachel, it really pisses me off when you recruit your kind. Nothing in the bill protects geeks, so back off!
RST: Gordon, I hope you realize that the geeks have already inherited the world.
