Employee-Student-Athlete

The Chicago District of the National Labor Relations Board recently ruled football players at Northwestern University as employees of the university and granted them the ability to unionize. This decision was made due to the time commitment to the sport, along with the fact that their scholarships were given based off of their athletic performance. While some may argue against this and that it will ruin college athletics in the future, I completely agree with the decision. 

It was argued that the players perform similar tasks and follow similar rules to those of an employee, which are also very similar to paid professional football players in the NFL.  Now we call these football players "student-athletes" (as in: student first, athlete second), yet these rules and regulations they have to follow are strictly for them as players, and not for the common student. While there are rules that both students and athletes have to follow, the punishments can be drastically different. Lets say your R.A. catches you lighting up a joint in your dorm, yeah you'll be written up, maybe some trouble with the police and worst case scenario you have minimum community service hours when its all said and done. Now if the second-string wide out get caught, they will face punishments with not only the school, but the team, and possibly even the loss of a scholarship. And losing their scholarship for a considerable amount of players means dropping out of college altogether because of the price of tuition. If we not to call them employees, colleges must leave players be to disciplined by academic authorities alone, and not additionally by athletic authorities.

The name "student-athlete" interesting in of itself. The term was invented 60 years ago by the NCAA to insure that players were primarily students and athletes second. The term was created to "prevent the exact ruling that was made [earlier this week]," says Ramogi Huma, president of the National College Players Association. Back in January I blogged about North Carolina basketball players' academic skills, some reading at a third grade level, if not at all. If players were truly "students first," colleges would hold them more academically accountable, and probably wouldn't fathom the idea that some of them were altogether illiterate.

How do you feel about the ruling?

Why or why not are college athletes employees?