[Senate Hearing 117-710]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 117-710

                  NCAA STUDENT ATHLETES AND NIL RIGHTS

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                         COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,
                      SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JUNE 17, 2021

                               __________

    Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and 
                             Transportation
                             
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                Available online: http://www.govinfo.gov
                
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                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
53-094 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
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       SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                   MARIA CANTWELL, Washington, Chair
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota             ROGER WICKER, Mississippi, Ranking
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut      JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii                 ROY BLUNT, Missouri
EDWARD MARKEY, Massachusetts         TED CRUZ, Texas
GARY PETERS, Michigan                DEB FISCHER, Nebraska
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin             JERRY MORAN, Kansas
TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois            DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
JON TESTER, Montana                  MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona              TODD YOUNG, Indiana
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada                  MIKE LEE, Utah
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
JOHN HICKENLOOPER, Colorado          SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West 
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia                 Virginia
                                     RICK SCOTT, Florida
                                     CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming
                    David Strickland, Staff Director
                 Melissa Porter, Deputy Staff Director
       George Greenwell, Policy Coordinator and Security Manager
                 John Keast, Republican Staff Director
            Crystal Tully, Republican Deputy Staff Director
                      Steven Wall, General Counsel
                           
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hearing held on June 17, 2021....................................     1
Statement of Senator Cantwell....................................     1
    Prepared statement of Dallas Hobbs, Football Player, 
      Washington State University................................     1
    Prepared statement of Sedona Prince, Basketball Player, 
      University of Oregon.......................................     3
Statement of Senator Moran.......................................    21
Statement of Senator Blumenthal..................................    23
Statement of Senator Klobuchar...................................    25
Statement of Senator Tester......................................    27
Statement of Senator Baldwin.....................................    29
Statement of Senator Lujan.......................................    36
Statement of Senator Rosen.......................................    42
Statement of Senator Hickenlooper................................    44
Statement of Senator Duckworth...................................    50

                               Witnesses

Christina Chenault, Former Division 1 Athlete, University of 
  California, Los Angeles........................................     6
    Prepared statement...........................................     7
Sari Cureton, Former Division 1 Athlete, Georgetown University...    10
    Prepared statement...........................................    12
Martin McNair, Father of Jordan McNair and Founder, The Jordan 
  McNair Foundation..............................................    14
    Prepared statement...........................................    15
Kaira Brown, Division 1 Track and Athlete, Vanderbilt University.    17
    Prepared statement...........................................    18

                                Appendix

Statement from David Rose, entitled ``NIL and the Debate over 
  College Sports''...............................................    53
Response to written question submitted to Christina Chenault by:
    Hon. Jacky Rosen.............................................    69
    Hon. Raphael Warnock.........................................    70
Response to written question submitted by Hon. Raphael Warnock 
  to:
    Sari Cureton.................................................    70
    Martin McNair................................................    71
    Kaira Brown..................................................    71

 
                  NCAA STUDENT ATHLETES AND NIL RIGHTS

                              ----------                              


                        THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 2021

                                       U.S. Senate,
        Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m. in 
room SR-253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Maria 
Cantwell, Chairwoman of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Cantwell [presiding], Klobuchar, 
Blumenthal, Baldwin, Duckworth, Tester, Rosen, Lujan, 
Hickenlooper, and Moran.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARIA CANTWELL, 
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM WASHINGTON

    The Chair. Good morning. The Commerce, Science, and 
Technology Committee will come to order.
    Thank you all for being here. This morning we have a 
distinguished panel to talk about the continuation of a very 
important issue, that is, changes to name, image, and likeness 
for athletes across the United States of America.
    I welcome our panel to continue the discussion about how 
important this issue is to athletes across the United States. 
Last week we heard from legal experts from the NCAA coach and 
other individuals who talked about this, but we also heard, as 
Mr. Gilmore said, there is so much more to be done.
    Congress cannot pass an NIL law that just ignores the 
rights of students, it also has to hear, I believe, about the 
experiences in health care and scholarship that make important 
rights issues so central to this debate.
    I'm submitting testimony from Washington State Football 
Player Dallas Hobbs who outlines some of these issues, 
particularly as it related to health care during the COVID 
crisis, and also Sedona Prince, an Oregon basketball player, 
who was left with thousands of dollars in medical bills after 
an injury and also pointed out the inequities in training 
facilities during the NCAA tournament.
    [The information referred to follows:]

         Prepared Statement of Dallas Hobbs, Football Player, 
                      Washington State University
    Dear Chair Cantwell, Ranking Member Wicker, and members of the 
Senate Commerce Committee,

    My name is Dallas Hobbs I am currently a member of the Washington 
State University football team. I recently graduated with a degree in 
Digital Technology & Culture, as well as a degree in Fine Arts. I am 
looking to pursue a master's in Business Administration while playing 
my two remaining years. Here at WSU, I have been able to be a part of 
many student-athlete leadership groups. I am the co-founder of the 
Black Student-Athlete Association (BSAA), a Football Representative, 
and an Executive Board member on the Pac-12 Student-Athlete Advisory 
Committee (SAAC). I am also the WSU representative for the Pac-12 
Student-Athlete Leadership Team (SALT) and a Pac-12 representative for 
the NCAA DI Football Student-Athlete Connection Group (SACG). This last 
summer I was also a leader and a part of the We Are United group that 
consisted of about 500 Pac-12 football players who were fighting for 
broad-based reforms in college athletics. These included rights and 
freedoms related to athlete compensation for use of our name, image, 
and likeness (NIL), health & safety, and a variety of other meaningful 
issues.
    The push for NIL and other reforms is needed. I am in a state that 
doesn't have a NIL law so athletes like myself and others in Washington 
will be without the same freedoms that athletes in NIL states have. 
This is happening all around the country, beginning July 1st a variety 
of states will have an athlete that is ahead of others. This will 
create a major divide in college athletics and changing the experiences 
of the student-athletes. Congress needs to create and pass a bill that 
would allow all student-athletes to obtain NIL freedoms.
    Securing NIL freedoms for every state would help increase student-
athletes experiences. NIL freedoms would create a variety of different 
ways student-athletes could be more successful, increase value for 
themselves and their sports, give back, showcase their hobbies, and 
benefit in other ways. We would see a new side of athletes that would 
be so amazing and eye-opening. It would show that there is a lot more 
to an athlete than we normally see. Expressing and learning new skills 
would create so much positive change in student-athletes lives, as well 
as others. Younger athletes that look up to college athletes would see 
that you could be successful in a variety of skills and/or hobbies 
outside of athletics. They would see college athletes who are artists, 
musicians, designers, community leaders, and technology experts. We 
would see an even bigger impact on the next generation of athletes.
    Many athletes would be very appreciative of their new freedoms. I 
am a multimedia artist, content creator, podcaster, and owner of 
multiple businesses. The issue is I can't promote my ventures in the 
same way everyone else in those areas can because I am a college 
athlete. For the last 4 years, I have been restricted and held back 
from professional growth in my fields. The NCAA says it wants us to be 
treated like the college students around us, but NCAA rules restrict us 
from having the same freedoms as our peers. We're restricted or 
prohibited from promotional activity, from participating with various 
partners or making certain investments, and many other things that a 
normal student can do. This seriously harms our growth and experiences 
as individuals, professionals, and students because we lack the full 
freedoms everyone else has.
    As I had mentioned earlier, I helped lead about 500 Pac-12 FB 
players to demand fair treatment before last season. NIL freedoms were 
among those demands but so were other vital issues like bringing forth 
the enforcement of health and safety standards. We were not able to do 
much about health and safety standards using our platforms, but we were 
able to shed a very big light on the lack of enforcement. Currently, 
there are no standards enforced to ensure college athletic programs are 
not putting athletes in harm's way. This lack of enforcement has 
created a lot of issues for many athletes around the country.
    This summer, as a part of the We Are United players movement, I was 
able to hear so many stories of athlete mistreatment around the country 
throughout various conferences and across both men's and women's 
sports. Before that summer, I had no clue that so many have had 
experiences that compromise their health and safety. Hearing these 
stories personally was eye-opening and concerned me because I only 
heard from only a fraction of the college athletes in the country. To 
this day it is the reason I will continue to fight for the athletes I 
have heard from and the athletes that don't have a voice or platform to 
speak from. It hurts to know that so many athletes are struggling and 
have been mistreated. From the outside looking in everything looks like 
it is going great but there is a critical issue that is ruining and 
harming college athletes' experiences and bodies. The enforcement of 
health and safety is one of the biggest things I am fighting for now 
and every day I have to hear new experiences that will push me harder 
to see that change comes soon. A lot of college athletes have been 
hurting for a while but now we are finally getting platforms and allies 
to help push our voices out there. Change and reform are needed. We 
need strict enforcement of health and safety standards to ensure all 
athletes will have a safer experience than those before them.
    In addition, I would like to express a few of the major stories 
that are already out there and involving health and safety standards. 
My teammate, Tyler Hilinski's death and the discovery that he had 
chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)--is a reminder of the risk 
college athletes face in football and other contact sports. CTE has 
caused reduced cognitive function, depression, impulse control, and has 
been implicated in numerous suicides.
    Washington State is not to blame for Tyler's death but it sheds 
light on the issues of traumatic brain injury and what can happen from 
them. The NFL has stated plainly that CTE is linked to football and 
studies show that is associated with traumatic brain injury.
    Stories like this show that we need to be very aware and take major 
precautions for any instances where their major collisions, hits to the 
head, and concussions. We need to make sure that doctors and athletic 
trainers cannot be retaliated against for making a medical decision 
that's in college athletes' best interest. Several surveys from the 
National Athletic Trainers Association show trainers are often 
pressured by coaches to return players with concussions to the same 
game. The NCAA has been clear that it will not punish a coach for doing 
so. Another issue we see, players in the PAC-12 and across the Nation 
have been hospitalized with life-threatening conditions like heart 
illness and rhabdomyolysis due to hazardous workout conditions. We all 
read headlines about the tragic heat illness death of Maryland FB 
player Jordan McNair and still, nothing has been done. As I had said 
earlier, I have heard so many stories of athletes going through 
traumatic experiences, but they had nowhere to go to share these 
experiences. I wish I could talk about a lot of them because they would 
shed light on so many issues happening in college athletics around 
health and safety. Athletes are scared to share what they are going 
through because they believe they will face repercussions or more harm 
from those above them. This is why we need the enforcement of health 
and safety standards to help stop these traumatic experiences. No 
athlete should have to go through experiences that have them scared 
enough that they won't share. Athletes deserve better and we need to 
see better as soon as we can. I believe if Congress doesn't address it, 
many more college athletes will needlessly develop traumatic brain 
injury and CTE, endure sexual abuse, and die from hazardous conditions.
    Furthermore, the conferences are now moving toward a playoff system 
that will add games. USA Today says it could lead to over $2 billion in 
new revenue but will increase injuries for us football players. I 
believe this is an amazing opportunity for all of football and every 
athlete wants to experience this growth. But this will make the 
enforcement of health and safety standards that much more important. 
The NCAA has made clear that it won't enforce health and safety 
standards. Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott claimed that the PAC-12 was 
incapable of enforcing health and safety standards in a meeting with me 
and other Pac-12 football leaders of the We Are United Players 
Movement.
    I've had multiple injuries as well surgeries and I am grateful that 
WSU is paying for all my medical expenses. But this isn't the case for 
all athletes, NCAA rules allow schools to stick players with their 
sports-related medical bills. I have also heard of many players across 
the country that have been mistreated and misdiagnosed on injuries that 
have cost them time or even their careers. Congress should make sure 
players don't have to pay for sports-related medical expenses as well 
as creating some system that would allow for a better second opinion 
without cost.
    I believe that it is also very important to make sure Congress 
corrects the NCAA's discriminatory treatment against women as was 
exposed in the NCAA's basketball, softball, and sand volleyball 
tournaments.
    I've been encouraged to see many lawmakers and the media criticize 
the NCAA for its inaction while athletes are abused and killed in 
hazardous workouts. What would it say if Congress does the same? If 
Congress does the NCAA's bidding by passing a narrow NIL bill driven 
mainly by concerns of recruiting advances and disadvantages, it will 
become complicit in the physical and mental harm so many athletes 
endure in NCAA sports. It will signal its approval of the 
discriminatory treatment of female athletes nationwide. On behalf of so 
many college athletes that have never truly had a voice in their own 
well-being, I'm imploring members of this committee to do the right 
thing and address these key issues along with NIL freedoms by July 1st.
                                              Dallas Hobbs.
                                 ______
                                 
        Prepared Statement of Sedona Prince, Basketball Player, 
                          University of Oregon
    Senator Cantwell and Members of the Committee,

    My name is Sedona Prince and I am a current college athlete 
competing for the University of Oregon women's basketball team. I am 
also proud to represent the hundreds of thousands of other Division 1 
student-athletes like me in a class action lawsuit that was filed last 
summer against the NCAA for its rules that unfairly prohibit college 
athletes from monetizing their name, image, and likeness rights. Thank 
you very much for the opportunity to offer testimony today on this 
important issue.
    For student-athletes, the ability to capitalize off our NILs while 
we are in college would allow us to finally realize the benefits of our 
achievements in a way that the NCAA has long prevented us from doing. 
It would give us the chance to earn money that we could use to fund our 
future goals, support our families, cover the cost of expensive medical 
bills that many of us have been left with because of sports injuries, 
and pay for the countless other expenses that come along with becoming 
a young adult.
    Our classmates are already making this money. They are signing 
endorsement deals on Instagram, earning ad money from videos they've 
posted on YouTube, and even working for our schools as paid ``campus 
influencers'' recruiting new students at promotional events and on 
social media. Our coaches and athletic departments are also making this 
money through their own licensing, sponsorship, and endorsement 
contracts--and they make ad money when videos of our best performances 
go viral on social media. Our fellow college athletes competing in the 
NAIA are even making this money because their association allows it, 
and I have heard great stories about many NAIA athletes who have 
benefitted from NIL, especially on social media. Yet, although we share 
the same fundamental rights as other students and all individuals, NCAA 
athletes cannot take advantage of the same opportunities solely because 
NCAA rules prohibit us from doing so.
    I have personally worked very hard in the last few years to grow my 
following on social media but, because of NCAA rules, I cannot earn a 
cent on the platforms I have built. I can't get sponsored on Instagram, 
for example, despite the fact that I already have more than 240,000 
followers. And I would lose my college eligibility if I accepted any of 
the money that my TikTok profile has generated through the TikTok 
Creator Fund--money that I have already earned. I know of many other 
student-athletes, including some of my own teammates, who have been 
forced to turn down similar opportunities that no one else would think 
twice about taking.
    In our lawsuit, we are just fighting for the same rights that all 
other college students already have, and Congress should not pass any 
bill that would limit our ability to do that or that would give the 
NCAA a free pass from legal liability for the enormous profits they 
have reaped at our expense. Congress does not need to give the NCAA any 
antitrust exemption in order to allow college athletes to benefit from 
their NIL rights, and there is no justification to providing them with 
immunity from accountability for the financial harm they have caused 
athletes when they continue to bring in millions upon millions of 
dollars every year. For student-athletes, college is the time when our 
NILs are most valuable and it is also the time in our lives when we are 
most likely to need all the financial help we can get. To deprive us of 
the ability to even try to recover some of the NIL money we were denied 
would be completely unjust.
    Aside from the money, student-athletes have also been forced to 
miss out on important educational opportunities that our peers are 
taking advantage of right now--opportunities to learn about 
entrepreneurship, marketing, branding, financial management, and how to 
make smart business decisions. College is supposed to be about learning 
and developing the skills we're going to need to be successful in life 
after graduation, and the value of our education should be no less 
important than other students on campus. The NCAA should no longer be 
able to deny us any educational opportunity that other students have.
    One thing I have heard some people say is that NIL must be 
restricted or it will only benefit the star football and men's 
basketball players. But as far as I can see this could not be further 
from the truth. I know of so many athletes in other sports who have 
built impressive social media followings and could definitely take 
advantage of valuable NIL opportunities. In fact, the ability to 
monetize our NIL rights in college is especially important for ``non-
revenue'' sport athletes and female athletes like myself who have more 
limited professional opportunities down the road. Social media also 
gives us access to the world around us and allows us to connect with 
friends and family back home, teammates, coaches, professors, our peers 
on campus, and fans. The way we are able to engage with our communities 
impact the value of the experiences we have as college athletes, and I 
have made it my own personal goal to use the platform I am able to 
build on social media to have a voice on issues that are important to 
me, including student-athlete rights issues. Congress should be sure to 
consider gender equity and, for female athletes in particular, I 
believe NIL opportunities are critical for us to bring increased 
attention and publicity to women's sports and to have a chance at 
creating a better, more gender-equitable future for the girls coming up 
behind us--something that the NCAA has failed time and time again to 
prioritize.
    Another thing I think Congress should think twice before doing is 
allowing the NCAA or schools to challenge the amount of NIL 
compensation that student-athletes are receiving. If the amount of 
compensation we get can be challenged, I strongly believe that it will 
discourage many student-athletes from trying to do NIL deals at all. If 
I was offered an NIL opportunity and the NCAA or a school challenged 
the amount of money I was getting, I would probably just give up the 
opportunity because I would be too afraid of losing my eligibility or 
having to pay the money back later, or being punished or retaliated 
against in some other way if I lost (or possibly even if I won). I 
think that most other athletes would feel the same way. With all of the 
stress we are already under with our full-time athletic and academic 
obligations, student-athletes should not also have to worry about 
whether our ability to negotiate a particularly good NIL deal might get 
us in trouble, and we should not be expected to go up against the 
money, power and influence of the NCAA alone. If NIL deals can be 
challenged, I think it is important that athletes are provided a lawyer 
to look out for us and to help us understand our rights in the process.
    Thank you again for your attention to this important issue and your 
concern for college athletes. As you consider any potential 
legislation, I ask you to please think carefully about the impact that 
it will have on former, current, and future student-athletes. If your 
goal is to protect our rights and look out for our wellbeing, which I 
believe that it is, you should ensure that any NIL bill safeguards our 
ability to monetize our NILs free of unnecessary limits and restraints 
in the same way that every other student and every other person in this 
country has the right to do. Above all else, no legislation should 
sacrifice college athletes' rights and freedoms to protect the NCAA's 
bank account.
            Sincerely,
                                             Sedona Prince.

    The Chair. We're here today to welcome a very distinguished 
panel and I want to start by saying, Mr. McNair, I'm so sorry 
about the loss of your son Jordan. Thank you. My sympathies are 
with you and your family. I can't imagine the pain that you 
must feel from that loss, but I so appreciate you taking the 
time to advocate for a new law and thanks to you, Maryland has 
one. So we certainly appreciate your commitment to this issue.
    We will also hear from a variety of witnesses who will tell 
us about the challenges they face in today's world of the NCAA 
athlete.
    Kaira Brown, who has underscored the importance of NIL and 
leveling the playing field for female athletes and how this can 
help build leadership skills for female athletes, and we're 
going to hear from Sari Cureton, who also is going to tell us 
about the athletes and the challenges they face.
    One of the things clear is that all of you want to provide 
mentorship and yet the challenges of providing those 
mentorships when we have the current rules in place make that 
very challenging.
    I also want to welcome Ms. Chenault. Thank you so much for 
your leadership. I think your testimony more than others really 
outlines the challenges of NIL. When someone such as yourself 
can be a voice attracts so much attention and yet then be 
limited by how you could use that.
    We have many challenges to face in getting legislation 
passed. I think some of the issues that you'll bring up in the 
hearing today about schools that do have a scholarship 
certainty and yet there seems to be still uncertainty to that 
plight.
    There still seems to be health care but a lack of mental 
health in the system. There seems to be changes that we can 
make that I think would help us move forward on providing 
student athletes the kind of certainty not just on their 
rights, not just on their health care and scholarship, but 
improve the experience for women in sports today.
    So thank you all very much for being here and look forward 
to hearing your testimony today.
    I want to thank my colleagues for being here. I don't know 
if anybody else wants to say anything at this moment or not.
    OK. If not, we'll start with you, Ms. Chenault. Thank you 
so much.

  STATEMENT OF CHRISTINA CHENAULT, FORMER DIVISION 1 ATHLETE, 
             UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

    Ms. Chenault. Chairman Cantwell, Ranking Member Wicker, and 
Distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you all for 
inviting the opportunity to amplify the voice of the athlete 
within these conversations by allowing me to testify this 
morning.
    This testimony is a direct reflection of my experience and 
the experience of my former colleagues who are current and 
former college athletes from across the Nation.
    My name is Christina Chenault. For the past 6 years I've 
been a heptathlete on UCLA's Track and Field Team where I 
received not only my Bachelor's but a Master's degree.
    During this time I served as captain, was named Second Team 
All American, and became Top 10 in all-time school history.
    Beyond the track, I created a sports media platform, 
founded UCLA's Sports Business Association, and co-founded the 
Black Athlete Alliance.
    From my resume, these years could have been the best years 
of my life, but instead they were overshadowed by injustice, 
trauma, and inequity. This experience is not an outlier but 
instead is simply a product of the current system of the NCAA 
that is riddled with financial, physical, and educational 
exploitation.
    Specific to this hearing, I will outline my testimony in 
order of NIL health and safety and educational outcomes.
    Within NIL, it is important to first recognize that the 
landscape of collegiate athletics has become completely 
transformed economically since its origins. College sports has 
become a multibillion dollar business that has a financial 
monopoly over its commoditized commodified athletes.
    As an athlete entrepreneur, I was not able to monetize my 
sports media platform. This restriction disproportionately 
affects low-income, female, and revenue-producing athletes.
    As a female athlete in the sport of track and field that 
has no professional American league, my window of opportunity 
to capitalize off my name, image, and likeness during the peak 
time of my athletic career was completely stripped away.
    California is currently granting wide NIL and 
representation freedoms that I believe all athletes should have 
access to.
    In regards to health and safety, some athletes in my 
program had experienced five coaches in 5 years in which some 
coaches reduced the scholarship of existing athletes to recruit 
their own athletes.
    Unclear contractual regulations enabled power dynamics like 
this that put an athlete's worth on a conveyor belt. 
Scholarship reductions can be a significant cost that can 
become unmanageable, especially with limited rights to their 
name, image, and likeness.
    Within mental health, I have seen coaches turn down sports 
psychologists because they were considered out of budget. 
However, later coaching staffs with the same budget were able 
to bring in sports psychologists.
    This issue of mental health should not have been left up to 
the opinion of coaches. This topic of mental health is very 
dear to me because in my fourth year a friend and fellow 
college athlete at my institution committed suicide.
    This traumatic experience reinforced that health and safety 
in college sports is a matter of life and death. I couldn't 
help but wonder if this could have been avoided if there were 
more resources, policies, and outlets put in place supporting 
the psychological health of athletes.
    Another friend of mine was asked to compete for the greater 
good of the team before getting an MRI, despite physical 
symptoms of a reinjured meniscus. It was not until she brought 
in her parent that she was spoken to and treated appropriately. 
The MRI diagnoses after the competition revealed a career-
ending injury that forced her to medically retire.
    This experience shows the political posturing institutions 
and athletic programs will take if health and safety standards 
are not enforced.
    The College Athlete Bill of Rights introduced by Senators 
Booker and Blumenthal would enforce these standards.
    Last, when it comes to educational outcomes, there's a 
substantial educational tracking occurring within the 
collegiate athletic space; namely, athletes in college are 
predominantly housed in one to three majors at school which are 
socially considered athlete majors.
    Despite the NCAA's claimed educational tradeoff, many 
athletes are limited in their degree choice, which later 
directly limits these athletes' professional career paths and 
trajectory.
    In closing, I share all of this today in hopes that the 
true athlete voice is heard and regarded for. In a landscape 
where fear and power discourage the servicing of athlete 
stories, I come forth as one with the hope and confidence of 
10,000.
    In all, these institutions should be held accountable and 
the college athletes should be protected at greater heights.
    From the protection of athlete rights, health and safety 
precautions, and educational outcomes, I believe that change 
here is necessary and change here is possible.
    Thank you all for your time and consideration.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Chenault follows:]

 Prepared Statement of Christina Chenault, Former Division 1 Athlete, 
                 University of California, Los Angeles
    Chairwoman Cantwell, Ranking Member Wicker and distinguished 
members of the Committee,

    Thank you all for inviting the opportunity to amplify the voice of 
the athlete within these conversations by allowing me to testify this 
morning. This testimony is a reflection of my direct experience and the 
experience of my former colleagues who are current and former college 
athletes from institutions across the Nation.
I. Introduction
    My name is Christina Chenault. For the past 6 years, I've been a 
Heptathlete on UCLA's Track and Field team, completing my Bachelor's 
Degree (UCLA-B.A. Psychology '20), and most recently my Master's Degree 
(UCLA-M.A. Sports Educational Leadership '21) from UCLA. Here, I became 
a Top-10 All-Time school Heptathlete, NCAA Championship second team 
All-American, and awarded team captain.
    Beyond the Track, I created a sports media platform to raise 
awareness on current social issues within Athletics (i.e., mental 
health); I created a Sports Business Association intended to improve 
the educational tracking and professional outcomes of college athletes; 
and proudly co-founded UCLA's Black Athlete Alliance to foster spaces 
of diversity, inclusion, and progression on the college campus.
    My media platform featured interviews with college athletes, All-
Americans, ESPN anchors, former NBA All-Stars and Olympians from all 
different backgrounds. Due to our garnered trust within the athletic 
community, it organically received over 30,000 views within its first 
year with 0 expenses incurred. As a counter-narrative to the mainstream 
glamorization of college sports, it brought a sense of reality and 
clarity to the taboo issues athletes face in their day-to-day lives.
    The Sports Business Association successfully hosted weekly seminars 
of over 100 guests, with speakers from Fortune 500 sports companies and 
franchises such as: Nike Inc., The Los Angeles Clippers, UCLA 
Athletics, The Los Angeles Dodgers, The Los Angeles Lakers, Creative 
Artists Agency (CAA), the U.S. Olympic Committee, and The Golden State 
Warriors . . . to name a few.
    Within our pilot year, the Black Athlete Alliance nationally-
elevated and reconciled policies of hate speech, while also partnering 
with the athletic department for social justice campaigns to move the 
world forward through the power of sport.
    It is through the culmination of these experiences, along with my 
close-knit relationship to the athletic community nation-wide that 
allows me to speak with confidence on the issues pertaining to today's 
hearing: NIL, Health & Safety, and Educational Outcomes. Respectively, 
I will outline my testimonial experiences and hope in doing so, to 
emphasize the importance of greater athlete protections throughout 
these categories.
II. NIL (Name, Image, & Likeness)
    The commodification of athletes has become rampantly apparent as 
the commercialization of college sports steadily rises. As a female 
student and athlete-entrepreneur I was not able to profit off of my own 
my sports media platform. Despite viral content, the potential for any 
wide-scale distribution or business model sustainability was completely 
revoked through the current restrictions of NIL. We constantly had 
compliance monitoring us for who we could have on our shows, what we 
spoke about, how we spoke, what we wore, who we worked with and how we 
edited our interviews. It made the process very difficult, frustrating, 
and less enjoyable for the sake of staying eligible.
    From a business standpoint I was paralyzed, but shown the monopoly 
of financial power the NCAA had over us. This issue not only 
disproportionally affects athletes from low-income households, but 
affects all athletes at a psychological level. Moreover, these 
regulations funnel college athletes into an ``athlete-only'' mentality, 
neglecting potential creative outlets and professional development 
opportunities. Within the sports industry, some of these professional 
development opportunities that use our name, image, or likeness have a 
temporary window of opportunity that peaks during our college years. 
Especially in sports that lack established American professional 
leagues (i.e., Track and Field), athletes are being stripped from their 
rights at the most imperative time.
III. Health & Safety
    The conversation of health and safety is inextricably linked to the 
decisions around NIL. For context, when I came into my athletic program 
the sprints team had 5 coaches in 5 years. These coaching transitions 
not only made it difficult on athletes physically and emotionally, but 
financially as new coaches reduced the scholarship of existing 
athletes. This unexpected reduction of scholarship from a coach that 
favors their own recruits costs the initial athlete thousands of 
dollars. Additionally, this fear of constantly being at risk for 
scholarship reduction for reasons beyond your control is wrongfully 
common within the collegiate athletic experience. Where is the athlete 
supposed to suddenly come up with this significant amount of money? 
This has forced athletes to have to transfer, quit, or take time off 
from training in order to work. These unclear contractual regulations 
illustrate the clearly established power dynamic between the 
institution and the athlete where the current system fails the athlete 
every time.
    From a psychological safety standpoint, I have seen coaches turn 
down sports psychologists because they were subjectively considered 
``out of budget''. Like any budget, the decisions are a reflection of 
the organizational values, further proven as later coaching staffs with 
the same budget were able to bring in psychologists. Other athletes 
I've spoken to do not feel comfortable as an athlete going to 
psychologists on campus or near athletic departments for the distrust 
of their institutions or the fear of being seen or reported back to 
their coach. Where are the athletes supposed to go if they don't have 
access to mental health professionals they can trust?
    A traumatic and eye-opening experience for me viewing athlete 
health occurred in my 4th year when I heard the devastating news that 
my friend, another college athlete, had committed suicide. In my grief, 
I wished there were more resources, and more outlets for athletes to be 
heard and helped. This is when I realized that these issues around 
athlete health were not tenuous ones, but matters of life and death. 
The detriments of athlete mental health stem from the win-at-all-costs 
culture in college sports where athletes struggle in silence in fear 
for their scholarship, playing time, or social ridicule.
    Another experience from the product of a win-at-all-costs culture, 
was seen physically through the process of my friend's medical 
retirement. Before granting an official medical diagnosis or MRI, she 
was asked to compete for the greater good of the team. She was forced 
to bring in her parent to advocate on her behalf to receive the proper 
attention and treatment of her second torn meniscus in two years. I 
noticed that when athletes brought in a parental figure to the training 
room, they were treated and spoken to completely different. This 
revealed the political posturing institutions and athletic programs can 
take if additional policy is not implemented to protect these athletes.
IV. Educational Outcomes
    When it comes to educational outcomes, there is substantial 
educational tracking occurring within the collegiate athletic space. 
Namely, athletes at respective schools are predominately housed in 1-3 
majors, ``athlete majors'', that generally require less work or effort 
to fulfill. This is seen across all sports, but especially in the 
revenue-producing sports that have a heightened ``athlete-student'' 
culture in unison with the lucrative championship culture. Despite the 
claimed ``educational trade off'', a majority of athletes are not on 
substantial scholarship yet equally face educational exploitation. 
Although on paper the NCAA limits practice hours to 20 hours a week, we 
as athletes know that this is just a formality and experience far more 
hours of athletically related time, closer to 40 or 50 hours each week. 
This exhaustive schedule tracks athletes into curriculum that is based 
on attainability rather than genuine intellectual curiosity.
    Unfortunately, many athletes do not realize how this tracked path 
can affect their longterm career trajectory until they are faced with 
it after graduation. Athletes do not have an equal amount of time as 
non-athlete students to gain internship experiences or explore an 
academic or professional curiosity, leaving them utterly disadvantaged 
in the working world. Ironically, in the college recruiting process, 
many athletes are sold a dream for their experience athletically and 
educationally that is not given an equal chance or the sufficient 
support to materialize. Despite having a four-year degree from a 
renowned institution, athletes are still disadvantaged by the current 
collegiate athletics system in lacking the necessary professional 
experiences employers are looking for.
V. Conclusion
    In closing, I share all of this today in hopes that the true 
athlete voice is heard and regarded for. In a landscape where fear and 
power debilitate the surfacing of athlete's stories, I come forth as 
one with the courage and confidence of ten thousand. In all, these 
institutions should be held accountable and the college athletes should 
be protected at greater levels. From the protection of athlete NIL 
rights, health & safety precautions, and educational outcomes, I 
believe that change here is necessary and that change here is possible. 
Thank you all for your time and consideration.

    The Chair. Thank you very much for your statement, and we 
appreciate you being here and for your long advocacy on this 
issue.
    Ms. Cureton.

     STATEMENT OF SARI CURETON, FORMER DIVISION 1 ATHLETE, 
                     GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

    Ms. Cureton. Thank you. It is an honor to speak before you 
all today.
    My name is Sari Cureton. I'm a recent graduate from 
Georgetown University where I was a walk-on for the Georgetown 
Women's Basketball Team.
    Throughout my time at Georgetown, I helped co-found the 
Black Student Athlete Coalition and worked hard to advocate for 
student athlete rights.
    Throughout my written testimony, I highlighted some key 
examples of what is wrong with the current collegiate model. 
When discussing name, image, and likeness, I mentioned how my 
teammate was unable to use her identity as a student athlete in 
affiliation with Georgetown to promote and fundraise for her 
nonprofit.
    When talking about health and safety, I discuss problems 
with misdiagnosis, coaches failing to take action in cases of 
sexual assault, the need for NCAA assistance for schools that 
are unable to afford mental health professionals, the verbal 
mistreatment of athletes by coaches, and the dangerous culture 
of athletics.
    I also discussed how athlete complaints regarding illnesses 
and injuries often go ignored.
    Finally, I discussed problems with inequality with men's 
and women's sports but today I would like to revisit these 
topics and add some additional context to my written statement 
in the hopes that it will further illuminate the Committee's 
understanding of the student athlete experience.
    The story of my teammate starting her own nonprofit 
illustrates that the current restrictions not only impact 
athletes in Power 5 conferences who are household names, these 
regulations impact all athletes.
    Less than 2 percent of NCAA athletes go on to play 
professionally, meaning that the best years for them to 
monetize their name, image, and likeness is these 4 years at 
their university.
    However, my teammate, like many others, we are forced to 
jump through hoops and told no while our universities and the 
NCAA uses our name, image, and likeness all to their own 
benefit.
    Within this, I think it's also important to discuss the 
racial component and that needs to be emphasized. In D1 sports, 
football and men's basketball are the highest revenue-
generating sports. A majority of these athletes are black. 
However, a majority of the individuals that are making money 
off of this industry that are created off the backs of these 
athletes are white.
    These athletes have limited resources in their ability to 
advocate for themselves. Therefore, I would encourage the 
Committee to once more look at this issue as a civil rights 
matter.
    Although name, image, and likeness is a pressing matter, 
the issues relating to health and safety still deserve ample 
attention because if not for the physical sacrifices of student 
athletes, this industry would not exist.
    Beyond the factors previously discussed in my written 
testimony, the issue of financial responsibility is another one 
that needs to be examined. The NCAA currently does not require 
its member schools to offer insurance. Most do offer some sort 
of support but most is not all.
    The level of assistance can vary from school to school due 
to lack of uniform regulation. In my personal experience, the 
university helped with my hip surgery but when it came to 
prescriptions, I had to provide for the co-pay. At other 
universities, student athletes have to pay for a second 
opinion.
    When you first read that, that may not sound like a big 
deal but when you can't trust the opinions of the medical 
advisors at your university, having to seek out additional 
medical advice and pay for it becomes a huge matter.
    Even in a situation like mine where I had medical 
assistance from my university, the process of sending 
documentation to trainers and making sure that the right 
insurance was paying for the right thing is complicated and 
inefficient and if athletes do not have the support of family, 
it is very difficult to navigate that process.
    Even now, there's still the question of who pays for your 
injury after you graduate. Once your eligibility is exhausted, 
the responsibility of the school is done and because 
scholarships are year to year, it is possible that a school may 
terminate its relationship with an athlete and a student is 
left with medical bills as well as tuition.
    Generally speaking, through all the toll of playing at high 
level athletics, a lot of times your injuries outlast your 4 
years of eligibility. I personally am still dealing with my 
injury and I've heard stories of athletes who know for certain 
that once they graduate, they will need surgery in order to 
continue on living a fulfilling life.
    The final point I would like to discuss is gender 
inequality. This disparity in the treatment of female athletes 
was illustrated in the women's basketball tournament as well as 
the Women's College World Series.
    It was illustrated that these inequalities also impact 
matters of health and safety with the differences in testing, 
PCR versus antigen testing at the women's basketball 
tournament, as well as the scheduling of double-headers in the 
Women's College World Series.
    Women are continually asked to perform at a high level 
while being given less resources at every stage of their 
athletic development. It is high time that women are treated 
with the same respect as their male counterparts.
    In conclusion, not only do these changes need to be made to 
better protect athletes but there must be action taken to 
ensure that athletes are educated on their rights.
    I encourage you all to reflect on the fact that I've only 
scratched the surface of the issues that student athletes face. 
We haven't even discussed the matters of the rights of LGBTQIA 
members within the athletic field or even gone further into the 
racial disparities that exist.
    I'm here today representing the stories of not only myself 
but many other athletes that are too afraid to speak up because 
they are worried of what it will mean to their future.
    I, like my peers, am appreciative of the opportunities that 
have been afforded me through sports, but that does not mean 
the system is perfect. Student athletes deserve better.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Cureton follows:]

    Prepared Statement of Sari Cureton, Former Division 1 Athlete, 
                         Georgetown University
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify before the Senate 
Committee on Commerce, Science & Technology Hearing on NCAA Athlete NIL 
Rights. It is an honor to have been asked to do so and the written 
statement below has been prepared in connection to my oral remarks.
    My name is Sari Cureton I am a recent graduate from Georgetown 
University where I was a walk-on for the Georgetown women's basketball 
team. It is my hope that through this written testimony this committee 
will learn more about the lived experiences of student-athletes to 
supplement the data and facts that have previously been discussed.
    The issue of name, image, and likeness has become especially 
pressing because of the new legislation that will be coming into effect 
in various states on July 1st. Throughout my time at Georgetown I have 
witnessed the difficulty in navigating the current NCAA NIL policies. 
During the 2019-2020 season a teammate of mine sought to revitalize a 
non-profit she had started in high school called Rose from the 
Concrete. Her goal was to create a mentorship program for middle and 
high school students in Washington DC. However, before she embarked on 
this journey, she had to meet with our compliance office. There she was 
told that in order to remain compliant she could use her name, but she 
could not use her status as an athlete with Georgetown University to 
help with promoting or fundraising for the organization. This created 
an additional obstacle to starting a non-profit that other college 
students would not have to face. Meanwhile the school is permitted to 
use our name, image, and likeness to promote their charitable 
activities within the community. This is the heart of the issue, 
student-athletes are looking for opportunities to monetize themselves 
in ways that their universities and the NCAA has already taken 
advantage of for their own benefit. Although race did not factor 
heavily into my personal encounters with this policy, as a Black woman 
I am also heavily aware of the racial component to this discussion. 
Therefore, I encourage the committee members to consider this issue 
through the lens of civil rights. The issue of name, image, and 
likeness is a pressing matter that deserves ample discussion; however, 
I would be remiss if I did not discuss other pertinent problems that 
impact the student-athlete experience.
    One of these issues is the array of concerns regarding the health 
and safety of student-athletes. Throughout my time at Georgetown, I 
suffered an injury to my hip that led to me requiring surgery. I 
remember being fearful that my surgery would not be covered because I 
was a walk-on and my injury resulted from an underlying condition which 
athletics exacerbated but did not directly cause. Ultimately, I was 
told that the university would assist me financially with the initial 
procedure and not to worry. I share this story because it aligns with 
the expectation. I had an injury, I told my trainer, I was diagnosed, 
and then I received treatment. However, for some injured student-
athletes this is an experience they dream of having. When discussing my 
story with others I was made aware that athletes at some universities 
are not given the opportunity to seek out second opinions unless they 
are willing to pay for it themselves. This would not be an issue if 
athletes could always be confident in their diagnosis but that is not 
the case. I have been told various stories of athletes being given one 
diagnosis by a team doctor only to be given a completely different one 
when seeking out a second opinion. These issues not only pertain to 
injuries but basic care. A year ago, I witnessed a student-athlete 
complaint be repeatedly ignored when their symptoms began worsening 
after receiving treatment for an illness. They had to repeatedly ask 
for further assistance before receiving more medical attention. In my 
conversations with student-athletes there has also been widespread 
discussion about a failure to act in cases of sexual assault. In some 
situations, student-athletes have stated that they were aware of cases 
sexual assault that had occurred between teammates and had been 
reported to the coaching staff, but no action had been taken. There are 
other stories that I cannot share in this written statement that I have 
been witness to. This is because the affected individuals are fearful 
regarding what would happen if their respective university were to 
piece the information together and realize who I was speaking about. 
That fact alone speaks to just how vulnerable student-athletes are. If 
they are unwilling to share their stories in an anonymous format 
through someone else's voice how likely are they to report cases of 
negligence to the authorities within their own universities? How many 
departments actually offer their athletes enough information on who to 
report to?
    Although the care that I received at Georgetown is likely to be 
seen as the standard I think it is time that we push the boundary on 
what we view as adequate care. In order to do so it is necessary to 
address the question of who cares for student-athletes once they 
graduate from college? Many athletes sustain injuries during their four 
years that require care after their collegiate careers end. This is not 
to say that schools need to be financially responsible for every health 
need of former students but should there not be system in place to 
assist those that have to deal with lingering injuries that are 
directly related to their collegiate careers?
    Physical health is not the only concern that should be discussed. 
Currently, the ability of an athletic department to have its own sports 
psychologist is seen as a luxury. Georgetown has one sports 
psychologist on staff. Her role was created because the existing mental 
health care system within Georgetown University was not designed for 
long term care and was unable to meet the unique needs of student-
athletes. However, her role is still not enough to meet needs of the 
over 700 students within the department. Imagine, then what it is like 
for those student-athletes whose departments have no in-house mental 
health services. The NCAA should provide greater assistance for 
universities that do not have the financial means to hire mental health 
professionals within athletic departments.
    Student-athletes are not the only ones that need mental health 
professionals. They are also needed to help educate the coaches as 
well. Throughout my time at Georgetown, I have heard coaches tell 
players that they are only there for a basketball scholarship and 
without it they would not have been at Georgetown University. This can 
be detrimental for athletes of color that already feel like imposters 
on a predominately white campus. Coaches have made off-handed negative 
comments or ``jokes'' regarding the weight of student-athletes without 
any consideration for the impact that it could have on their mental 
health. The reality is that in the world of college sports these 
statements are not seen as ``that bad'' some might even struggle to see 
the fault in them. Therefore, for an athlete to complain about this 
would be viewed as being unappreciative or as not having thick enough 
skin. There is a culture within athletics that creates a dangerous 
mindset of how student-athletes view themselves which can impact them 
for long after they graduate. In order to make strides in changing this 
culture athletic departments need greater access to professionals 
within the field of mental health.
    Conversations regarding health and safety intersect with 
discussions of Title IX. This past March during the men's and women's 
basketball tournaments there were photos that revealed disparities 
between the facilities, the meals, and the gear given out to student-
athletes.\1\ One issue that also arose was the difference in testing 
practices. The men were given PCR tests while the women were given 
antigen testing which the CDC has referred to as ``less sensitive'' \2\ 
when it comes to detecting the COVID-19 virus. The testing disparity 
between the men's and women's tournaments is a demonstration of the 
ways in which women's sports are treated as an afterthought. This issue 
is not just isolated to the sport of basketball. Softball coaches have 
been outspoken throughout the Women's College World Series about the 
disparities between their tournament and the men's tournament.\3\ These 
examples are an illustration of a long-standing inequality that exists 
not only in collegiate sports but across the spectrum from youth 
programs to professional sports. We are given less resources and are 
treated as an afterthought with the expectation that we will continue 
to perform at a high level.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ On Her Turf. ``Updated: Disparities at the 2021 NCAA Women's 
Basketball Tournament,'' March 25, 2021. https://
onherturf.nbcsports.com/2021/03/25/ncaa-womens-mens-basketball-weight-
rooms-discrepancies/.
    \2\ CDC. ``Labs.'' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 
February 11, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/lab/
resources/antigen-tests-guidelines.html.
    \3\ ``College Softball Coaches Decry Treatment by NCAA: `What's 
Lower than an Afterthought?' '' Washington Post. Accessed June 16, 
2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/04/23/ncaa-softball-
college-world-series-disparities/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The issues that I have outlined here barely scratch the surface of 
the necessity for change within the current collegiate model. Student-
athletes deserve to be better protected and they deserve to be treated 
as more than commodities. The experience of participating in collegiate 
sports is unparalleled and it is something that we as student-athletes 
are grateful for. However, we earned the positions on our teams, and we 
work hard to balance our athletics with our academics. Although we 
remain appreciative for the opportunities that have been afforded to us 
that does not mean we will not demand better for ourselves and for the 
next generation of student-athletes.
    Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts.

    The Chair. Thank you, Ms. Cureton. Thank you so much for 
being here and for that testimony.
    Mr. McNair.

    STATEMENT OF MARTIN McNAIR, FATHER OF JORDAN McNAIR AND 
             FOUNDER, THE JORDAN McNAIR FOUNDATION

    Mr. McNair. Good morning. I'm Martin McNair, Founder of the 
Jordan McNair Foundation.
    Today I'm speaking in support of the name, image, likeness 
bill with a notable provision that a baseline standard be set 
for all student athletes to have the same level of health and 
safety protection guidelines in place across the Nation.
    The Jordan McNair Safe and Fair Play Act passed unanimously 
through the House and the Senate this year in the state of 
Maryland. The bipartisan sponsorship of Delegate Lierman, a 
Democrat, and Senator Justin Reedy, a Republican, agreed on the 
notable provision that the health, wellness, as well as the 
safety of our collegiate student athletes is more of a priority 
than paying them for their name, image, and likeness.
    May 27, 2018, was the last time I had a conversation with 
my son Jordan Martin McNair. He was excited about football 
conditioning practice starting the next day as any 19-year-old 
would be with aspirations of making it to the NFL one day.
    Less than 24 hours later, I was telling Jordan, ``Son, if 
you can hear me, squeeze my finger. Son, if you can hear me, 
blink your eyes.''
    Within 72 hours, the doctors at the University of Maryland 
Hospital Shock Trauma Unit told Jordan's mom Tonya and I that 
85 percent of Jordan's liver had necrosis and if we didn't 
agree to an emergency liver transplant, he'd be dead within 12 
hours.
    Last Sunday, June 13, we celebrated or honored the third 
year of Jordan's death as my family visited the cemetery for a 
100 percent preventable heat stroke suffered that day of 
conditioning practice.
    I've relived these last few weeks of my son fighting for 
his life from May 28 to June 13 for the last 3 years. I can't 
get out of my mind the athletic trainer on the field that day 
yelling, ``If he can't walk, drag his ass across the field,'' 
as my son's core body temperature was above a 104 degrees, he 
was in a full heat stroke.
    One hour and 46 minutes passed before my son finally made 
it to the hospital emergency room that day. No parent in 
America sends their student athlete away to college for them to 
be abused mentally, physically, or in our case worse, 
especially when it's at the hands of the coaching staff we 
entrusted our most precious gifts with.
    We don't but it happens all too often in college sports. It 
needs to stop and the systems need to be put in place at this 
level of legislation. The safety protection, and wellness of 
all collegiate student athletes should be a paramount priority 
before we consider paying them for their name, image, and 
likeness. How can we support a student athlete getting paid 
when we can't keep them safe?
    The College Athletes Bill of Rights introduced by Senators 
Booker and Blumenthal would enforce these health and safety 
standards of our student athletes. Let's follow the bipartisan 
lead of the legislators in Maryland not only to create an 
opportunity of economic freedom but again create a baseline 
standard of health, safety, as well as the protection for all 
of our student athletes.
    Student athlete safety is something we can all relate to. 
There are no cultural, financial, or political differences 
among us. Just think, Jordan could have been anyone in this 
room son, brother, or family member. It's everyone in this 
room's responsibility to keep them all safe.
    Thank you for allowing me to speak and God bless us all.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. McNair follows:]

   Prepared Statement of Martin McNair, Father of Jordan McNair and 
                 Founder, The Jordan McNair Foundation
    Good Morning Members of Congress.
    I'm Martin McNair, father of Jordan McNair and Founder of The 
Jordan McNair Foundation.
    Today I stand before you in support of Senate Bill--NCAA Student 
Athletes and NIL Rights.
    The Jordan McNair Safe and Fair Play Act was passed unanimously 
with bipartisan effort in the state of Maryland. The addition to the 
bill was the health and wellness and player safety aspect of the bill. 
The sponsors for this bill were Delegate Brooke Lierman, a Democrat and 
Senator Justin Ready, a Republican. The bill passed through the House 
and the Senate successfully. Governor Hogan signed off on the bill on 
May 14, 2021. The health and wellness as well as the player safety 
component will go into effect July 1, 2021. Out of 19 states to have 
passed the Name Image and Likeness (NIL) Bill into law, the State of 
Maryland is the only state to place the health, safety and well-being 
ahead of a student athlete being paid for their Name Image and 
Likeness.
    The last time I spoke to my son Jordan Martin McNair was May 28, 
2018. Our conversation was a typical father and son exchange. I asked 
him ``how was he feeling and was he prepared for the first day of 
conditioning drills that following day?'' His reply--``Yes dad, I'm 
ready.'' We talked a little more with the standard ``call me later in 
the week'' and my fatherly advice of ``always wear protection,'' the 
way I ended every conversation with him since he'd been in college.
    The call we received the next evening changed our lives forever.
    The campus police officer said ``Jordan has had a seizure while at 
football practice.'' Jordan had never been in the hospital a day after 
he'd been born 19 years earlier. Our thoughts raced as I and his mom 
Tonya sped to the hospital.
    Our questions started as soon as we walked into the emergency room. 
``What happened?'' We weren't prepared for what we saw as Jordan was 
lying there in a cooling suit with the attempts to get his core body 
temperature down. Medical terms like rhabdomyolysis had started and we 
still didn't know what was going on with our son.
    My next conversation with him now was son if you can hear me, 
squeeze my finger. Son if you can hear me, blink your eyes.
    After we spent the night at the hospital a medical decision was 
made the next day to airlift Jordan to the Shock Trauma Unit at 
University of Maryland Hospital.
    Who knew the next two weeks would be the worst of our 19 years? How 
did we go from a healthy 19-year-old who was 6'5, 300 lbs, and a size 
16 shoe Tuesday morning, to a child so sick that 85 percent of his 
liver had necrosis and if we didn't agree to an emergency liver 
transplant, he'd be dead within 12 hours?
    Jordan had a heat stroke that humid day while running gassers. 
(Explain a gasser) A heat stroke is an exertional injury when your core 
body temperature goes above 104 degrees. It's the equivalent of your 
body being in a microwave oven. Your organs start to cook and you have 
a small window of 15-30 minutes to cool the athlete's body temperature 
down below 104 with the right safety equipment.
    When Jordan's teammates handed him off to the athletic training 
staff, the head athletic trainer who was the medical professional on 
the field yelled ``if he can't walk drag his ass across the field.''
    It took one hour and 46 minutes to get my son to the hospital 
emergency room that day.
    Those two weeks Jordan was fighting for his life. We kept asking 
ourselves what did we miss when the coaches were sitting at our kitchen 
table before signing day?
    We missed everything that we didn't know. I like the typical parent 
asked two questions. Can Jordan get some playing time and another 
question about mental health and substance abuse support.
    I never thought to ask about any safety, preventative, or overall 
protection of my student athlete on or off the field. I just assumed 
like so many of us parents of collegiate athletes that the systems were 
in place in the event of. I never thought to ask what if Jordan got 
hurt or couldn't play anymore what would they do to protect him?
    The number of student athletes who've been injured or tragically 
died at the hands of a college coaching staff is totally unacceptable.
    Jordan was a predictable statistic that 2-3 football players would 
die every year from a heat related injury.
    Heat related injuries are 100 percent preventable. No child 
regardless of the level of competition should succumb to complications 
of this type of injury with the right preventive systems in place.
    No one sends their student athlete off to college for them not to 
return a better person ready for the next journey in their life.
    Jordan has become a poster boy for student athlete safety at the 
collegiate level of competition. His death along with many others was 
not in vain.
    The safety, protection and wellness of all collegiate student 
athletes should be a paramount priority before we consider paying them 
for their NIL. How can we support a student athlete getting paid when 
we can't keep them safe?
    Jordan lost oxygen to his brain on June 12, 2018. He transitioned 
the next day. As my family visited the cemetery last Sunday, June 13th 
to honor him on the 3rd anniversary of his death, I always promise him 
to celebrate his legacy by educating and saving the lives of others.
    Today let's all follow our example in the state of Maryland. The 
protection and safety of student athletes again should be paramount. I 
ask for a bipartisan show of unity on this bill as Jordan McNair could 
have been any of our sons, nephews, grandsons or family members.
    I'd like to thank the Congressional Committee for allowing me to 
speak today. God bless you all.



    The Chair. Thank you, Mr. McNair. Thank you.
    Ms. Brown, welcome. Thank you for your testimony.

 STATEMENT OF KAIRA BROWN, DIVISION 1 TRACK AND FIELD ATHLETE, 
                     VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY

    Ms. Brown. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Cantwell, Ranking Member Wicker, and 
Distinguished Members of the U.S. Senate Committee, thank you 
for inviting me to share my experiences as a student athlete 
today. It's a great honor and privilege to be here.
    My name is Kaira Brown, and I'm a rising junior and track 
and field athlete at Vanderbilt University.
    Today I want to share my experiences with the NCAA 
guidelines, gender equity in college athletics, and how my 
thoughts on NIL legislation could alleviate difficulties on 
both fronts.
    Part of maintaining my eligibility means that I cannot 
receive what the NCAA terms ``extra benefits'' which refers to 
anything that's not available to the general Vanderbilt student 
body. It has also been explained as not being able to receive 
anything special because I'm an athlete, and while I understand 
the spirit of the rule intends to prevent boosters from giving 
me special gifts, it becomes a constant worry that I may 
unintentionally endanger my athletic eligibility.
    Recently I completed the House Ethics training to be an 
intern here on the Hill and a lot of what I learned in that 
training echoes what I've been taught about eligibility, but I 
just don't think being a student athlete should be held to the 
same level of stress and difficulty as working on the Hill.
    For example, another one of my teammate's dads once offered 
to buy us ice cream after a particularly successful meet and 
one of our coaches was jokingly like, oh, well, I didn't hear 
that and while it's not an extra benefit, there is an exception 
for family members and sort of people you already know giving 
you gifts.
    The environment around these eligibility rights is very 
confusing and sometimes difficult to understand and the 
inclination is always to not do the thing or accept the gift 
just out of fear when rather we should be focused on playing 
our sports and sort of enjoying these 4 years rather than 
always tiptoeing and trying to ensure that we don't somehow get 
in trouble. The rule functions more as a headache than the 
protective barrier that it was meant to provide.
    Even in the age of Title IX, men's and women's sports are 
sometimes also not treated equally in college sports. Some of 
this disparity is systemic, like we've seen at the NCAA women's 
basketball and softball, but other issues are simply 
interpersonal.
    For example, there was an issue a few years ago when only 
the football team was having breakfast at our athlete dining 
hall which I'm going to be honest has the best food on campus. 
After some requests were made by the women's soccer team who 
also had morning practice, now all athletes are allowed to eat 
in the dining hall sort of all three meals of the day.
    I don't believe this anecdote reflects malicious or sexist 
intent on the part of the dining hall or the athletic staff. I 
think, rather, it speaks to the fact that while our men's 
teams' needs are often top of mind, sometimes women's 
accommodations can be an afterthought and that shouldn't be.
    One justification provided for some gender disparities in 
treatment, especially on the NCAA level, is that men's sports 
make more money. I think the NIL legislation could be a key 
element contributing to that, as well.
    It's well known that the NCAA also does more to promote 
their men's sports than their women's sports. We don't even 
call women's basketball tournament March Madness. I think that 
if female athletes were able to partner with companies or in 
other ways promote their own athletic endeavors that might be a 
way to supplement the advertising that the NCAA neglects to 
provide and bring more viewers to women's sports.
    Passing NIL legislation would also likely free student 
athletes from any of their fears surrounding extra benefits and 
eligibility. For example, the way the rules are currently 
structured, I cannot be able to advertise as a track coach 
saying that I'm a Vanderbilt track athlete, even though that's 
pretty much what makes me qualified to coach the sport. That 
would be considered being paid for your athletic ability or 
reputation. Especially in sports that don't get as much 
publicity, this is a great way for students to earn some extra 
money but it's currently prohibited.
    By freeing student athletes from their fears and concerns 
about extra benefits and rules like that, NIL legislation also 
has the opportunity to help student athletes to become 
entrepreneurs and create their own opportunities in the arena 
they already know well, their sports.
    Thank you for your time.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Brown follows:]

Prepared Statement of Kaira Brown, Division 1 Track and Field Athlete, 
                         Vanderbilt University
    Chairwoman Cantwell, Ranking Member Wicker, and distinguished 
members of the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and 
Transportation: thank you for inviting me to share my experiences as a 
student athlete today. It is a great honor and privilege to be here. My 
name is Kaira Brown, and I am a rising junior and track and field 
athlete at Vanderbilt University. I want to share my experiences with 
NCAA guidelines, gender equity on my campus, and my thoughts on how NIL 
legislation could alleviate difficulties on both fronts.
Challenges of Present Eligibility Rules
    Part of maintaining my eligibility means that I cannot receive what 
the NCAA terms ``extra benefits,'' which refers to anything that is not 
available to the general Vanderbilt student body. It has also been 
explained as not being able to receive anything special because I am an 
athlete. While I understand the spirit of the rule intends to prevent 
boosters from giving me special gifts, it becomes a constant worry that 
I may unintentionally endanger my athletic eligibility. For example, I 
was unsure if I could accept a free flight to come to this hearing 
because it was an extra benefit directly tied to the fact that I am a 
student athlete. Even though I wasn't being rewarded for an athletic 
performance, I still had to call my compliance office and ensure that 
accepting the flight would be permissible. In another example, one of 
my teammates' dad once offered to buy our relay team ice cream after a 
particularly successful meet. After overhearing the offer, our head 
coach said ``I'll pretend I didn't hear that,'' jokingly because buying 
ice cream might be considered an extra benefit. While there is an 
exception for people with whom there's an ``established pre-existing 
relationship'' and we would have been able to accept the ice cream, it 
just serves as another example of how the rule functions more as a 
headache than the protective barrier it was meant to provide.
Title IX and Unequal Treatment
    Even in the age of Title IX, men's and women's sports are not 
treated equally in college sports. Some of this disparity is systemic 
and other issues are simply interpersonal. For example, the 
nutritionist assigned to my team when I started at Vanderbilt was also 
assigned to the football team. While I have seen her pick up food for 
the football players and even draw smiley faces on their sandwiches, I 
had some trouble scheduling a meeting with her to discuss my 
nutritional needs. There was also an issue a few years ago when only 
the football team was allowed to have breakfast in the athlete dining 
hall even though there were womens' teams who also had morning 
practice. After some requests were made by the women's soccer team, all 
athletes are now permitted to use the dining hall for all three meals. 
Although I do not believe either of these anecdotes reflect a malicious 
or sexist intent on behalf of Vanderbilt athletics, I think they speak 
to the fact that while our men's teams needs are often top of mind, 
women's teams accommodations can become an afterthought.
Possibilities with NIL Legislation
    One justification provided for some of the gendered disparities in 
treatment is that men's sports often make more money. I think that NIL 
legislation could also be a key element in changing that as well. It's 
well known that the NCAA does not promote women's sports with the same 
vigor that it does their men's sports. I think that if female athletes 
were able to partner with companies to promote their own athletic 
endeavors, that might be a way to supplement the advertising that the 
NCAA neglects to provide and bring more viewers to womens' sports 
events.
    Passing NIL legislation would also likely free student athletes 
from many of their fears surrounding extra benefits and eligibility. 
For example, the way the rules are currently structured, I would not be 
able to advertise as a track coach by saying that I'm a Vanderbilt 
track athlete even though that is what makes me qualified to coach the 
sport. That could be considered getting paid for athletic ability or 
reputation. Especially in sports that don't get as much publicity, this 
is a great way for student athletes to earn some extra money but it's 
currently prohibited. By freeing student athletes from their fears 
surrounding extra benefits rules, NIL legislation also has the 
potential to help student athletes become entrepreneurs and create 
their own opportunities in an arena they already know well--their 
sports.

    The Chair. Thank you.
    Well, I again thank all of you for being here and you each 
hit on very unique aspects of this challenge.
    I think I want to start with you, Mr. McNair. How do you 
think you were successful in getting this legislation through 
in Maryland, focusing on the issue of health care, and how do 
you think, you know, given the new law that is in place there, 
what should we do here to make sure that these standards are 
met across the country?
    Mr. McNair. Well, one of the things--Ms. Cantwell, one of 
the things that I think the reason we had success in Maryland 
was last year we didn't make it out of the House. So that was 
one challenge. It was a lot of ambiguity there.
    However, one of the things that we did this year was as far 
as our actual--we wanted to build that in line with our 
foundation's missions. So our foundation's mission is the 
promotion of awareness education and the prevention around 
heat-related injuries.
    So we stuck to our guns in regards to the player safety and 
wellness component of it and one of the things I was very, very 
adamant about, I didn't want to use my son's name from a 
notoriety perspective. So if it was just going to be name, 
image, and likeness, that was something that we really didn't 
want to focus on because we knew how paramount that the actual 
safety of a student athlete was first.
    You can pretty much, as my panel members up here state, 
that the challenges that they've had. I'm speaking as a parent 
for their safety if the shoe was on the other foot in a sense.
    So I think one of the things is we just have to really stay 
adamant and focused about player safety. What I think at this 
level as opposed to us being individual states, we have to 
create legislation or you all have to create legislation from a 
perspective where it's one system that kind of governs all of 
it because we need a baseline protection system across the 
board for student athletes at all levels of college education 
or college competition.
    The Chair. I think Mr. Gilmore when he was here mentioned, 
you know, that the fact that the statistics show that there 
were 30 deaths, I think, over the last decade plus in this area 
in NCAA while there was only one death at the NFL level.
    Mr. McNair. Correct.
    The Chair. What is it that you think needs to happen to 
make sure that institutions across the country are adhering to 
a standard and enforcing it?
    Mr. McNair. OK. So in regards to the NFL, that was Cory 
Stringer to be specific and the NFL has the resources to put 
the right systems in place financially, the same systems that 
all colleges have in this sense.
    So I think that one of the main things is we can't do a 
one-size-fits-all and I think we can't do a one size fits all 
approach to this in a sense. I just really think that to really 
keep student athletes safe, we have to put the systems in place 
and I don't want to sound redundant, but again that's what I 
really mean. We have to put the baseline systems in place.
    The NCAA has to put the baseline systems in place or the 
states that have this bill but again we don't want to have 52 
different states that protect student athletes.
    I think that I would suggest is follow Maryland's lead and 
put this as a priority. We're not interested in name, image, 
and likeness, and you can wear the type of sneakers you want. 
We need to keep young people safe because again when you have 
young people--and I speak for, I'm sure, all of these--my panel 
members will agree with me, whenever you have any type of 
college sports or sports overall, it's not an issue of what's 
going to happen, it's a matter of when it's going to happen.
    Something is always going to happen and we have to put the 
right systems in place that we're always prepared.
    The Chair. Ms. Chenault, the PAC 12 is usually seen as a 
leader on these issues and yet you're citing still gaps in the 
system, particularly about second opinions and mental health.
    What is it that we need to do, and also on the scholarship 
side, it seems like they have the best scholarships and yet 
you're telling me that the system still can be undermined.
    Ms. Chenault. Yes, thank you, Senator. I think there 
definitely needs to be a national bill put in place. I think 
the autonomy can't be put in place just for the institutions to 
take up individually. When that happens, especially in this 
system where athletes do not have the power within the system, 
the athletes are always going to be put on the back burner or 
put at a state of disadvantage.
    So I think there should be a widespread bill that, like Mr. 
McNair stated, from a health and safety standpoint can take the 
precedent of Maryland, from an NIL state standpoint, I think it 
can take the precedent of California's SB-206, and I think just 
for the quality across the Nation in fairness, it should be 
implemented at a nationwide standpoint.
    So that is definitely something that I think is an 
opportunity for change here and correction in the future.
    The Chair. And I wanted to ask in those instances that you 
were referring to, both in your own situation or the, you know, 
case with the meniscus, do you think that people knew who to go 
to to talk to at the university, besides the coaching team? Did 
you think of anybody that you could go to and approach at the 
university?
    Ms. Chenault. I don't think athletes really trust that many 
professionals at the institution. I think there's a big fear 
from athletes that it will all come back to their coaches or in 
some way have a financial implication on their end regarding 
their scholarship or playing time or whatever the case may be 
that will limit their ability to play or do what they love to 
do.
    So I think athletes don't know who else to go to. They 
aren't referenced anybody else outside or externally that they 
can go to, as well, for medical help and assistance. So I think 
that aspect is really limiting, and I think there should be 
availability for like a third party or a second opinion that 
isn't currently there.
    The Chair. Thank you. Thank you.
    Senator Moran.

                STATEMENT OF HON. JERRY MORAN, 
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM KANSAS

    Senator Moran. Chairwoman, thank you very much. Thank you 
to the panel for being here.
    I recognize that it's probably a circumstance in which 
others have a stronger voice in the topic that we're about. I'm 
pleased to have students and their parents here today, student 
athletes to give us their perspective.
    I was started down a different path but the Senator 
Blumenthal walked in and it caused me to turn to you, Ms. 
Cureton. I'm troubled by your testimony. Senator Blumenthal and 
I chaired and Ranking Members of a subcommittee in the past 
that dealt with sexual assault and abuse of the United States 
Olympics and you mention in your testimony, you describe a 
failure to act in cases of sexual assault and that you've had 
conversations about specific cases that were reported but no 
action was taken.
    Then, Ms. Chenault, in response to the Chairwoman's 
question talking about answering the question about who do you 
go to and lack of trust, I mean, what strikes me here is that 
what we heard from U.S. Olympians was very similar to what 
you're describing today, (1) don't know who to report to, we 
don't trust anybody, we have each other is what it appeared to 
me with the U.S. athletes, Olympic athletes. Seemingly that 
would be true for you but beyond that, there's no one to talk 
to and then, second, sexual assault is or can occur and isn't 
being reported and if reported, nothing is being done.
    To all of you, but maybe, Ms. Cureton, we start with you, 
is there something that it would be helpful for me and the 
Committee to know about that circumstance? I mean, what I saw 
at Michigan State and others in regard to the Olympics is 
shocking to me.
    I just mean, I thought it was--it's terrible to have one 
victim. What I could never understand was why there was more 
than one or where are the adults, if that's the right word, who 
respond to this circumstance and if that's something that we 
ought to know about, I'd like to know about it?
    Ms. Cureton. Yes. Thank you. I think that a bigger part of 
the problem is that we're underestimating the interest of these 
coaches in winning games and we're underestimating the interest 
of the athletic department in protecting their image publicly.
    Athletes are told to report things, like she already 
mentioned, in house, but when it comes down to that, there's 
still the interest that wins out of winning games, keeping your 
job, maintaining the image of the organization that is put over 
the interest of student athlete health and well-being.
    On top of that, like has already been discussed, oftentimes 
we don't know who to report to or report it to an individual 
and then we're told it's being handled and then come to find 
out later on it never got to the Title IX coordinator or we 
don't even know who our Title IX coordinator is.
    So I think that's a lot of gaps in the system in that sense 
and I think the experience with the U.S. Olympic team mirrors 
that of a lot of student athletes of just feeling uncertain of 
who to talk to, who you can trust. It may even come down to 
being with teammates. You don't know if you can trust them 
either, if they're after your spot and who you can have a 
conversation with.
    In the instances and discussions that I had, it was a case 
of assault between teammates. So the coach was even less likely 
probably to act in that scenario. In other instances where it 
may be an act committed by an athlete in the community, there 
is little conversation about how that's being handled properly.
    So like I said, once again, I think it's a lack of athletes 
being made aware of what their rights are and who to go to, and 
I think at times that can be a gap, but I think sometimes 
that's intentional, too.
    Senator Moran. If you experienced or witnessed or were told 
about a sexual assault, would you have been told or are there 
policies in place as to who it should be reported to?
    Ms. Cureton. Yes, there is a policy in place. In my 
experience, though, a lot of student athletes go to whoever 
they feel most comfortable with in the department first, but 
sometimes that doesn't necessarily work to their advantage.
    Just like I said before, the interest of the organization 
are oftentimes at stake.
    Senator Moran. Senator Blumenthal, he may agree with me in 
this, it's very similar to what we heard in our investigation 
of the Olympic circumstance.
    Does anybody else have any comments that I should hear 
about this? Mr. McNair?
    Mr. McNair. Oh, yes. So one of the main things, Senator 
Moran, Senator Blumenthal, as well, as a parent, let's not 
forget these are still children and these are still kids.
    So again no matter how tall they are, at the end of the day 
my son was 6, 5", 300 pounds. He wore size 16 shoes, but he was 
still 19. So again, you know, one of the things in Maryland 
that--a bill was passed last year, I believe in 2019, it was 
called the Jordan McNair Act, and what that does is because of 
our situation or our scenario at the University of Maryland 
that particular time, you have a hotline that student athletes 
can call and they can call without fear of retribution in the 
fact of a situation like this.
    So maybe that should be something that we should implement 
in this level of legislation that you can without any--you can 
call if you feel uncomfortable or something that may happen 
that you don't know who to report to, but again you can call 
this number without fear of retribution, without a coach 
telling you, you know, don't bite the hand that feeds you and 
all of the mind games that half the coaching staff plays on our 
student athletes.
    But at the end of the day, let's not forget these are young 
people and a lot of times when these things happen to them, 
this is basically unfortunately a lot of times their first real 
reality to life, that the world isn't a pretty place and a lot 
of times when this initially happens, who do they report this 
to? So they usually turn on each other and as parents, I think 
we take the onus, as well, because we'll ask--I never thought 
to ask Jordan about this thing in particular. You ask 
questions. How was school? How was practice? You'll get a one-
line answer.
    So if you're not asking a definitive questioning by saying 
do you feel uncomfortable, is somebody making you feel 
uncomfortable, is there something that is going on that you 
feel uncomfortable about that you should share. So we're not 
asking these questions, you know, we'll get this type of 
result.
    Senator Moran. Thank you for the reminder of the value of 
parenting.
    Mr. McNair. Thank you.
    Senator Moran. Chairwoman, thank you.
    The Chair. I want to thank you, Senator Moran and Senator 
Blumenthal, for your work on the Olympic bill and, Ms. Cureton, 
I just want you to know it's intolerable that there could be 
evidence of a sexual assault and it was not responded to by 
institutions. We are not going to tolerate that and I will work 
with my colleagues here in our oversight role on these 
institutions to make sure that all incidents are reported and 
dealt with and communication about how they're being dealt with 
is there.
    Senator Blumenthal.

             STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, 
                 U.S. SENATOR FROM CONNECTICUT

    Senator Blumenthal. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and 
thank you for having this hearing.
    I think it is typical of your leadership, Senator Cantwell, 
that you are asking the people most directly affected, the 
lives who are impacted to talk to us about what this issue 
means.
    I want to thank my colleague, Senator Moran, for being here 
today and for his partnership on this issue, and, Mr. McNair, I 
want to thank you particularly for being here. I should mention 
that the Jordan McNair Safe and Fair Play Act passed by 
Maryland was bipartisan. This cause should be bipartisan. We 
should all feel the grief and the anger that brings you here 
today.
    I have four children. They've all played sports. With every 
one of them and the countless hours I've spent watching their 
moments when I hold my breath when something happens to them, 
as every one of you who are parents and your friends and loved 
ones have, as well, and today every one of you, your eloquence 
should motivate our colleagues to be here in spirit and to Mark 
Emmert, you should be listening. You should be listening with 
your heart to the coaches and college administrators and 
college presidents. You should be listening to these voices and 
seeing these faces because they speak for America.
    The colleges are in a race with each other to recruit and 
they're now coming to the table because they face a patchwork 
of state laws that is desperately inconvenient for them in a 
monetary sense, but your testimony shows that athletes want 
more than just to be shown the money. It's about futures and 
careers and basic health and safety standards.
    Ms. Chenault, I couldn't say it better than your testimony 
when you say after the grief of losing a friend to suicide, 
``This is when I realized that these issues around athlete 
health were not tenuous ones but matters of life and death.''
    More than just NIL standards, we need basic health and 
safety standards. We need guarantees of educational opportunity 
so that athletes will be more than just a slab of meat. As my 
colleague, Senator Booker, has said, the billions of dollars 
that colleges make from college sports are the result of the 
blood, sweat, and tears of athletes like yourselves.
    So my hope is that we'll do more than just NIL, that we 
will have health and safety standards, that we will have a 
medical trust fund, that we will have guaranteed educational 
opportunities so that the scholarships last beyond just the 4-
years that people may spend in school, and so that your son, 
Mr. McNair, will be remembered for the courage that he showed 
on the field but also your courage in making his memory count 
here.
    Let me ask each of you, is the current NCAA system working? 
Isn't a critical part of what's needed here enforcement, in 
other words, accountability? The standards for education, for 
health care need to be enforced.
    Would you support the College Athlete Bill of Rights with 
those standards and with enforcement mechanisms? I'll ask each 
of you to respond.
    Ms. Chenault. Yes. I can go first. Thank you, Senator.
    I definitely would support the College Athlete Bill of 
Rights. I think the NCAA right now, the system is working for 
how it is currently built, which is on injustice and inequity 
and exploitation, which is why I think it is of paramount 
importance to be able to enact this bill of rights for college 
athletes across the Nation.
    I definitely think the biggest issue is the lack of 
accountability. Once it is left to just institutions 
specifically, that is, I think, the biggest issue. So I would a 
hundred percent support the bill of rights for college 
athletes, and I think it's not just a want for athletes. I 
definitely think this is a bipartisan act, and I think it's a 
need for all athletes in the future.
    Senator Blumenthal. Ms. Cureton?
    Ms. Cureton. Yes, thank you, Senator.
    I completely agree. I think that the system, it's 
intentional that a lot of the decisions are being left to 
institutions because it takes the responsibility off of the 
NCAA, and it makes it more difficult for enforcement measures. 
I think it's obvious that the NCAA is more concerned with 
enforcing matters of athletes monetizing their NIL as opposed 
to these issues that we're discussing of health care and health 
and safety. So, yes, I would a hundred percent support the 
student athlete bill of rights.
    Senator Blumenthal. Mr. McNair?
    Mr. McNair. Senator Blumenthal, of course I do. I'll say 
one thing. When Jordan passed, the NCAA insurance policy for 
all the student athletes is $10,000. The life of a student 
athlete of an organization that makes hundreds of millions of 
dollars on the industry is only worth $10,000. Of course I 
support the bill. It's needed.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thank you.
    Ms. Brown. Yes, I also support the student athlete bill of 
rights. I have had a fantastic experience at Vanderbilt thus 
far, but I don't think that's because of the NCAA. I think 
that's because of Vanderbilt and I think everyone deserves the 
sort of safety and enjoyment that I've found playing college 
sports and clearly as we've spoken about today, that's not true 
for everyone and it should be.
    Thank you.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thank you. My time has expired. I have 
more questions. If we have an opportunity to ask them, I will, 
but again I just want to express my profound thanks to each of 
you for being here today, and I might just say in closing, Mr. 
McNair, there's a saying that we die twice. The first is when 
we take our last breath. The second is when we are forgotten. 
Jordan will not be forgotten. He's a part of what we need to 
keep in mind here.
    Thank you.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Klobuchar.

               STATEMENT OF HON. AMY KLOBUCHAR, 
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM MINNESOTA

    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Chair Cantwell, and 
thank you for holding this important hearing, second hearing 
which I think hearing these witnesses was really necessary.
    I'll start where Senator Blumenthal ended with you, Mr. 
McNair, and I want to extend my condolences on the loss of your 
son and thank you. It takes a lot of courage to share your 
views after what happened and I know you just talked about the 
help that would come from a bill like this, but could you talk 
about some of the additional types of support that should be in 
place to ensure the well-being of students?
    Mr. McNair. Yes, I believe that in regards to your 
question, Senator, so that the extra things, even in regards to 
what Senator Booker and Senator Blumenthal talk about, the type 
of injuries, when you look at heat stroke, you look at brain 
injury, and you look at various other injuries that student 
athletes will unfortunately, you know, may come across in a 
sense, these are things that realistically--these things need 
to be diagnosed, as Ms. Chenault just said, these are things 
that added to the bill that should be acknowledged to the point 
because so many players and so many programs, the athletic 
trainers may be telling people to come back or student athletes 
to return to play long before they're ready to return and play.
    I remember when Coach Mike Locksley took over again as 
University of Maryland head coach and he called me, asked me, 
he said basically what do you want me to do, and the first 
thing that I asked him to do, I said, ``Coach, you've got to 
get a team doctor just for the team and second you have to get 
a mental health professional just for the team.'' Those are 
things that you cannot take lightly and those are things that 
are paramount because young people at the end of the day, I'm 
speaking as a parent right now, young people are young people 
regardless of their size and their athletic ability. These are 
young people and they're just probably at the second leg or the 
second journey of their life where they still need parental 
supervision or parental guidance or the guidance of people that 
have their best interests at heart. So those are the things 
that should be added and not be taken lightly.
    Senator Klobuchar. Exactly. Well, thank you, and, Ms. 
Cureton, just following up on the words of Mr. McNair there, in 
your testimony, you highlighted the need to educate coaches on 
the health needs of student athletes, including mental health 
needs.
    What do you think needs to be done to help support the 
mental health of student athletes?
    Ms. Cureton. Thank you, Senator. As Mr. McNair already 
mentioned, the need to have mental health professionals onsite 
is incredibly important. We have one in-house at Georgetown but 
she is one person and still unable to meet the needs of the 
over 700 student athletes.
    As far as coaches are concerned, I believe there's a 
dangerous culture in athletics, that a lot of times motivates 
athletes to (1) push through injuries but (2) accept 
mistreatment because they believe it's just part of the 
culture.
    I mentioned in my testimony that I've heard coaches make 
comments like ``the only reason you're at Georgetown is because 
we gave you this scholarship,'' which is particularly 
demoralizing to a group of predominantly black female athletes 
in a predominantly white space.
    There have also been comments made about weight without any 
consideration for how that may affect an individual's mental 
health.
    So when I talk about educating coaches, I'm going above and 
beyond at having these conversations about how the words that 
they say and the actions they take can impact student athletes.
    The examples that I mentioned, some coaches may look at 
that and be like, oh, that's really not that big of a deal and 
they struggle to see the fault in it and that's just the 
baseline. It goes all the way up to what we would probably 
consider abuse in the student athlete community that athletes 
endure under this idea that it's just a part of playing a 
sport.
    Senator Klobuchar. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Ms. Brown, in your 
testimony, you highlighted the disparities in something Senator 
Cantwell mentioned between male and female athletes with 
respect to access to facilities and health care.
    In your view, how would allowing student athletes to profit 
from their name, image, and likeness help close that gender pay 
gap?
    Ms. Brown. I think part of what the issue in gender is, is 
just that because right now as we spoke about earlier, men's 
football and basketball are sort of the banner sports. That's 
where your attention is drawn. I'm sure you'll get asked more 
questions about them. At least football is sort of like the 
biggest team I think on our campus.
    By allowing student athletes the opportunity to better sort 
of explore their own avenues of revenue or other items outside 
of the college like individual setting, you're empowering them. 
So even if it's not necessarily that, I don't know, Vanderbilt 
is going to give me more money or something like that, if I can 
go outside to, say, I don't know, Nike or Athleta and ask and 
know from there that I am valued, I can bring that sense of 
value back to my school if for some reason my school isn't 
providing it, if that makes sense.
    Senator Klobuchar. Mm-hmm. Kind of like there are a lot of 
women consumers out there that might be interested in you and 
your image outside of who plays on the male football teams is, 
I think, one way to think about it, so, and that could then 
help get more interest in women's sports since that's used as 
the argument.
    All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Senator 
Cantwell.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Tester.

                 STATEMENT OF HON. JON TESTER, 
                   U.S. SENATOR FROM MONTANA

    Senator Tester. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to thank 
everybody for being here today, very much appreciate it.
    I'm just curious. This isn't in my questions. I'm just 
curious. Ms. Chenault, what athletic sport did you excel in?
    Ms. Chenault. Track and field.
    Senator Tester. Track and field, hurdler?
    Ms. Chenault. Heptathlete, a little bit of everything.
    Senator Tester. Sounds tough. Ms. Brown?
    Ms. Brown. Track and field. I'm a 400 meter sprinter.
    Senator Tester. OK. And Ms. Cureton?
    Ms. Cureton. Women's basketball.
    Senator Tester. Cool. Well, I want to thank you all for 
being here. I could pick any one of you to ask my first set of 
questions to but I'll ask Ms. Chenault.
    In the testimony you talked about not getting--I don't want 
to put words in your mouth but not getting an equivalent 
education as other people who weren't student athletes. Can you 
explain why that is? Is that because practice time was so 
intense and it's much longer than the 20 hours, I think it's 20 
hours, that they're required or is it because trips were 
scheduled with no sort of respect for the academic achievement 
or is it something else?
    Ms. Chenault. Thank you, Senator. I think it's a 
combination of actually what you just spoke about. First is the 
fault line of college athletes being told that there are only 
20 hours of a week practice schedules. I think all athletes 
know that's not true. We definitely exude way more than 20 
hours a week of just athletically related and dedicated time.
    I know the PAC 12 did a study recently of the past couple 
years that proved that it was closer to 40 to 50 hours of 
athletically related time.
    Senator Tester. Can I ask you are the administrators or 
anybody paying attention to how much practice time is actually 
occurring because it's no secret, it is no secret that you guys 
spend a lot of time in your sport?
    Ms. Chenault. Yes. I think it's because the policy right 
now shows that it's just 20 hours maybe on the track or the 
field or the court. So that doesn't include necessarily all the 
time watching film or all the time where you are doing rehab or 
ice bathing or doing whatever you have to do to prepare fully. 
So there is a loophole kind of in that system that I think all 
colleges do take advantage of since it is a race to produce the 
highest athlete at all cost culture.
    Senator Tester. And isn't there also an unspoken, maybe 
it's not even unspoken, maybe it's spoken, that if you're not 
willing to put in the extra time, you might not be on the team?
    Ms. Chenault. Yes. I think a lot of colleges use the, like, 
trust the process to get buy-in from a lot of their athletes 
and from an athlete standpoint, I don't think they realize 
right away or athletes, we don't realize right away that this 
is a form of educational exploitation.
    We buy into that culture and then it's not until they are 
faced with the career realities of having to completely start 
over, especially if you do not go professional as an athlete, 
that you were not put in the best position to be able to excel.
    Senator Tester. Were you a full-time student as well as a 
scholarship athlete?
    Ms. Chenault. Yes, I was.
    Senator Tester. What percentage of classes do you think you 
missed because of the fact that you were a scholarship athlete?
    Ms. Chenault. Probably in winter quarter, since UCLA is 
built on quarters, we traveled Thursday through Sunday, so when 
I say we are allowed to--we're educationally tracked. I can't 
take a major or I can't be in a major that requires my 
attendance on Thursday or Friday which is two out of the 5-days 
and a lot of classes being Tuesday-Thursday or Wednesday-
Friday. So it narrows down a lot of opportunities, maybe 10-20 
percent of classes.
    Senator Tester. OK. I appreciate that information.
    Mr. McNair, my sincere condolences to your family. I 
remember when your son----
    Mr. McNair. Thank you.
    Senator Tester.--passed. I remember seeing that. I'm in 
Montana and I remember seeing that story about a Maryland 
football player and I can tell you that health and safety and 
humidity and heat are not something--I mean humidity and heat's 
not something I deal with. I'm way too Nordic for that stuff, 
OK, and so when you have a student athlete that's out there on 
the field that's under distress, under stress, as your son 
absolutely had to be, this didn't happen like that, it happened 
over a period of time.
    The question I have is that you were probably in the living 
room when they recruited your son.
    Mr. McNair. Kitchen table.
    Senator Tester. Kitchen table.
    Mr. McNair. Yes, sir.
    Senator Tester. Did they talk about this at all to you 
about the safety and health of your son?
    Mr. McNair. No, and the reason that they didn't talk is 
because as a parent, I didn't ask, so, and that's one of the 
things I believe I speak for all parents in America where we 
don't ask these questions in the event that something happens 
to my child, what systems do you have, what safety systems do 
you have in place?
    I'm like the typical parent in America, only ask two 
questions. Can Jordan get some playing time, and I asked 
another question in regards to mental health and substance 
abuse support just because that's my field of business in a 
sense, but again I never thought to ask that because it's like 
I think I speak for all parents in America today, I assume that 
those systems were in place.
    Senator Tester. I was just going to say you didn't have to 
ask, you should have known, they should have known that this is 
a high priority. Our children are what we live for and I would 
just say that in your particular case, being able to set up 
this foundation in honor of your son is incredibly commendable 
and something I think athletes all over the country and 
families and parents all over the country very much appreciate.
    I yield back, Madam Chair.
    Mr. McNair. Thank you.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Baldwin.

               STATEMENT OF HON. TAMMY BALDWIN, 
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM WISCONSIN

    Senator Baldwin. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    A lot of the discussion of name, image, and likeness 
centers on those athletes who already have perhaps the most 
public recognition, star players of men's college football and 
basketball teams, and what monetizing NIL might mean for them, 
their programs and their institutions.
    But I'd like to focus on something that has been raised by 
the testimony of the current and former female student athletes 
before us today and, by the way, how great it is to have three 
of you here representing the perspectives of college athletes. 
Really it's great.
    Despite the incredible progress we've seen under Title IX, 
which is nearly 50 years old, women's athletic programs and 
women athletes still experience second-class status all too 
often. While I think that there's a lot we can and should do to 
further the promise of equity under Title IX itself, I'm 
encourage by the idea that NIL rights could give women athletes 
another way to raise their profile and that of their sports, 
achieve greater parity with male athletes and advance their 
athletic careers.
    So starting with you, Ms. Chenault, given your experiences 
both as student athlete and with sports media and business 
development, how do you see the NIL rights issue as a way to 
advance equity and opportunity for women athletes?
    Ms. Chenault. Yes, thank you, Senator. I think to your 
point, female athletes definitely can take advantage of NIL if 
it was enacted. The focus right now definitely is around the 
revenue-producing male athletes but especially because there is 
a disparity between men's and women's sports.
    I think it would help women's sports even more. For that 
reason as a female athlete within the sports media landscape, 
it was extremely difficult not being able to monetize anything 
just from a business standpoint. There was no aspect of 
sustainability.
    So I think if female athletes were given the opportunity to 
have the rights to their name, image, and likeness, they would 
be able to build their platforms more, be able to build 
businesses. I think they would be able to have creative 
outlets. They aren't just limited strictly to like an athlete 
mentality and that's something that can help them long term.
    Senator Baldwin. Excellent. I'd love to hear your opinions, 
Ms. Cureton and Ms. Brown.
    Ms. Cureton. Yes, I believe Ms. Chenault has covered that 
very substantially, but like I mentioned in my testimony, less 
than 2 percent of NCAA athletes will have the opportunity to 
play professionally and when we look at sports that don't even 
have a professional level, the best years for athletes to 
monetize are during those 4 years in college and like Senator 
Klobuchar already mentioned, for women's sports this is a great 
opportunity to reach into a new market and to be able to brand 
yourself and to create financial stability for yourself 
following your college experience. So this is definitely an 
opportunity for women to get more exposure.
    I believe right now women's sports gets about 4 percent of 
the media coverage, even though we make up 40 percent of the 
actual athletic market. So this is another way that we can get 
our name out there and better advertise our sport so that way 
we can get, you know, better facilities since apparently that's 
the reason why we're not receiving those.
    Senator Baldwin. Yes. Thank you. Ms. Brown?
    Ms. Brown. Thank you. Yes, I just think that NIL 
legislation would give female student athletes and all student 
athletes the freedom to better create their images and actually 
have control over them.
    We already have social media, Instagram, TikTok. Even if we 
have those followings, we're not able to sort of do more with 
them maybe in the ways that people want to and I think we 
should have the freedom to have those opportunities.
    Senator Baldwin. Excellent. I'd now like to turn to the 
topic of meeting the health and safety needs of our student 
athletes.
    While I believe we must ensure that every student has 
access to the health services they need, I recognize that 
student athletes may have more and different health needs than 
their colleagues.
    Ms. Cureton, you noted in your testimony the importance of 
addressing both physical and mental health in college 
athletics. While all college students face some level of 
anxiety and stress and pressure to perform, I imagine those 
participating in sports particularly experience those issues 
differently.
    Why do you think it's important to focus on meeting the 
mental health needs of student athletes?
    Ms. Cureton. I think it's important for a variety of 
reasons. I think the athletic environment is not always 
conducive to a healthy mind and that makes mental health 
awareness and understanding even more important, and I think a 
lot of times athletes are encouraged to have the mindset to be 
strong and push through.
    I know when I first got my injury, I was hesitant to even 
tell my trainer. I was like, oh, I'm not really playing that 
much. It must not be that big of a deal. I pulled a muscle. It 
turned out that my hip bone had died due to a lack of 
circulation. So that's the mindset that I'm approaching, you 
know, my sport with and imagine what that means for an athlete 
that's playing 40 minutes every single game and they feel like 
they're caring the team on their back.
    They may not tell you about that injury because of their 
mental mindset toward it. So it can lead to physical 
implications. When we talk about things like anxiety, stress, 
and depression and all those types of things, the lifestyle 
that we lead as student athletes means that we put a lot of our 
identity into being a student, into being an athlete, and we 
don't take care of that mental portion of ourselves.
    We'll ignore taking care of ourselves if it means we have 
to study an extra hour or if it means we're going to the gym to 
put up extra shots. So that's why mental health is especially 
important and I think during COVID, it was really revealed to 
me through the experiences of my teammates just how important 
that was.
    They were isolated in an effort to be able to continue 
their sport and I think there was definitely a lack of support 
when it came to handling their mental health and even their 
physical health needs during that time.
    Senator Baldwin. Thank you.
    The Chair. Thank you, Senator Baldwin.
    I want to follow up on this since it's come up a couple of 
times about mental health and second opinions and counseling in 
general and obviously the horrific incidents of suicide on 
campus.
    So what do you think the structure should be in the context 
of what do you consider either an ombudsman, a second opinion, 
or a layer that gives you the discretion that you need to 
confide in someone either about your physical or mental health? 
Anybody have any input about that? What do you think that 
structure should look like? Yes, Ms. Chenault.
    Ms. Chenault. Yes, thank you. For one, I think mental 
health shouldn't be reactive. It definitely has to be 
proactive.
    So to Mr. McNair's point, I think there should be like a 
checkup within the athletes that doesn't currently exist rather 
than the athlete having to take the autonomy themselves to go 
search out and find the psychologist, and the second thing is I 
do think the psychologist should be catered specifically to the 
athlete, whether it's by sport, whether it's a sport 
psychologist specifically, or whether it's just the 
representation of like gender or race as an availability or 
option for these athletes to be able to go to so that it's not 
just one person fits all within mental health.
    Ms. Cureton. Yes, I definitely agree. I think in our 
experience we have one woman on staff and she is a white woman 
and in my experience it was good to have someone there, but it 
would have been even better if we had a wide variety of options 
to someone that understands my unique experience as a black 
woman and a female athlete.
    I think there also needs to be better safeguards in place 
on educating staff and coaches about the mental health needs of 
the athletes that they're serving. So it needs to be proactive 
on every front. So just like you get an annual physical, you 
should have the opportunity to meet annually and check up with 
a sports psychologist.
    I think we're putting our mental health secondary as if it 
doesn't impact the way that we function in the same way that a 
sprained ankle would. So I think that needs to be a change and 
a shift in the perspective in how we look at mental health in 
athletics.
    Mr. McNair. Yes, so I believe it boils down to the 
recruiting process. As the young lady just said, I think that 
when you have coaches, they need to be educated to even in the 
recruiting process.
    It's all about questioning. So as I mentioned earlier, I 
didn't ask the right questions and I think that in fear--not in 
fear, but I think that when you have recruiters and coaches 
recruiting student athletes, they need to ask parents like, 
hey, does your child have any mental health issues because a 
lot of times usually what happens, it never comes up until it 
surfaces once your student athlete gets to college when in 
reality I think as a parent, a lot of times they may not want 
to blow the opportunity of their child where they're saying, 
hey, you know, I know they may be experimenting with substances 
or whatever the case may be or they may have a mental health 
challenge beyond what they're taking medication-wise.
    I just think that it needs to be full transparency all 
across the board in regards to the whole process. That way, you 
know a coach or an athletic program knows the person that 
they're dealing with as opposed to finding out when it's too 
late in a sense from a reactionary perspective.
    The Chair. Ms. Brown.
    Ms. Brown. I think they all covered it pretty well. I might 
add maybe having access or at least having the trust or faith 
that there's a wall between sort of whoever works with students 
on their mental health and sort of the coaching staff.
    I think sometimes there's a fear of like what you say 
there, even though you know it's confidential, somehow leaking 
out or somebody finding out you're seeing one, that becomes an 
issue on your team. So just making sure there's the trust and 
like sort of the feeling of safety is there for the athletes so 
they know this is someone they can go to and it won't affect 
how they're treated on their team or something like that.
    The Chair. So that's really what I was getting at. So thank 
you for bringing that up.
    I think both on the health care side--I mean, well, broadly 
on health care, physical and mental, what do we--so we've had a 
lot of discussion with a lot of athletes about this and one of 
the things we've talked about is the second opinion from 
somebody at the university and some athletes have said, well, 
that might not even be, you know, enough distance, depending on 
whether you trust that individual not to go back or, you know, 
the implications of the university care.
    So can this be somebody at the university or it has to be 
outside the university?
    Ms. Chenault. Personally, I think it has to be someone 
outside of the university, yes, because when we look at the 
power dynamics of the university from the individual athlete 
level, then you have a coach, then you have the AD, then you 
still have like the chancellor of the school. So even for a lot 
of these issues that we've talked about, if the athlete brought 
it up to the coach and if the coach actually agreed and brought 
it up to the AD and there's still limitation, I think, from the 
top down of protecting the image of the institution as a whole. 
So I do think it would have to be outside.
    The Chair. OK. Anybody else on that point?
    Ms. Cureton. Yes. I think the key point is just making sure 
that they're accessible to athletes. So that's kind of what I 
worry about. I think before we had a sports psychologist, our 
model was that they could refer you to an outside individual 
but you had to ask for that. So sometimes I think that having 
someone that's there and present within your community might be 
easier as far as accessibility is concerned, but maybe having 
them be accountable to someone else. Like they're not 
accountable to your athletic director when it comes to talking 
about different things might be the route to go, but I do agree 
that the power dynamics are something that are worth 
considering, but I think accessibility also needs to be 
prioritized.
    The Chair. So clear independence.
    Ms. Cureton. Yes.
    The Chair. So an ombudsman of sort could work or, you know, 
someone at the institution who is seen to have that unique 
role, not reporting into that system.
    Ms. Chenault. Yes.
    The Chair. OK. Mr. McNair.
    Mr. McNair. Yes. I agree with what they both said. I think 
that you definitely need to have an ombudsman or an outside 
health system that attends to these matters, especially with 
these types of things, because as the young lady just said, 
it's that tier system.
    I know I can speak for--I can't speak for but I know one 
word, one phrase, a lot of athletic directors don't really want 
to hear is lack of institutional control and it's kind of like 
how did you miss that and again that makes the image of the 
organization or the school look bad.
    The Chair. Thank you. Thank you. And, Ms. Brown, do you 
have anything else to add to that? You kind of started us off, 
so we're good. OK.
    Senator Blumenthal.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks so much.
    Let me follow that line of questioning, if I may. I think 
what we're talking about here is accountability and the College 
Athlete Bill of Rights provides for a commission, independent 
of the NCAA, independent of the colleges, to investigate and 
take action to penalize and hold accountable colleges.
    There's a saying, history doesn't repeat but it rhymes. 
What's rhyming here for me is our experience in the Olympic 
athletes' bill where the colleges and the trainers knew. In 
fact, Michigan State knew about Larry Nasser's misconduct for 
two decades and looked the other way.
    That's what we have in a lot of colleges because they are 
promoting the culture of win at any cost. What they want to do 
is win. That's how they profit. So more than just athlete 
sharing in that monetary profit, we need protection for them.
    Let me quote what Dallas Hobbs wrote to us. ``Athletes are 
scared to share what they are going through because they 
believe they will face repercussions or more harm from those 
above them.''
    The gymnasts who were victims of Larry Nasser were 
petrified to report the abuse because they feared they wouldn't 
be allowed to compete. They would be cut. They would be 
deprived of the opportunity of a lifetime to be part of Olympic 
competition.
    Well, we have exactly the same phenomenon here. Athletes 
who are victims of cutthroat practices injurious to them 
immediately physically but also, as you point out, Ms. 
Chenault, the trajectory of their career is hampered because 
they are forced to major in educational pursuits that are less 
valuable. In effect, their education and their futures are 
compromised and they have no means to complain.
    So that's why I think this issue of enforcement and 
standards is tremendously important and let me ask Mr. McNair 
about the accountability for the athletic department that were 
involved in the death of your son.
    I know this is going to be a little bit--more than a little 
painful for you, but I just want to say the Maryland coach who 
was fired for creating a toxic environment that was at least 
partly responsible for the death of your son was fired, but now 
he's working elsewhere as an assistant coach at another 
university, and my own feeling is that a coach who's 
responsible for the death of an athlete, this is the extreme of 
the phenomenon we're discussing today, should be reported to 
other institutions and should be held accountable but more than 
just that coach, the entire athletic department, as many of you 
said, the entire chain of command should be held responsible. 
Would you agree?
    Mr. McNair. Yes.
    Senator Blumenthal. And the way to do it is through a 
commission, an independent body. We've talked about an 
ombudsman, but a commission in effect is an ombudsman that can 
provide for due process and fairness but at the same time 
impose accountability.
    I hope that the athletes who are here today would agree 
with that idea.
    Ms. Chenault. Yes, I do.
    Ms. Cureton. Yes, as well.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thank you.
    Ms. Brown. Yes.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thank you all very, very much. Very 
meaningful and important testimony today. Thank you.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    So I want to go back over on the issue of NIL rights in 
general because I want to get a few things for the record. I 
know we have a couple of other colleagues who are on their way.
    One, do you all support getting a Federal law in place? Ms. 
Chenault?
    Ms. Chenault. Yes, I do.
    Ms. Cureton. Yes, I believe that having a uniform Federal 
law would be beneficial for all student athletes.
    Mr. McNair. Yes, I do, as well.
    Ms. Brown. Agreed. I think uniformity is important.
    The Chair. Thank you. And then one of the issues that also 
often comes up is how you define NIL rights and not to get into 
the legal ramifications of fair market value, but there are 
also issues about making sure that boosters or other people 
don't artificially influence the value or create a system where 
somebody's attracting someone to come to a school just, you 
know, for that specific purpose.
    Do you have any thoughts on that, Ms. Chenault or anybody 
else, on how you see the California law and definition playing 
out now?
    Ms. Chenault. I think I can go first. I think there should 
not be too many limitations on NIL just because if it is left 
to the institutions, like I've stated, that it won't be 
implemented equally or fairly across the Nation.
    I think, of course, there are some precautions just to make 
sure that there is fairness for the athlete, too, and the 
institutions. So I think as long as the athletes are kept in 
mind first rather than just the institutions or the posturing 
of the institutions that really might just be trying to take 
away freedoms from the athlete is kept in mind, then I think 
the widespread NIL rights that California is implementing would 
be successful.
    The Chair. So you're aware that then some states are 
actually within the NIL right limiting the students and not 
just if they conflict but basically giving institutions any 
ability to say they conflict which then would thereby be 
limiting the rights?
    Ms. Chenault. Yes, exactly. So that's why I think it should 
be nationwide of kind of an implementation like California 
because I think that posturing the other states are taking 
saying that athletes shouldn't be given like full rights to 
their name, image, and likeness would have long-term 
implications that really would just limit NIL's implementation 
as a whole.
    The Chair. Ms. Cureton.
    Ms. Cureton. Yes. I think that a lot of the problems that 
we discussed here today when we talk about pay for play and 
amateurism and that's brought up by institutions, I feel like 
sometimes those words are thrown around not really in the 
interest of student athletes as actually protecting and 
preventing those instances but more in line with protecting the 
institution and retaining their control over NIL rights.
    So as long as, like Ms. Chenault already mentioned, we put 
athletes first and we prioritize their right to monetize their 
NIL, and we're considering restrictions and things like that, I 
think that's the most important approach to a national 
legislation.
    The Chair. And you mean by restrictions, meaning?
    Ms. Cureton. When we're talking about preventing, you know, 
pay for play and things like that, I think that institutions 
will use that word as kind of like a buzz word and maybe 
sometimes it is a real concern but other times I think it could 
be more about limiting the rights of student athletes.
    The Chair. OK.
    Ms. Cureton. Yes.
    The Chair. Anybody else on that point? Ms. Brown, anything 
on that?
    Ms. Brown. I guess one thing I'd add is I think sometimes 
in discussing like concern over how student athletes are going 
to manage their money, I think there's an opportunity here to 
like teach student athletes about how to understand the 
business side of sports because they already like are pretty 
well versed in how their sport works and they sort of know, I 
think, a lot more than people give us credit for about how 
things work.
    So I think rather than letting the institutions sort of 
limit how we can use our name, image, and likeness, I think 
there could be--I don't know if this would be a legal thing or 
just sort of come out later, but we could be allowed to learn, 
I think, about how NIL would work and be given workshops and 
that sort of thing. I don't think we should be limited in terms 
of how we can use it. Maybe just taught or guided in terms of 
how best it works.
    The Chair. Yes. Mr. Gilmore brought this point up last 
week, too, about, you know, institutions who basically are 
going to say you can't have NIL rights if you don't go and take 
some classes on finance first and so I think he was very 
outspoken and pointed on that.
    Our colleague, Senator Lujan, has arrived. Senator Lujan.

               STATEMENT OF HON. BEN RAY LUJAN, 
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW MEXICO

    Senator Lujan. Thank you, Chair Cantwell, for this 
important follow-up hearing so we can hear from students and 
families directly affected by this issue.
    Mr. McNair, I want to thank you for being here, as well, 
and lifting up your son's memory. You're telling stories that 
people need to hear and you're helping students along the way 
and want to thank you for that.
    To the three other current athletes and former athletes, I 
guess once you're doing this, you're always doing this with 
your advocacy. I want to thank you and very much appreciate 
that we also have a D1 track and field athlete here.
    You know, we sometimes forget those national championships 
that I know we're all rooting for and watching and we had some 
athletes from New Mexico recently competing and I think that we 
often leave track and field out of these conversations. So it's 
good to see you all here.
    On July 1 of this last year, New Mexico will be among the 
first to allow student athletes to be compensated for the use 
of their name, image, and likeliness. You know, back home when 
we see these incredible athletes and they're on billboards and 
then you talk to some of these student athletes, they can't 
afford to grab a bite to eat, there's something wrong, and with 
it my home state will become a leader on this national issue.
    Congress must ensure all students across the country have a 
fair shot. However, we cannot settle for a national solution 
that falls short or otherwise undermines solutions advanced by 
states like New Mexico. Our students deserve better and I'm 
committed to making sure that happens.
    Ms. Chenault, at UCLA you competed in a wide variety of 
events on the field. What's more, off the field you worked 
diligently to ensure the needs of all athletes and were part of 
the national conversation. You highlighted the experiences of 
students who are experiencing mental health problems and racial 
inequalities to make sure their voices are heard. This is 
critical work. I applaud you for it.
    I believe any legislation we pass here should benefit all 
students with rights over their name, image, and likeliness, 
benefit athletes across a wide variety of sports.
    Do you believe in that, yes or no?
    Ms. Chenault. Yes, I do.
    Senator Lujan. What more can Congress do to ensure future 
legislation helps all student athletes?
    Ms. Chenault. I think it's just enacting kind of what you 
were talking about for New Mexico and also California. What 
they are doing, it's making sure that it is equal and the 
language in the legislation is equally treated across all 
states.
    Senator Lujan. Ms. Cureton, in many of the big ticket 
sports, like basketball, football, minority athletes make up 
the majority of the players on the field, athletes of color.
    In your testimony, you highlight the importance of thinking 
of student athlete rights as a racial justice issue. It's 
critical to acknowledge this.
    How have past actions by the NCAA over students' rights to 
their name, image, and likeness impact athletes of color?
    Ms. Cureton. I think the biggest way is the restrictions 
that they've placed on them. I think Ms. Chenault also 
mentioned in her testimony how it disproportionately affects 
low-income and athletes of color and female athletes, these 
restrictions that are placed on them, but when we talk about 
like the big ticket sports in general and the revenue that 
these athletes bring in, I believe it's estimated that March 
Madness brings in about $1 billion annually off of the TV ads 
and everything considered and everyone around those student 
athletes are normally white. I believe 71 percent of head 
coaches in men's basketball in the NCAA at the Division 1 level 
are white while 58 percent of the athletes are black.
    So when you're generating that much money and you're not 
even seeing anything from it as far as the use of your name, 
image, and likeness is concerned, I believe that negatively 
impacts you. As you mentioned just previously, there are 
athletes who have their own struggles as far as income is 
concerned. Oftentimes they're at school trying to get the 
scholarship in the hopes that they'll be able to give back to 
their families and support their families. So when there's an 
inability to provide themselves with another income, you're 
putting them at a disadvantage.
    Senator Lujan. Ms. Chenault, as part of your work off the 
field, you worked hard to highlight those challenges the 
student athletes are facing. In particular, you've done a lot 
of important work to highlight the mental health challenges 
athletes all across the country are going through.
    It's unacceptable that students feel like they can't rely 
on the very institutions that they're working so hard to 
represent on the national stage.
    How should colleges and the NCAA work to better improve 
student athletes' access to mental health services?
    Ms. Chenault. Yes. I think one of the first things is 
definitely the educational training of the coaches. One of the 
things I mentioned in my testimony is that mental health 
shouldn't be left up to non-mental health professionals or the 
jurisdiction of non-mental health professionals or the 
subjectivity, I guess, of non-mental professionals.
    So I think that education can help change that culture that 
doesn't highlight or really isn't very accepting of mental 
health within the athlete space. So I think that is one, and I 
think the biggest thing when it comes to mental health for 
athletes is allowing them to feel safe and allowing them to 
feel heard and so whether that be just through the 
representation of gender and racial mental health professionals 
that they have access to or whether that be from third party 
mental health professionals that they can trust.
    So I think either of those implementations would definitely 
help mental health of athletes from a day-to-day standpoint.
    Senator Lujan. Appreciate that. And, Ms. Brown, you know, 
you gave a powerful testimonial today, as well.
    What have you heard from fellow athletes, whether they're 
competing with you, alongside you at track and field, or in 
other sports, as well, from the institution that you attend?
    Ms. Brown. About what specifically?
    Senator Lujan. Just in general, how they feel, how tough 
times can be when they're not being allowed to be compensated 
when, you know, we know how expensive those tickets are when we 
go watch you all compete, and like I said, they're just 
struggling trying to get by.
    Do you have any of those stories that you've heard that 
also moved you that you're helping to carry today?
    Ms. Brown. So I know that I'm speaking from a place of 
privilege where I can sort of afford those flights. My parents 
are able to do that for me, but I have teammates who sort of 
don't go home as much as they'd like to maybe because that's a 
bigger expense for them and also we don't really have time to 
get jobs, a lot of us. So I just think the NIL legislation is 
another way that we can sort of monetize what we're already 
putting much more than 20 hours in a week a lot of times to do 
and I think we deserve that opportunity.
    But, yes, I don't want to speak too much on that just 
because it's not my experience. That's what I'd say.
    Senator Lujan. Appreciate that. Chair Cantwell, if I may 
ask Mr. McNair one other question, as well.
    Sir, with the work that you've done and the memory of 
Jordan, with the work the family's doing here, sir, what have 
you learned with this foundation and what can we better be 
doing to make sure that we're respecting athletes and providing 
them that support that they've earned?
    I mean, we're going to these games and I think highly of 
some of these coaches. I don't agree with all of them. It's 
easy for me to Monday morning quarterback, if you will, or call 
from the cheap seats, but I'm there to watch those athletes 
that inspire me and you get to know some of them personally 
and, you know, one of the guys I got to know way back when in 
New Mexico is a guy named Ruben Douglas and Ruben, he played 
around the world. He continues to inspire us and he's doing 
great work in the community, but he helped me understand 
challenges that his fellow athletes were going through, as 
well.
    What can you share with us today that we can be doing 
better?
    Mr. McNair. One of the many things that we've learned, that 
I've learned along the way, as the young people just said, the 
three panelists here with me just said, it's only 2 percent of 
student athletes that get to a professional level.
    So these 4 years are extremely crucial. As the young lady 
just said, the time involved, the time that they commit to the 
school by playing a sport and obviously it's a reciprocal 
relationship. I mean, a reciprocal deal in regards to education 
component of it, but at the end of the day, these are long-term 
ramifications.
    You know, the young lady just said she can't really take 
the major that she wanted to take just due to her commitment to 
her athletic commitment and I just think that what I've learned 
along the way is the value of student empowerment from a 
perspective of this is actual time that you can make something 
happen and, hey, what if one of these young ladies wanted to 
write a book or they played in a band or they wanted to do that 
and they can't be compensated because of their commitments or 
whatever the guidelines or the laws that are in place.
    I just really think that young people's time is precious 
and I really think that we need to support them and really 
maximize that and that's just really what I notice that, you 
know, a lot of young people, they'll put that investment in 
thinking they'll get to the professional level but it's only 2 
percent for the average time in the NFL was 3.5-3.6 years. You 
spend a lifetime for all that and when you're done, you're 
still almost a kid for lack of a better term.
    So you still have a lot of life ahead of you. So if we 
don't put the profit things in place in regards to lifetime 
scholarships, because some people may leave feeling they have 
the opportunity, I need to go right now, whether I got my 
degree or not, so I just think it's more important as a parent 
or as a committee, as someone said, that we support these young 
people along the way and not only support them for right now, 
support them for the long term.
    Senator Lujan. And, Chair Cantwell, I never played college 
sports, I'm a little short, I'm a little wide at this seam. 
Growing up I had the honor of competing with some incredible 
athletes where we found Junior Olympics and car washes and bake 
sales and whatever we could do to try to earn a buck, mow a 
lawn. That's what allowed us to go and travel to see these 
athletes that we got to watch later run and compete in the 
Olympics.
    Jerseys that we would purchase from friends that we 
watched, they never got a dollar from it, and it's just not 
right, and I think I was the first United States Senator 
elected that went to Head Start. I thought everyone went to 
Head Start. I thought that was a program that everyone went 
for. I didn't know that you had to qualify for that because you 
didn't earn too much dough.
    It's an important perspective that we're bringing here and 
it's an important story that you all are telling. Let's just do 
right by the athletes. Let's do right by students and give them 
a path forward. That's what this is all about.
    I thank you for your testimony today and, Chair Cantwell, 
thank you for the time.
    The Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Lujan. Thank you 
for sharing that personal perspective, and I think that is why 
we're here today to make sure that we're hearing all 
perspectives on this issue.
    So I would be remiss if I didn't ask the women athletes 
here about Title IX and about tournament and tournament play. 
One of the testimonies that's submitted here today is by Sedona 
Prince from Oregon who you may know posted a photograph of 
facilities during the NCAA tournament. It didn't quite look 
like the same facilities that the men were participating in. We 
so appreciate her being outspoken. She's submitted testimony on 
other issues, as well, particularly health care.
    But this brings up an important issue about Title IX and 
its implementation. What else do we need to do? Do we need to 
make sure the NCAA complies with it? Do we make sure that 
tournaments have to comply with it? In your individual athletic 
experiences, what do we need to do to make the enforcement even 
across the board?
    I think, Ms. Brown, you might have mentioned the name of 
the NCAA tournament itself being used only in, you know, one 
instance. You know, I'm a firm believer that the age of the 
internet, there will be lots of opportunities for people to see 
content and absorb content. I'm a huge track fan. I actually 
would love to see more of those events and understand who, you 
know, who are the individual athletes in these events?
    So what needs to be done here on Title IX as it relates to 
the competition and making sure there's a level playing field?
    Ms. Chenault. Thank you, Senator. I think one point of 
consideration that is often overlooked is within Title IX, it 
accounts for football just as a body count, as a head count to 
equate equal amount of representation for female sports, but 
that doesn't equate for like facilities and treatment.
    So within my experience personally, I know we have our own 
football facility and then we have our own basketball facility, 
which, because of Title IX, the women's basketball team is able 
to use that basketball facility, but the entire football 
facility, which is probably maybe two-three times the size as 
the other facility that the rest of the remainder of all the 
other sports combined use, is totally different in regards to 
our training and our treatment.
    All of our training room for all the other sports outside 
of football and basketball have to use that amount of limited 
resources, training, whether that's snacks. We don't have 
access to meals like the football team does. So there is a 
little bit of inequity. Even though Title IX emphasizes the 
importance of equity within head count and body count for male 
and female sports, it doesn't necessarily ensure that the 
resources and the facilities that we're able to use match or 
equate to that level of equity.
    The Chair. So doing something besides head count----
    Ms. Chenault. Mm-hmm.
    The Chair.--is important.
    Ms. Chenault. Definitely.
    The Chair. Yes, Ms. Cureton.
    Ms. Cureton. Yes, I think having the NCAA be required to 
abide by Title IX and making sure that the tournaments are also 
abiding by that policy, as well, would be extremely beneficial.
    I think Ms. Prince's testimony as well as that she 
submitted during the tournament is evidence of that, of women 
being continually treated as an afterthought, but I can say as 
a female athlete that wasn't surprising to me. I didn't expect 
the women's tournament to have the same level of facilities as 
the men's tournament and that's sad to say, but we're just 
aware of that's how we're treated and that's how the system 
usually works.
    So I'm glad that we're able to speak out and my own 
personal experience as far as athletics at Georgetown is 
concerned, like Ms. Chenault already mentioned, I'm a woman's 
basketball player. So when they redid our facility, they had to 
give us the same court and locker room as the men's team.
    When it comes to our living situation, initially until the 
men moved out of the renovated apartments, we stayed in regular 
housing like most students do. So a lot of times we get the 
hand-me-downs from the men's team and that ends up equating to, 
oh, well, it's equal, but there's a feeling of as appreciative 
as we are for the resources we had, when you feel like you're 
an afterthought, it affects you.
    TheChair. I would be curious as to where do you think all 
this can go in the future. I saw this interesting moment that 
I'd really didn't understand. Actually I had a chance to ask 
the Oregon women's basketball coach about this later, but, you 
know, when they have the NCAA tournament and then they have 
this shoot-out event where they basically load up, you know, 
around the horn of basically how many shots can you get off in 
a matter of--I don't know what it is, I don't know how many 
minutes.
    Anyway, so they have this shoot-out tournament and then 
they pick a winner and they have a winner, both the men's and 
the women's division, and then the women and the men face off 
against each other. The women nailed it. The women beat the men 
and asking this coach about this, I guess that's a frequent 
thing.
    Well, for me, somebody who was an observer, had no idea 
that women could outshoot men in that kind of tournament with 
that level of consistency. I thought that was fabulous. I 
thought that was like this great moment.
    So where do you see--you know, if we could empower more, 
you know, of women athletes, you know, particularly, say, in 
the basketball area, which you're familiar with, where do you 
see this going? What are the kinds of things that we could do 
to bring more awareness, bring more revenue, bring more media 
attention?
    Ms. Cureton. Well, I think that women's basketball is an 
amazing sport to watch and it's highly competitive. So if we're 
talking about just media attention and the marketing 
perspective, there's a lot of untapped potential with our 
tournament in general.
    I know just watching it from my perspective, it's fun to 
watch and there's a misconception, like you just mentioned, 
that we can't compete like the men or it's not as entertaining 
because we don't do dunks and X, Y, and Z and all that, but 
that's not accurate to the experience.
    Most sport fans that really watch women's basketball can 
tell you it's just as enjoyable as watching a men's game, but 
on the real world impact as far as girls in sports, I think my 
experience, I grew up in a household where basketball was king 
because my father played professional sports.
    But male professional athletes respect female professional 
athletes. You're not going to hear a man in the NBA talk down 
on a WNBA player because they know what we're capable of. So 
growing up, I was always shown female sports. There was never a 
time in my life where I questioned my capability to play my 
sport because I was a woman, and I think the more that women 
and young girls are exposed to that, it can increase the 
likelihood that we will be a part of sports.
    When you think about the impact that sports has on our 
lives, for all the negative that we've talked about here today, 
my experience in athletics has helped shape me and make me into 
the person that is able to sit in front of you, convey these 
thoughts and opinions and advocate for what I believe matters, 
and I think that's a powerful thing.
    The Chair. Well, I think we've seen in sports overall the 
more people know the story of the individuals, it also allows 
them to, you know, relate to those players and I just feel like 
there's just this big anonymous void when it comes to women's 
basketball, that there's so much there we'd like to know.
    Ms. Cureton. Yes.
    The Chair. I mean, obviously Arizona had a great season, 
had a tremendous player. I'm sure people would want to know 
more about her. You know, the tournament itself, I feel, 
doesn't get the attention. I feel like we're almost limiting it 
by the rules that we have in place now and, you know, some of 
this may be, you know, on the media, as well. I don't know. 
I'll have to dig in more to that, but clearly, you know, as I 
said, with the age of the internet, empowering these stories, 
you have the ability to have so much more consumed and to 
understand who these athletes are, which are really incredible 
stories, which then gets to how you empower more women 
athletes, which is why this is so important to do, very, very 
important.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Senator Rosen.

                STATEMENT OF HON. JACKY ROSEN, 
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM NEVADA

    Senator Rosen. Thank you, Chair Cantwell. Appreciate it and 
appreciate everybody being here and the great discussions we're 
already having.
    But I want to focus a little bit on weather and I can tell 
you that if you're looking at the weather this week not just 
across the West but across the United States, we are in record, 
record heat temperatures and so we have to protect our student 
athletes from the heat and as some of my colleagues on this 
committee referenced at our last hearing, since 2000, 32 
student athletes have died as a result of heat-related injuries 
associated with college athletic workouts.
    I'm especially concerned about the athletes that play 
outside in arid states, like Nevada, where the daily high 
temperatures hover for months and months around 100 degrees, 
this week topping over 115 all week. Like I said, just go to 
the news and you'll see it all across the country.
    And so, Mr. McNair, I really appreciate you being here and 
for your passionate advocacy and I'm so incredibly sorry for 
the loss of your son Jordan and I hope that his memory is a 
blessing and inspiration to you and you and your family know 
the dangers of extreme heat unfortunately all too well.
    Can you tell us about the work that you are doing to 
educate college athletes to know about their rights and to know 
how to listen to their bodies in extreme heat and our coaches 
to understand that we may not ever be able to be stronger than 
the climate? Would you please tell us what you're working on 
and what lessons Congress can learn to help this problem so it 
doesn't happen again?
    Mr. McNair. Thank you, Senator. Thank you for your 
condolences, as well, and voicing about our strength.
    One of the main things that should be known is that, as the 
Senator just mentioned, this is a prime time for tragedies, 
especially when it comes down to humidity, heat, student 
athletes playing outside or competing outside, but one of the 
main things that I've learned along the way, it's not an issue 
of students playing out in this type of heat. The main thing is 
when Jordan went down that day, the thing is you have to let 
student athletes acclimate. It must be a two-week process to 
acclimate and basically what that means is that you have to let 
students gradually get acclimatized to the temperatures and the 
actual weather conditions over a 2-week period before they do 
any strenuous exertional activities.
    Now one of the main things with that, as well, is heat 
stroke isn't a bad thing. People have heat strokes all the 
time. The main thing with a heat stroke, a mismanaged heat 
stroke is bad. That's when they become tragic.
    Student athletes aren't dying in games. Student athletes 
are dying during conditioning and practice this time when 
they're doing too much too quick prior to better hydration, 
better sleep.
    Young people are young people. They're going to tell you 
they're ready when they're not ready. We need to have adults 
that can be a part of these organizations and look at a young 
person and say, hey, I can look at you and see that you're not 
ready. We need to follow up more with hydration, rest, things 
of that nature, but keep in mind these tragedies always happen 
during conditioning drills. They don't happen during games.
    People don't have heat strokes during games. They happen 
during conditioning when the conditioning drills aren't 
properly supervised or the student athlete has not gone through 
the acclimatization process and that's key for this type of 
injury. Heat stroke's 100 percent preventable. This is the only 
injury that any medical professional will tell you that's 100 
percent preventable but you have to put the right things in 
place in regards to acclimatization before you do anything 
strenuous. So it may just take a little longer and again we 
lost 20 young people at the AAU in high school level last year 
in practice, not during games, and this was beyond the college 
level.
    So again young people are still dying but you have to have 
the right safety equipment in place, cold water tubs, wet bulb 
globe thermometers, AD machines, things like that have to be in 
place prior to this acclimatization period or while this 
acclimatization period is going on.
    So, Senator, that's what I learned to keep our student 
athletes safe. Those are the things that should be in place.
    Senator Rosen. Well, you're right. It's a hundred percent 
preventable and for a person, I have lived in the Southern 
Nevada desert of Southern Nevada for over 40 years and I know 
how relentless the heat is and I surely wasn't a student 
athlete but being out there too long without the proper 
prevention, equipment, hydration, I couldn't agree more. We'll 
see what we can do to help you in this regard, but I hope that 
all of our coaches and athletic associations across the country 
are listening because this is a hundred percent preventable 
with the right precautions.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chair. Thank you, Senator Rosen. Thank you for bringing 
that unique perspective as a Nevadan to it.
    Senator Hickenlooper.

             STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN HICKENLOOPER, 
                   U.S. SENATOR FROM COLORADO

    Senator Hickenlooper. Yes, want to thank all of you. Thank 
you, Madam Chair, for holding this hearing and allowing me to 
slip in. I want to thank you all for your testimony and for all 
your work on this issue.
    Ms. Cureton, you said you grew up in a basketball-dominated 
household. So I'm just going to take a wild guess as someone 
who grew up in Philadelphia that there might have been someone 
in your house who had the nickname ``The Twirl,'' like ``Earl 
the Twirl'' Cureton.
    Ms. Cureton. Yes, that would be him.
    Senator Hickenlooper. So one of the really wonderful people 
in professional basketball and won an NBA championship. I can't 
remember, it was either 1983 or 1984, with the Pistons and 
maybe one later, I can't remember, but he had a heck of a 
career and then our hometown hero, Chauncey Billups, almost 
exactly 20 years after that, won an NBA championship with the 
Pistons, anyway, another very classy person. Just thought I'd 
get that in there.
    Colorado's one of 18 states to enact a law allowing student 
athletes to earn compensation from their NIL. Colorado's NIL 
law passed out of our House, our General Assembly 55 to 9, and 
was approved in our Senate unanimously.
    So in your view, what policy principles do you think are 
fundamental for Congress to consider in order to get to a 
bipartisan NIL law that builds upon the work of states?
    Ms. Cureton. For me? OK.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Because I asked about your dad, you 
kind of have to answer.
    Ms. Cureton. Oh, OK, yes, I was like is it just my dad or 
are we going to ask questions.
    The Chair. You probably get that all the time.
    Ms. Cureton. I do. Yes. I think a lot of what we discussed 
here today as far as we can build upon states (1) California's 
efforts is something to look at, (2) what we want to avoid is 
such heavy restrictions that athletes can't actually monetize 
their NIL as they would like to. So I think those are two areas 
to kind of watch out for, and as far as having uniform 
practices with the NIL, I think it's also important to talk 
about, you know, the other areas in which student athletes are 
struggling as far as health and safety concerns because I think 
it's all tied together.
    I think it's impossible to divorce monetizing your name, 
image, and likeness from the health and safety concerns 
because, as I mentioned previously, it is our bodies that have 
built this industry. So those are the few areas that I would 
name.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Absolutely. And, Ms. Brown, 
Colorado's the proud home of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympics 
Committee, supports thousands and thousands of talented 
athletes representing the United States in various sports.
    In the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil, nearly 80 percent of 
Team USA athletes competed collegiately representing nearly 150 
U.S. colleges and universities.
    In your view and others of you can answer this, as well, 
how can reforming the NIL rights for athletes preserve or even 
maybe enhance the pipeline for our Olympics competitions?
    Ms. Brown. I think it's part of the issue there is allowing 
people to sort of take advantage--I think especially in track 
and field, you see a lot of athletes in college be Olympians 
because this is some of our best athletic time of our lives and 
also college sports for track is one of the best places to get 
that training, I think sometimes, and so I think student 
athletes, whether they're in college, oractually--Sydney 
Latham's in my home state of New Jersey and she was 16. She was 
a high school student the first time she raced in the Olympics 
and she sort of went to the Olympics and came back because she 
wanted to go to college and she wasn't allowed to sort of make 
any money off of being a literal Olympian because she was still 
wanting to go to college.
    I think athletes like her should have the right to sort of 
monetize their name and image and likeness at the time in which 
they're famous and not have to wait until they've done their 
college time in order to have that opportunity.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Got it. I appreciate that. Does 
anybody else want to answer? Please.
    Ms. Chenault. Yes. Just one thing I wanted to add is I 
think the implementation of NIL will also just encourage 
athletes to be able to pursue their education, similar to the 
example of Susie McLaughlin. I know at UCLA we had a lot of 
gymnasts, you know. They go to the Olympics at early ages and 
because of that, that's a peak opportunity for endorsements at 
an early age prior to college which then they're forced to 
choose between whether they want to take advantage of their 
name, image, and likeness, and be able to monetize and 
commercialize their name as offers are coming to them or if 
they want to pursue an education which becomes very sticky and 
difficult of a choice to make at the age of 17.
    I know the example of like Jordan Weaver from UCLA chose to 
be able to become a professional and then came out of pocket to 
be able to pursue her educational pursuit. I don't think that 
should have to be a choice that a 17-year-old should have to 
make and I think the implementation of NIL will alleviate that 
and allow athletes to move freely and monetize their name while 
also getting the advantages that college has to offer.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Very insightful. I couldn't agree 
more and I have to say I'm staggered. You are all so thoughtful 
and athletes when I was 17, there were no athletes who could 
express themselves with the same insights and it's very 
impressive. It inspires me.
    The Chair. Thank you, Senator Hickenlooper.
    I have a few more things I want to cover just so we could 
get them on the record.
    Mr. McNair, one of the things about the health standard, 
particularly as we brought up this issue of heat stroke, is who 
should be responsible for enforcement. In the legislation you 
were successful in passing, who is the ultimate enforcer of 
those standards at the universities in the state of Maryland?
    Mr. McNair. So within the actual state of Maryland, you 
have at the various universities, the state schools, the laws 
applicable to. Basically, you have your medical staff that 
should cover the oversight of heat-related injuries or who 
should be trained and things of that nature regarding that.
    But it always boils down to your athletic training staff 
because those are the ones that will be out on the field or out 
on the course with the actual student athletes. So they have to 
be trained at the highest level that they can be trained at in 
regards to education.
    As I mentioned earlier, heat strokes aren't bad and even 
with the University of Maryland at that particular time, they 
had an emergency action plan that was in place. All of these 
schools have emergency action plans, but it's the equivalent of 
a fire drill.
    So this building has a fire drill, however if nobody does 
fire--they have a fire emergency action plan in regards to a 
fire drill, but if you don't execute a fire drill, how will we 
know what door to exit out of in the event of a fire?
    So there was plans in place but they needed to be practiced 
and executed consistently so in the event that something does 
happen, we'll know what to do. Now not only that, but again 
student athletes need to know the peak times. They need to know 
their bodies and things of that nature. I need to know my 
teammate. If they're out of sorts in the sense this could 
potentially be a heat stroke just due to all of the conditions 
that may be going on. So the more people that are educated, the 
better off we'll be, but again in regards to your initial 
question, the medical staff and the athletic training staff 
should be responsible for these.
    The Chair. And so were there penalties or just the 
university had to be accountable?
    Mr. McNair. There weren't penalties for the NCAA. However, 
the university was held accountable and made all the necessary 
changes in regards to an independent investigation and the 
suggestions of the independent investigation. So all of those 
things are in place now.
    The Chair. And so the primary focus was about education and 
awareness. Is that what you're saying?
    Mr. McNair. Right, yes.
    The Chair. And then just making sure that that was carried 
out consistently----
    Mr. McNair. Exactly.
    The Chair.--so that, you know, 15 years from now that this 
will still be remembered and institutionalized so that people 
know and understand these conditions?
    Mr. McNair. Correct. So to always boil down to awareness 
education and the prevention and that's what it--it always 
boils down to that.
    The Chair. And I'm curious. What has been your conversation 
with the NCAA about helping to make this more standard across 
the United States?
    Mr. McNair. Non-existent.
    The Chair. Because you've tried or?
    Mr. McNair. No. I mean just didn't go at them at all or 
question them at all.
    The Chair. OK.
    Mr. McNair. Yep.
    The Chair. OK. Well, we'll find out where they are in this 
standard.
    Another thing I wanted just to clarify. We've been having a 
lot of discussion about the scholarship length of time passed, 
you know, the 4-years of institution. I know that I think the 
PAC 12 is five years and it might be longer.
    What should we be looking at as to guaranteeing the 
athletic time of scholarships just so that, you know, there's 
more predictability and certainty, particularly when athletics 
are injured?
    Ms. Chenault. Yes. I think trying to protect the contracts 
as much as possible. I think once the coach commits to 
recruiting an athlete and has them sign something, they should 
be held accountable and that means there shouldn't be kind of 
like loopholes or different ways to get the athlete out of the 
contract if the coach no longer wants them a part of a team for 
just subjective reasons or opinions.
    I think that helps protect the athlete from feeling the 
pressure to always have to be this commodity, to always have to 
perform as well, and as we've all discussed I think throughout 
this day, there are a lot of pressures from athletes from all 
different angles, and there are also a lot of circumstances out 
of your control, whether that be an injury or something else, 
that comes up during those 4 years.
    So I think putting contracts in place where they cannot be 
easily revoked in one way, whether it's athletic reasons or 
whether it's academic reasons, I think that holds the 
institutions and coaching staffs more accountable to treat the 
athlete holistically rather than just as someone who can 
perform.
    The Chair. Ms. Cureton, anything to add there?
    Ms. Cureton. Yes. I think when it pertains to injury, I 
believe it's Gonzaga that has a policy like 2 years after 
you're injured, the university is still responsible for helping 
care for you and I think that extends beyond your eligibility. 
So I think that injury piece and that responsibility of the 
university to still take care of you even after you've 
completed your time and completed your eligibility even if 
you're no longer on scholarship is very important because now 
we're looking at injuries that are more long term when we talk 
about football and CTE and things like that, even now coming 
out of COVID and the pandemic.
    We don't really know the possible implications for 
athletes, you know, that had COVID and what that can mean long 
term and so when we're talking about care, I think that it's 
important that universities take up the responsibilities for 
athletes that have been negatively affected by, you know, 
participating in their sport, so it kind of goes beyond 
scholarship.
    The Chair. OK. Ms. Brown, anything on that point?
    Ms. Brown. I'm sorry. Can you repeat the question?
    The Chair. Well, actually, I was asking about scholarship, 
but Ms. Cureton added in health care which is great. So it's 
really about the length of time, you know. So I've talked to 
various coaches who said things have changed a lot, you know, 
in the last several years. I'm not sure how much they've 
changed. So I'm just trying to clarify, and I think Ms. 
Chenault said it best that, you know, that even at the PAC 12 
level you might have five or six years to complete your 
scholarship. If, so if you were injured, you had that extra 
time to complete your education but then if there are a bunch 
of qualifiers on it that put you at a disadvantage. It becomes, 
you know, a challenge.
    So just was trying to get a sense of what you thought about 
a Federal law that said, you know, guaranteed your scholarship 
for a length of time post your 4-year education as a way to 
make sure that if you were injured, you get to complete, you 
know, your scholarship.
    Ms. Brown. Yes. That definitely sounds good, just having 
the security to know that regardless of what happens physically 
about your ability to compete that you are allowed to complete 
your degree that you were promised that you would be able to 
when you signed.
    The Chair. And then one of the other things we've been 
looking at is transferability, as just being able to make sure 
that you do have that ability to transfer. Any thoughts on 
that?
    Ms. Chenault. Yes. I think transferability is definitely an 
issue that regards athlete freedom and their ability. I think 
the limitations on transfers make it very difficult or 
pigeonhole athletes into one institution, regardless of if 
they're being mistreated or abused in any way.
    So I just think transferability is something that's 
definitely important in regards to athlete freedoms and there 
are so many restrictions currently that restrict athletes from 
being able to transfer to certain schools, whether they're in 
the PAC 12, you can't maybe go to another competitive school or 
you'll have to sit out for a year. I don't think policies like 
that should have to be in place and especially if coaches are 
able to--whether it's reduced contracts or do these other 
things--I think there should be more transfer freedoms for 
athletes, as well.
    Ms. Cureton. Yes. I know for basketball, if you transfer 
you have to sit out a year and then in certain conferences the 
policy is dependent. If you transfer in conference and you sit 
out a year and then you don't get that year back.
    So I think that restrictions on transferring can be 
problematic because as we have all mentioned, there are level 
of abuses that do occur within, you know, athletic departments 
that may lead an athlete to want to transfer.
    I also think another issue that I've seen play out is the 
way coaches can kind of control where you go just by word of 
mouth, saying certain things about an athlete, intentionally 
bad mouthing an athlete, or if they request a waiver to get 
their year back for whatever reason, maliciously like not 
signing the waiver or not, you know, providing any sort of 
statement or assistance in that process.
    So I think the coaches are given a significant amount of 
control over their athletes in the transfer process.
    The Chair. And was there something waived here during COVID 
that made a difference?
    Ms. Cureton. Yes. The NCAA did like put on a broad waiver 
for the year so even if you played this year like for 
basketball, you still get that year back and are able to 
continue playing.
    The Chair. And what do you think the effect of that was? 
Did we learn something from that?
    Ms. Cureton. Yes. I mean, I think the freedom that it 
offered to athletes was a big deal in the fact that a lot of 
athletes were able to be like, OK, like I can leave, I can make 
this change, like a lot of people are in the portal. It did 
make things a lot more hectic as far as recruiting was 
concerned, but I still think that the freedom that it offered 
was important.
    The Chair. Ms. Brown, anything on transferability?
    Ms. Brown. Just in relation to the COVID year, I think that 
was really helpful, allowing students to opt out. There may 
have been like internal pressures at certain schools not to, 
but the waiver and the opt-out really allowed students to sort 
of put their physical health first this year which I thought 
was really important.
    So if there was some sort of way to--we were talking about 
injuries earlier and sort of being encouraged to push through 
them, just I think the opt-out this year was sort of really 
easy. You could just sort of say I don't feel comfortable 
playing and that should be an option for student athletes 
regardless of whether or not we're in the middle of a pandemic.
    The Chair. And what is that today? What do you think that 
is today? You can opt out, right? I mean, you can be recruited 
and go to an institution and then decide not to participate, 
right?
    Ms. Chenault. Yes, that's true. If you decide not to 
participate if you're on scholarship, then your scholarship 
package is just revoked immediately.
    The Chair. And you think that's across the board?
    Ms. Chenault. I know that was at my institution, but I 
believe that's across the board.
    Ms. Cureton. Yes. I think the way that works at Georgetown, 
once you're given the scholarship for the year and then you 
ended up attending the university, then your scholarship is 
maintained throughout that year, but obviously it's renewed on 
a year-to-year basis. So if you're a first year, you decide not 
to play, then you only have 1 year of education paid for. You 
have to figure out how to pay for the rest of the 4-years.
    As far as opting out is concerned now, it's just different 
with COVID. So I was able to opt out. I'm a walk-on. So my 
scholarship isn't covered, but I did have teammates that opted 
out, as well, and their scholarship was still taken care of for 
this year.
    The Chair. OK. Yes, Ms. Brown?
    Ms. Brown. Just to clarify, I wasn't necessarily talking 
about being able to sort of quit your sport and keep your 
scholarship, just in terms of like the safety aspect with 
COVID, they sort of recognized that there is a real safety risk 
to playing right now and you are allowed to opt out, but I 
think generally, even if it's for a period of time, like having 
the ability to say I don't feel safe in this environment or I'm 
in pain, I need help, and not feeling like there's going to be 
retribution, I think is important.
    The Chair. That's part of the testimony we're submitting 
from Dallas Hobbs who played at WSU who led some concerns as it 
related to COVID standards during the football season and I'm 
bringing that up and so, yes, we definitely--I think we want to 
get a little more information from, you know, the institutions 
across the United States on these things, but we think that is 
one of the benefits of setting a Federal law is to basically 
clarify these things, to make sure that people understand them.
    We do know that there's a lot of money in sports and 
particularly as these bowls and tournaments have continued to 
expand and are going to continue to expand more, so we clearly 
want these issues dealt with and we want clarity there for 
students. We so appreciate everybody being here today.
    I think I have testimony from one other person, Kayleigh 
Spartan, who is a soccer player at WSU, and so we're going to 
also submit her testimony for the record.
    [The information referred to was unavailable at time of 
printing.]
    The Chair. So Senator Duckworth.

              STATEMENT OF HON. TAMMY DUCKWORTH, 
                   U.S. SENATOR FROM ILLINOIS

    Senator Duckworth. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so 
much for holding this hearing. I think it's absolutely critical 
that we address this issue.
    I also want to thank the panelists for being here. It's a 
very brave thing you're doing to stand up and let your voices 
be heard.
    I think most of America saw the viral videos from the NCAA 
basketball tournament where the women's teams were treated so 
completely differently than the men's teams. Everything from 
the type of COVID testing they were given all the way through 
to that sad little so-called workout gym that they had which 
was basically one stack of weights.
    I'm hoping to hear from each of the panelists whether you 
think that the NCAA will ensure parity for male and female 
athletes or do you think that Congress needs to step in here 
and if you could give us any examples of disparate treatment 
between you and your male counterparts, the male teammates, 
teams, or whether you have seen some positive things the NCAA 
has done, we would love to hear those, as well, but do you 
think the NCAA is doing enough? Do you think that they will 
actually ensure parity and do you think Congress should step in 
and any examples you might have? I'd like to hear from each of 
the panelists. I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.
    Ms. Chenault. Yes. Thank you, Congresswoman. I think one of 
the first things that I can allude to, I don't think the NCAA 
ensures parity across genders at all. In a sport coming from 
track and field, there is a little bit more so as there's--our 
facility is exactly the same in that we do compete and train 
together. So I think in a sport like that maybe.
    One thing that I did mention, though, a little bit earlier 
that I think definitely illustrates this difference of 
treatment between female and male athletes is the different 
facilities that excludes football.
    So I think the football facility has its own ability to 
have--they have three meals, unlimited meals basically actually 
throughout the day that is catered to them, but then for all 
the other athletes, we only get like snacks or like bananas or 
things like that.
    So I think that's one extreme example where the NCAA 
doesn't hold parity accountable in regards to the treatment of 
football and other athletes. Since there is no direct 
counterpart, they put football on the same level as. So that's 
just one example in my experience.
    Senator Duckworth. Do you think Congress should step in?
    Ms. Chenault. I think it would be helpful in just regards 
to the treatment and resources that female athletes and other 
athletes outside of the revenue-producing sports. I definitely 
think that would help if Congress stepped in in regards to the 
treatment for the female athletes.
    Senator Duckworth. Thank you. From the other panelists?
    Ms. Cureton. Yes, I completely agree. I think Congress 
stepping in would be extremely beneficial. I do not believe the 
NCAA does enough. I think that's evident in the way that female 
athletes responded to Sedona Prince's post. A lot of us weren't 
surprised. We've seen it before. It's happened at our own 
campuses.
    I know Ms. Chenault is talking about is common. I've seen 
it at other universities where football or basketball has their 
own separate facility that is completely divorced from the rest 
of athletics.
    In my experience, the men's basketball team has their own 
floor and athletic department. So that's like one thing. A lot 
of times it's chalked up to, oh, well, they bring in more money 
and that's kind of what you're told is the reasoning behind the 
treatment. So yes.
    Senator Duckworth. Thank you.
    Ms. Brown. Sort of like Ms. Chenault said, track and field 
is sort of we all run on the same track and so there's not a 
ton of gender disparity sort of in that sense, but I do think 
like we saw with women's basketball, women's softball, and so I 
think it would be helpful for Congress to step in and sort of 
hold the NCAA accountable to Title IX and that sort of gender 
parity because they don't have the capacity, I think, to treat 
sports equally.
    I think it's a choice. I think it's a choice they shouldn't 
be allowed to make.
    Ms. Cureton. Just one more thing I'd like to add really 
quickly.
    Senator Duckworth. Go ahead.
    Ms. Cureton. Even in the conversation about like sports 
bringing in more revenue, I think it's important to cite the 
softball example because in baseball and softball for both 
college world series tournaments, the viewership is roughly the 
same. So this continued excuse that it's about revenue and 
viewers is just not accurate. We're continually being treated 
as an afterthought even when we are bringing in money.
    Senator Duckworth. Thank you. Thank you for your comments, 
ladies.
    I can't see how much time I have left, but I suspect I 
don't, Madam Chair. I yield back.
    The Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Duckworth.
    Just to that last point, Ms. Cureton, this is the point I 
was trying to make earlier that if you actually put the 
viewership out there and the Internet gives you this huge 
opportunity to do that, you can see that you can build the 
audiences, and that's what's so--but you have to put the effort 
in and then, you know, make sure that you're giving that focus 
and not just focusing on, you know, one tournament or just on 
the male side of the equation.
    So I want to thank all the witnesses. This has been a 
tremendous hearing and your input has just been so valuable.
    The hearing record will remain open for two weeks, until 
July 1, 2021, and so any Senators who want to submit questions 
for the record should do so by that date. We ask that you 
respond as promptly as possible, in no case later than two 
weeks after the receipt of that information.
    So with that, we're adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:07 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

                            A P P E N D I X

                        Statement of David Rose
                 NIL and the Debate over College Sports
    The legitimacy of college sports programs in American higher 
education has been hotly debated during the entirety of their 
existence. The debate centers around the core questions: Are the 
college sports education or entertainment? Are college athletes amateur 
or professional? This debate has In recent years expanded to include 
debate over whether college athletes should be permitted to sell their 
name, image, and likeness (NIL).
    [A separate but related line of debate involves the nature of the 
relationship between athlete and school as embodied in the 
compensation, both the form and amount, an athlete may receive for 
participating in college sports.]
    To sort out the legal system's and everyone else's perplexity about 
college sports, here are the contrasting positions in a nutshell:
The Difference in Understanding and Policies for College Sports
Summarized
The Pay-for-Play Critics of the NCAA
    Those who want to see Big Time men's football and basketball 
players paid outright see the nature of the problem as one in which Big 
Time teams operate as the perfect capitalist enterprise and monopoly--
labor gets hardly anything and everybody else splits the winnings. In 
spite of all the revenue the schools make from the two sports, the 
compensation management offers labor--thanks to rules the NCAA defends 
on the grounds athletes are amateurs not professionals, but which 
critics see as collusive violation of anti-trust law--is the 
opportunity for an education.
    Further, in a bait-and-switch, management often prevents labor from 
actually `getting its pay,' i.e., from getting an education. For the 
typical athlete whose eye is on the prize of the big pro contract, 
particularly an athlete from an educationally disadvantaged background, 
the financial value of a degree pales in comparison to the big prize, 
little better than the financial value of no degree. Furthermore, 
expending time and energy on studying towards a degree reduces the time 
and energy needed to increase one's chances of winning the big prize.
    Pay-for-play critics offer two possible, related solutions.
    Some argue schools should be compelled/obligated to support 
athletes in their quest for an education, and complain that NCAA rules, 
as a violation of anti-trust law, prevent schools from fulfilling this 
obligation. This is the line of debate in the court cases ultimately 
reaching the U.S. Supreme Court Case as NCAA v. Alston.
    Other pay-for-play critics argue, rather than have the athletes 
come away with nothing, colleges must be compelled to pay them some 
money. That way the athlete will gain something for all the time and 
effort spent playing school sports, even if they leave college without 
a degree and don't get the big pro league contract.
    The problem is: the credibility of their criticism rests on willful 
disregard for much of the context (and history) in which college sports 
operate within higher education. The pay-for-play critics are 
(willfully) oblivious to the NCAA as an organization whose members 
include significantly more schools than those that play Big Time 
football and basketball. In spite of that disregard, the pay-for-play 
critics insist on describing the NCAA as a cartel. The critics also 
conveniently disregard NCAA members' sponsorship of non-revenue-
producing sports when they contend more of the revenue of college 
sports should go directly to athletes in the revenue-producing sports 
in the form of direct monetary [or indirect payment of ``educational 
expenses''] compensation. Similarly, the pay-for-play critics discount 
the schools' claim their purpose in sponsoring c ollege sports is 
principally to educate and only incidentally to produce revenue. The 
critics presume this claim is hypocritical, and that the only way to 
remove the hypocrisy is to pay athletes in the revenue-producing 
sports.
    Pay-for-play critics, in other words, discount the possibility of 
removing hypocrisy and corrupt practices by pushing for reforms that 
serve to maintain the integrity of the relationship between the sports 
programs and their sponsors. Plaintiffs use the legal system to move 
college sports in the direction favored by the pay-for-play critics, as 
happened with the recent Wilken decisions. Those cases led to the 
current debates over athletes selling NIL rights [and whether school 
spending on educational expenses should be capped]. Pay-for-play 
critics support the former idea and reject the latter, and many hope 
each is a further push of the camel's-nose-into-the-tent of Big Time 
men's football and basketball players being paid ``what they are 
worth.''
    One notable critic, the Knight Foundation, has recently advocated a 
position that the Big Time football and basketball schools should break 
off from the NCAA and operate quasi-or fully professional sports 
(entertainment) programs. Such a separation would purportedly then 
permit the remaining members of the NCAA to pursue college sports as 
the educational endeavor the foundation wishes them to be.
The NCAA's Self-Proclaimed Raison d'etre: Promoting the Student-Athlete
    The NCAA and its members claim college sports is a valuable part of 
higher education because of what its participants learn as athletes, 
lessons which they cannot learn or learn as well anywhere else. Since 
schools give financial aid to talented individuals as an inducement to 
attend their particular college, so they argue, it is appropriate to 
include talented athletes within that set. The schools welcome the 
interest the public has in college sports and appreciates the money 
they are willing to pay to watch. Colleges build football stadia and 
multi-purpose fieldhouses to accommodate that desire. Television 
further increases the opportunities to satisfy spectator interest, and 
over time has become an increasingly important source of revenue for 
college sports.
    The schools use the money sports brings in to advance the mission 
of education, primarily by expanding the opportunities for more 
students to play sports at a high level of skill, to be student-
athletes. Two sports, men's football and men's basketball, generate the 
bulk of the money schools make from sponsoring college sports. In 
recent decades, women's basketball has been a (modestly) revenue-
producing sport. The other sports colleges sponsor used to be known as 
the ``non-revenue-producing sports,'' but they have been rebranded as 
``Olympic sports,'' in recognition of the contribution of personnel 
they make to U.S. Olympic team rosters. In sum, defenders of college 
sports defend the revenue generated by Big Time men's football and 
basketball as killing multiple birds with one stone, not the least of 
which is sympathetic, supportive treatment from politicians.
    Schools and athletes want to win, so naturally they will do 
everything they can to win. Because of the excitement and 
overzealousness sports can produce in trying to win, the schools 
recognize they run the risk of scandal; but they claim they are doing 
their best to keep it in check, and believe it is worth the risk 
because of the important and unique education the sports experience 
provides. Colleges resist paying athletes outright because doing so 
would take money away from other expenditures and, more importantly, 
because it would convey to everyone, including the athletes, the teams 
are simply a form of entertainment, not a form of education, and in 
effect, give in to the overzealousness. Nevertheless, schools are 
willing to help train individuals whose talent in sports is so 
exceptional, even if their academic credentials are lacking, because 
they have an opportunity to be paid as a professional. In so doing, 
schools assert they also strive to educate those individuals in areas 
beyond sports. Schools encourage the viewing public to understand and 
accept such willingness as a slight but not toxic adulteration of the 
overall mission of the college sports enterprise and of higher 
education.
    Credible as the above may sound, it reflects a history in which 
ideas and policies were developed pragmatically, in light of realities 
schools confronted vis-a-vis college sports, not on the basis of 
principles and philosophies they had examined, found persuasive, and 
then implemented. The pattern was set early on. Certain sports, most 
importantly tackle football, participated in by men at elite colleges 
of American higher education--Harvard, Yale, and Princeton were the 
original Big Time powers--were extra-curricular activities that were so 
popular and made so much money, colleges had to come up with a use for 
the money! Ergo, the pattern of colleges offering sports that did not 
produce revenue. (Men's basketball did not become a significant revenue 
producer until the late 1960s.) This situation presented schools with a 
dilemma: they liked the attention the sports brought them, but the 
sports were extracurricular, dangerously so to the extent they took 
attention and effort away from the curricular! What to do? The answer: 
Maintain ``balance'' between athletics and academics; try to have it 
both ways--define the programs as educational but operate them as 
commercially successfully as possible. The men's Division 1 basketball 
tournament is the principal means by which the NCAA finances its 
operations, including its efforts to enforce the rules intended to 
maintain that balance within the members' programs. The tournament and 
men's basketball's commercial success is a double-edged sword, however; 
basketball's smaller team size makes it a sport in which more schools 
can compete at the Division 1 level, and thus can compete for talented 
athletes.
    With the passage of Title IX, women's sports became part of the 
debate. The leaders of women's sports programs within higher education, 
female physical educators, believed in the educational value of 
participation but were fierce critics of the way men's programs were 
operated. However, unlike the pay-for-play critics, the women hoped to 
show both the leaders of men's programs and the country how to conduct 
intercollegiate sports as a truly educational endeavor, without 
hypocrisy and the corruption sparked by the drive to make money. The 
women established the AIAW as the national organization to accomplish 
this task. Their effort succumbed to a fateful (and ultimately fatal) 
court decision that rejected as a violation of Title IX the AIAW's 
prohibition of athletic grants for female athletes. The AIAW had 
adopted the policy as key to operating women's intercollegiate programs 
as truly amateur. The court sided with the men's position at the time 
that the athletic grant-in-aid did not undermine the amateurism of the 
programs. When the AIAW dissolved, all women's programs joined men's 
programs under the control of the NCAA. In turn, women joined men as 
leaders in higher education, including in administering college sports.
    As the ongoing legal challenges reflect, the courts have not 
resolved the debate over whether, why, and how college sports belong in 
higher education. The courts have simply inserted themselves into the 
midst of setting the policies enacted to have it both ways. NIL is (and 
educational expenses are) the latest arena in which the debate is 
waged.
The Pandora's Box of NIL
    The debate over NIL within the NCAA and various branches of state 
and Federal government is trying to figure out how to achieve that 
delicate balance of continuing to have it both ways.
    The sale of name, image, and likeness (NIL) became a battleground 
thanks to the NCAA's use of athletes' images in electronic video games 
that simulated NCAA competition. The video games were a new revenue 
stream for the NCAA, which it presumed it alone controlled. In the case 
O'Bannon et al v. NCAA, athletes sued the NCAA for infringing on the 
athletes' rights to control the sale of their name, image, and 
likeness. When the NCAA lost the case, rather than stir the hornet's 
nest of trying to negotiate with athletes over the distribution of the 
revenue it generated, the NCAA got out of the business.
    Pay-for-play critics, however, saw an opening and lobbied states to 
pass legislation permitting athletes to sell NIL rights. The rationale 
put forward was restoring equity between athletes and non-athletes: 
non-athletes were free to sell their NIL rights, NCAA rules prevented 
athletes from doing so. Legal and public pressure led the NCAA to agree 
to permit the practice. Having agreed to the idea in principle, the 
NCAA was obliged to figure out how to implement it in practice. 
Specifically, the NCAA needed to specify the rules it proposed to put 
in place indicating how student-athletes may sell NIL rights without 
running afoul of their agreed-upon responsibilities as student-athletes 
to their colleges and conferences, and to the NCAA.
    Complicating the task is the fact NIL is regulated on a state-by-
state basis, which means states may have different rules re NIL. Which 
means schools in a state that has more `flexibility' and `generosity' 
in its rules may have an advantage over schools in states with more 
restrictive policies when they compete to attract top-level athletes. 
Because of this potential for inequity, the NCAA approached the U.S. 
Congress to pass Federal legislation overriding the states' laws in 
order to `level that playing field.'' Congress agreed to consider the 
NCAA's request but not without the NCAA first spelling out its rules. 
[Some members of Congress wish to go well beyond the issue of NIL and 
propose legislation that alters the conduct of college sports, in order 
to rectify what they argue is unfair, unjust treatment of athletes.]
    The pay-for-play critics prefer the NCAA have little to no 
involvement regulating athletes' NIL activities; the most extreme among 
them want the athletes to have entrepreneurial freedom to do as they 
please, and to earn as much money as they can. The NCAA on the other 
hand wants to avoid NIL being used to undermine the concept of the 
student-athlete (``athletes are not employees'') or undermine the 
equality of athletic competition between schools. While pay-for-play 
critics don't believe it, the NCAA and its members claim those two 
elements are crucial to the commercial success of college sports.
    A major area of concern is recruiting. Part of the motivation for 
NIL arises from the belief that many Big Time football and basketball 
players are paid ``under-the-table'' by third parties who want to 
induce an athlete to attend a particular school. The practice is 
against NCAA rules but scandals reinforce the belief schools not only 
turn a blind eye but are party to the practice. The worry is that NIL 
may become a way to legalize that practice. The ironic question is, 
however: Even if the NCAA succeeds in preventing NIL from legalizing 
under-the-table payments, won't under-the-table payments be likely to 
continue? Or is the expectation that athletes will have so much NIL 
income, under-the-table income will pale by comparison? Or will third 
parties be spending so much on NIL rights, they won't have any money 
left to spend under-the-table?
    This is one of many issues still to be resolved, issues such as the 
following, many of which have yet to receive adequate attention and 
discussion by the interested parties:

   1)  What, if anything, is to be done about the `natural' difference 
        in NIL earning potential between regions and within regions 
        between municipalities? between successful, highly visible 
        teams and everyone else? In that regard, by what logic do 
        proponents of NIL imagine NIL enhances competitive balance 
        within college sports, particularly in Big Time men's football 
        and basketball?

   2)  What is to be done about the possible/likely need to set up and 
        finance a mechanism to enforce regulation of NIL marketing, and 
        the associated need to have a `compliance officer' at 
        individual schools? Will this body be responsible for 
        regulating player agents and their activities as well? What is 
        the scope of activities agents will be allowed to perform on 
        behalf of their clients?

   3)  Will an enforcement entity be part of the NCAA apparatus or 
        independent of it? If independent of it, who takes leadership 
        in setting up and funding the entity? If independent of it, how 
        will the NCAA, the NIL enforcer, and the legal system share 
        and/or apportion responsibility for ensuring integrity of the 
        student-athlete and the integrity of the NIL process both as an 
        adjunct of college sports and as a commercial enterprise in its 
        own right? For example, what entity is responsible for ensuring 
        NIL is NOT corrupting the recruitment, transfer, and 
        eligibility processes? What entity is responsible for ensuring 
        the recruiting, transfer, and eligibility process is not 
        corrupting the sale of NIL? Example 1: How will NIL contracts 
        established BEFORE the individual becomes a college athlete be 
        regulated so they do not distort the recruiting process? 
        Example 2: Rather than donating directly to a school as an 
        inducement for the school to admit one's desired candidate 
        (e.g., child, grandchild, niece/nephew, etc.), does NIL not 
        open the way for a donor to a produce an ``admissions two-
        fer'--desired candidate PLUS desired athlete--by purchasing the 
        athlete's NIL instead? To what if any extent will individuals 
        selling NIL be expected to contribute to regulation of NIL 
        monitoring and enforcement?

   4)  Who is responsible for adjudicating potential NIL disputes 
        between athletes and schools, conferences, or the NCAA? 
        Example: A coach believes the athlete's performance is being 
        hindered by their NIL enterprise(s). What is to be done 
        regarding athlete participation during adjudication? Will 
        improper conduct re NIL be grounds for dismissal from a 
        school's team? Who is responsible for adjudicating disputes 
        between players and their agents and employees? Will an athlete 
        face consequences in terms of team participation and/or 
        eligibility if she or his/her agent or employee runs afoul of 
        NIL regulations administered by the school, the conference, or 
        the NCAA?

   5)  What prevents the costs and manpower requirements of NIL 
        enforcement and adjudication from becoming so large as to make 
        such procedures largely impotent and thereby NIL integrity 
        largely meaningless? Which is to say, in the world of big time 
        college sports is NIL not simply a new domain in which abuse 
        and corruption prove difficult to prevent?

   6)  What is to be done about the limit on the potential breadth of 
        participation in NIL: How many `celebrity' endorsers can the 
        market support? Is it not likely that the most lucrative NIL 
        opportunities will go to the individuals in basketball and 
        football likely to cash in later in the avowed pro leagues 
        anyway? in football, between positions--e.g., quarterback 
        versus running back versus right tackle? If so, what is the 
        point?

   7)  What is to be done about the amorphous notion of ``market 
        price'' in this domain, and the question of whether the amount 
        an individual can earn can/should/will be capped? Will athletes 
        be allowed to collect income from NIL deferred until AFTER they 
        no longer compete in college sports? Are certain forms of such 
        NIL-generated income allowable while others are not? For 
        example, will an athlete be allowed to establish an NIL 
        contract structured to extend beyond an athlete's actual years 
        of competing in college sports (such as an annuity)?

   8)  What if any restrictions can/should/will be placed on the types 
        of businesses with which athletes may contract in selling NIL? 
        on the types of activities deemed ``not game/team related'' for 
        purposes of NIL selling? Example: Signing autographs? 
        ``Appearances'' at public and private events? Post-game 
        analysis podcasts? Gambling recommendation podcasts? Political 
        analysis youtube videos? `How to' instructional videos? 
        Advertising revenue derived from online followers of one's blog 
        or facebook page? Prize money and/or endorsements as an e-
        sports gamer? Apparel company `deals'? Sports-themed movies or 
        tv shows? Who/what regulates the NIL business to ensure it is 
        not engaging in fraud or other illegal practices?

   9)  What is to be done about providing for loss of NIL income if an 
        athlete should be injured? What is to be done about loss of NIL 
        income if an athlete is dismissed from a squad for any reason?

  10)  Will athletes be allowed to `unionize' and/or sell (negotiate 
        the sale of) their NILs as a group, including in video games?

  11)  How are differences in sponsorships to be handled if an athlete 
        contracts with a company other than the one his team and school 
        have contracted with? How is this arrangement to be resolved in 
        the case of group NIL? If a pre-college athlete's company 
        differs from the one with which a school is affiliated and the 
        college wants to recruit the athlete, what is to be done? If 
        the two affiliations are in conflict, is the athlete expected 
        to drop affiliation? Or might a school change its company 
        affiliation to match those of the key athletes it is trying to 
        recruit? What prevents each sporting apparel company from 
        building up a stable of NIL-supported athletes as a way to 
        compete for college affiliation business? On what legal grounds 
        does the NCAA control an athlete's NIL activity prior to the 
        athlete entering college?

  12)  If athletes are already pressed for time and need additional 
        years to graduate because of the heavy time and energy demands 
        due to their sports participation, whence comes the time and 
        energy to spend developing and selling NIL?

  13)  Why is the time spent on NIL not better spent on getting an 
        education? Or will NIL be argued to constitute a part of 
        getting an education, perhaps even a new `major' within 
        academia, as for example a speciality in ``Communications?'' If 
        the latter, will individuals be required to engage in trying to 
        sell NIL? How will Title IX be applied to ensure equity in that 
        regard? Will schools offer NIL training/education as part of 
        the curriculum, or part of `tutoring', and thereby a means by 
        which they compete FOR recruits? That is, contrary to the 
        argument NIL activity must be independent of the school, it 
        becomes a new `feature' analogous to the training room, the 
        athletes' dorm, the free meals, the free medical and mental 
        health care, the playing facility, and the televised games? Or 
        will third parties fill that gap, ala the various sports youth 
        training camps? What prevents them from corrupting the 
        recruiting and/or academic eligibility process?

  14)  If NIL itself is contingent on academic eligibility, does that 
        not add additional pressure toward undermining academic 
        integrity . . . when NIL income is added to game-day 
        performance as a justification/rationalization to keep an 
        athlete eligible?

  15)  How will NIL affect an athlete's decisions to enroll or 
        transfer? For all the NCAA's avowed concern, can NIL be managed 
        so as to preclude it as a factor in such decisions? How? Does 
        the NCAA wish to and imagine it can influence the nature of NIL 
        agreements made prior to an athlete entering college? For 
        example, if an apparel company's shoes are endorsed by a 
        prominent high school athlete, how does one assess to what 
        extent choice of college is influenced by that relationship? 
        What does transparency of NIL support yield if that support 
        comes from corporate entities whose ownership is kept legally 
        hidden or comes via fake-like networks and other manipulations 
        endemic in social media? What prevents colleges and/or coaches 
        from becoming those hidden third parties? Will NIL rules apply 
        to a `walk-on' (a non-grant-in-aid athlete)? Why, or why not? 
        Who determines purity and integrity of everyone's actions and 
        thoughts in these matters?

  16)  If a central objective of NIL is to allow an athlete unlikely to 
        play in an avowed pro league and unlikely to graduate with a 
        useful (marketable) degree or to graduate at all to come away 
        with `something' from having been a college athlete, why bother 
        with the NIL and not just pay the athlete outright? What avenue 
        does NIL really open for such an athlete? Does NIL for such an 
        individual not reinforce and amplify, rather than diminish, the 
        hypocrisy of having such an individual on the college team in 
        the first place? Asked differently, how is NIL not simply a 
        (backdoor) way for such an individual to receive monetary 
        compensation for participating in college sports in a manner 
        that attempts to perpetuate the myth (i.e., the legal fiction) 
        college sports is NOT a form of professional sports?

  17)  If the foundational rationale for permitting NIL is the great 
        amount of revenue generated by college sports and the great 
        amount of money paid to coaches and administrators compared to 
        athletes' compensation, how does NIL--as a separate endeavor of 
        economic activity for which the athlete is purportedly and 
        individually to take initiative and be responsible--address/
        redress either rationale/critique? Indeed, as implied above, 
        what prevents NIL from becoming simply another context in which 
        inequality prevails, in this case directly between athletes 
        themselves?

 18a)  Is NIL to be considered a separate pool of money, one to which 
        only athletes are entitled? Or is it a NEW pool of money, 
        generated in a new way, but which is shared between athletes 
        and the rest of the college sports system in some fashion? In 
        either case, how is the sharing to be determined and managed? 
        If the revenue is shared, how is the line drawn to maintain the 
        myth the student-athlete is not an employee?

 18b)  Or is some of NIL extant revenue that the NCAA and its members 
        heretofore have not recognized as such, ala the O'Bannon case, 
        which then poses the question of whether the practice will/
        should be discontinued or should continue but with revenue 
        shared as monetary compensation directly with athletes? If 
        shared as monetary compensation, how is such sharing to be 
        defined so as to maintain the claim the athlete is NOT an 
        employee? If shared as monetary compensation, what if anything 
        should be done to replace the associated reduction in how the 
        money had previously been spent? What if any compensation to 
        athletes should be provided for the NCAA's and its members past 
        (inappropriate) practices? Whence the source of that 
        compensation?

  19)  Why should FBS schools not simply acknowledge that the football 
        and basketball programs they operate are ``college-flavored 
        sports,'' that is, a `mixed team' in which some participants 
        are students but others are not? Given that acknowledgement, 
        why not then decide the maximum number of such non-students 
        (``ringers,'' to use the sports vernacular) to allow on a team, 
        the pay range schools are willing to follow and associated 
        handling of expenses (room, board, medical, etc.), the maximum 
        number of years a non-student may participate, an equitable 
        method for distributing non-students among all FBS teams, the 
        permissibility to transition from one status to the other in 
        either direction, regulations regarding RE-distributing non-
        students between college-flavored teams, permissibility of 
        unionization of non-students, and related policies? Congress 
        then grants the appropriate anti-trust exemptions, including 
        for tax and related purposes allowing schools to continue to 
        claim non-profit status for the operation (a status without 
        which the team's operation is NOT financially viable); and life 
        goes on, sans (much/most? of) the hypocrisy and the threat of 
        exposure of systemic academic cheating. [Sidenote: This is 
        largely the essence of the proposal being put forward by Sen. 
        Cory Booker, along with others, in Dec 2020 under the rubric 
        the ``college athletes' bill of rights.'']

  20)  With gambling on college sports now legal, what if any 
        safeguards are to be put in place to avoid NIL becoming a means 
        by which to affect athletes' game performance and thereby game 
        outcomes? Likewise, what if any safeguards are to be put in 
        place to prevent NIL from becoming a form of ``prize money'' 
        for individual and/or team success? What safeguards are to be 
        put in place to prevent social media from being used 
        maliciously, perhaps to create the (false) appearance of 
        violations of NIL rules by a college's or athlete's opponent?

  21)  With NIL clearly an attempt to circumvent the ``tethered to 
        education expenses'' limit the courts have imposed in granting 
        athletes access to more compensation--since compensation beyond 
        ``tethered to education expenses'' clearly destroys the myth 
        (i.e., the legal fiction) of the student-athlete and thereby 
        college sports as we know it--but given the existence of 
        individuals who want college athletes to be paid outright and 
        with no limit, what firewall does NIL (and associated policies) 
        erect to preclude additional litigation motivated toward that 
        end? If NIL does not erect a barrier, why bother? Analogously, 
        given the known history of money going (in spite of NCAA rules) 
        to parents or guardians of prominent college athletes, by what 
        legal doctrine does the NCAA prevent such an individual from 
        using NIL to achieve the same effect? ``I am the mother/father/
        brother/girlfriend/etc. of and I'm hear to tell you that. . 
        ..''

  22)  Can state and/or Federal law simply compel schools to distribute 
        a portion of their sports-generated revenue directly to 
        athletes as monetary income? Should they? Why, or why not? How 
        does government compel such action on the one hand, and then 
        maintain the legal fiction college athletes are NOT employees 
        on the other? What legal distinction precludes students in 
        other performance activities (drama, art, dance, music, etc.) 
        from suing for similar monetary compensation? for similar non-
        monetary compensation?

  23)  Will colleges/conferences philosophically opposed to NIL be 
        forced to permit them, or will they be allowed to operate under 
        their no-NIL philosophy . . . either by remaining within the 
        NCAA or by forming a separate national association united by 
        this philosophy, among other principles? Obvious issue with 
        remaining within the NCAA: What set of principles, policies, 
        and/or financial incentives keep pro- and anti-NIL schools 
        together within a single association? If separate organizations 
        operate, what if any protections will be afforded each, as 
        pertains to relations between avowed professional leagues and 
        college sports presently, so the commercial operations of one 
        do not infringe/undermine the commercial operations of the 
        other?

  24)  If state NIL regulations take effect before NCAA and/or Federal 
        regulations take effect, how are differences in said 
        regulations to be resolved/adjudicated?

    All of which is summarized by the question: Is not the haste with 
which the NCAA is being forced to move on NIL a recipe for disaster?
    Given the substantial size of Pandora's box NIL opens, why do so 
many individuals and organizations rush headlong to promote it as a 
solution to an embarrassing but long-standing hypocrisy in college 
sports? Do NIL's various promoters sincerely believe college sports 
will survive and thrive regardless, or do they in fact wish to end 
college sports as we know it? And if college sports as we know it were 
to end, what if anything takes its place? Should anything take its 
place? Why . . . or why not?
    Does the issue of student-athlete NIL not boil down to being simply 
a new manifestation of hypocrisy? Since proponents of permitting NIL 
activities for students who are athletes claim the rationale for doing 
so is to allow such individuals the same opportunities available to 
non-athlete students, how is that rationale not completely undercut by 
a basic distinction evident in the NCAA members' inquiry, namely that 
the institutions, either individually or collectively, have little to 
no interest or involvement in monitoring and regulating the non-athlete 
student's NIL activities but GREAT interest and concern in doing so 
with regard to the athlete?
    Is the debate over college sports unresolvable?
The Heretofore-Hidden Resolution of the Debate
New Concepts for Understanding the Sports World
    Actually, permit me to say I resolved the debate decades ago, in 
research I did in pursuit of graduate degrees at the University of 
Massachusetts, Amherst. But my academic colleagues were not pleased 
with my results and shunned me, which prevented me from joining their 
ranks upon graduation and thereby prevented me from having a platform 
and credible means by which to insert my ideas into the debate.
    Why was I shunned? For the reason anyone is usually shunned. 
Because my solution was not one they wanted to hear; it was not within 
the bounds of what they deemed `acceptable.' Nor--for similar reasons--
was the NCAA receptive to my set of policy recommendations when it was 
trying in the late 1980s to regain credibility from the decade's 
plethora of scandals.
    How had my work gone outside the bounds of acceptability? For one, 
because it went against the accepted truths, biases, agendas, and 
practices predominant in higher education and in the Nation. For 
another, because I began my research from a very different place than 
everyone else. I began from the assumption that the reason the debate 
had gone unresolved was that the sports world's concepts, amateur and 
professional, were inadequate. I developed an alternative conceptual 
framework by which to understand the sports world. Building on that 
framework in the years after completing my graduate degree, I developed 
a set of policies for operating college sports. Those were the policy 
recommendations the NCAA ignored! Ironically (from my perspective), for 
various--usually logically/legally embarrassing--reasons, in the years 
since I completed my degree, the NCAA has steadily shifted away from 
referring to its programs as ``amateur sports'' to calling them ``the 
collegiate model.'' This amended characterization does little to 
clarify the debate.
    The key difference in my conceptual framework is its focus on the 
purpose of the organization for sponsoring a program rather than on the 
motive of the individual for participating. My framework demarcated the 
sports world into four types of sport: professional, semi-professional, 
semi-amateur, and amateur. In the conventional dichotomy, the latter 
three are lumped together as ``amateur,'' which contributes to the 
confusion. In my framework, college sports are a manifestation of semi-
professional sport. But I defined semi-professional sport in a very 
precise way--the purpose of a semi-pro sports program is to represent 
the quality of the sponsoring organization!
    Given this definition of semi-professional sport, I was able to 
further delineate key transitions in the history of college sports, 
such as the NCAA's decision to permit grants-in-aid for athletes after 
previously prohibiting them (the latter stance consistent with the 
traditional notion of amateurism). In the traditional amateur/
professional dichotomy, the NCAA asserted the reversal did not change 
the amateur nature of the programs. In my framework, the decision 
represented a shift from semi-professional to acceptably professional 
sport. My research anticipated the 1980s were likely to be a decade of 
scandal, the result of a transition I identified as a shift to 
``unacceptably professional sport.'' The NCAA and its members have 
wrestled ever since with trying to implement regulations that return 
and keep the programs acceptably professional sport, even as the amount 
of ``support''--don't call it ``compensation''--to athletes increases 
dramatically!
Why Colleges Sports? Because They're Central to the Colleges' Larger 
        Battle . . . for Money and Students
    My analysis argued the principal reason colleges sponsor 
intercollegiate sports is to use it as advertising central to the 
competition for money and students in which the schools engage, as 
(effectively) capitalist enterprises. It is crucial to understand 
however that the advertising value is not simply the visibility the 
programs offer. Sports have served as a key advertising vehicle for 
colleges because the quality of the intercollegiate team is to be 
understood to represent the quality of the school sponsoring it. 
Because a school wishes to win both competitions--winning in sports 
enhances its chances of gaining money and students--it does its utmost 
to attract top quality athletes to attend. The compensation it offers 
athletes is not money per se but financial aid, an athletic grant-in-
aid. The athlete's acceptance of such aid from a particular school then 
conveys an association to all concerned between sports outcomes and the 
academic quality of the school--sports success signifies superior 
academic quality, a superior academic institution. The popularity of 
college sports, and the money they make, results from the college 
community's (students, faculty, alumni, boosters, local businesses, 
politicians, etc.) interest in and support for a college to do well in 
this two-fold competition. That's precisely why Big Time football and 
basketball coaches tend to be the highest paid employees not only in 
their institutions but in the case of public universities the highest 
paid in their states!
    The term ``student-athlete'' is in fact the right description of 
the participant . . . if the relationship has integrity.
    The problem is: in order to increase one's chances of success in 
sports, if the need arises--and it often does--schools have shown they 
are willing to undermine the integrity of the representational link. 
But in so doing, they do their best to hide the adulteration, because 
exposing it calls the entire arrangement into question. Paying an 
athlete outright is the ultimate adulteration because it destroys the 
credibility of his (or her) presumed reason for choosing the school--
the quality of the school not the amount of money it offers--that is 
the elemental component of the representational link! In other words, 
it is crucial to understand that NCAA rules on financial aid are 
intended to manifest an equality of opportunity to access higher 
education across its members. Differences in cost of access and 
attendance in other words vanish as a factor in the athlete's decision. 
This purported equality of opportunity is what gives the highly 
recruited athlete's choice of school its larger symbolic social 
meaning.
    Winning in sports is important to schools because of its marketing 
role for the school; no other activity within higher education carries 
its broad social meaning to the larger society. That meaning disappears 
if the team is seen as simply another pro team, however financially 
successful it might be. If a college's team is composed of athletes 
paid using money, victories are simply sports victories, not symbols of 
something more! Competitions in college sports are intended to be a 
deference challenge that extend from a team to the school to the larger 
socio-cultural community the team represents.
    Nevertheless, rather than enforcing integrity of the 
representational linkage in a rigorous way throughout the world of 
college sports, the NCAA's Division 1 schools, especially the so-called 
Big Time football and basketball schools on which the pay-for-play 
critics focus, prefer to maintain an ambiguous, hypocritical, subject-
to-scandal system. Why? Because in the American system of higher 
education, the schools need to win not just in sports but in the 
competition for money and students, or they risk economic decline and 
institutional demise. Victories matter . . . well beyond the field of 
play! Which is precisely why the Big Time powers cling so religiously 
to maintaining the `sanctity' of recruiting within college sports. 
Recruiting is the core mechanism of the system's ``flexibility,'' the 
mechanism that keeps the dominant football and basketball powers of the 
Big Time dominant, and keeps the Big Time schools dominant within the 
NCAA's operations, and keeps them dominant within American higher 
education, and thereby in American society. Including in the minds of 
government officials!
    An individual is recruited not to the job of being an athlete but 
to the unique job of being a student-athlete! The athletic grant-in-aid 
is not simply a means to assist those needing financial aid to access 
higher education. It IS one of the means by which those deemed 
especially talented in ways that contribute to an entity's financial 
success come to believe they deserve disproportionate compensation, a 
notion that also extends well beyond the sports world.
    The set of policies I developed for rigorously enforcing the 
integrity of the representational link extends far beyond practices 
anyone else has proposed. I contend my set is superior because it is 
built upon a superior conceptual framework for understanding the sports 
world, a framework not hamstrung by the conventional amateur/
professional conceptual dichotomy under which the sports world has 
operated during its modern history. My framework is superior because it 
is based upon empirical analysis of the entirety of the modern American 
sports world up to the time I was doing my grad school research. That 
history gave rise to the concepts' definitions. My analysis explains 
the unique nature of sport as a commercial endeavor and the distinctive 
nature of programs within each conceptual category. Lacking this 
understanding, the legal system tries its best to adapt the Nation's 
laws to the distinctive nature of the sports world. But it falls short 
because it remains trapped by the inadequacy of the amateur/pro 
dichotomy and constrained by the legal principles (e.g., anti-trust 
law) upon which court cases are brought and adjudicated.
Integrity of the Student-Athlete Role Means Enforcing `Representation'
    Armed with the idea of representation, I was able to develop a set 
of policies for college sports that allows it to operate with integrity 
rather than hypocrisy . . . integrity throughout the system. My set of 
policies is superior because it grounds elite participation not in the 
amount of revenue the elite sports generate but in the integrity of the 
representational link between the college sports programs and the 
student population as a whole, both academically and athletically, at 
each level of sporting competition--institution, conference, and 
nationally. My set implements in practice what proponents of college 
sports claim is the goal--student first, athlete second.
    Helpful illustration: Under my policies, tackle football is exposed 
as a sport schools operate in a way that is NOT representative! Why is 
it not? For the key basic reason tackle football does NOT represent the 
sports participation interests of the student population. Tackle 
football is too expensive and too physically risky (i.e., medically 
expensive) to operate as anything other than a spectator sport!!! Flag 
football is a medically safer version of football in which more people 
participate, but as such it is not the same as tackle football. 
Americans, evidence suggests, want to watch a version a football only 
if the participants are trying to hurt each other (``injuries are just 
a part of the game''). As the history of tackle football in the U.S. 
reveals, however, college football was Big Time BEFORE a professional 
tackle football league garnered substantial spectator interest. Hence 
the debate and controversy over the nature of college sports, thanks to 
college football in particular!!
    The NFL is wholly dependent for its existence on the operation of 
tackle football as a publicly subsidized operation in secondary and 
higher education!!! Americans don't play tackle football, but they are 
more than happy to pay to watch it! That's why tackle football is not 
genuinely representative! Which is also to say: The claim colleges 
recruit the academically deficient because they do not want to deny an 
outstanding football player an opportunity to play in the NFL is a 
complete deception. Schools are motivated to recruit such individuals 
because such individuals help schools win the competitions important to 
them, the one on the field and the bigger one off the field for money 
and students!! Perhaps the most dubious aspect of this arrangement 
however is that a not-insignificant portion of the financial subsidies 
schools and colleges collect/receive to support their elite athletes 
are extracted from people who have no interest in football whatsoever. 
For a long time, that set included women.
    The fact that defenders of the ``collegiate model'' now include 
women in positions of power does not remove the hypocrisy. Indeed, a 
rationale unspoken until the debate over NIL and paying athletes 
brought it to the fore is that women's sports are a major beneficiary 
of the revenue production by Big Time men's football and basketball. 
Are women's college sports representative of college women's sports 
participation interests? For that matter, which of the men's 
intercollegiate programs are representative of the broader male student 
body's sports participation interests? These are questions colleges 
leave unasked.
    Given the rationale college sports is a form of education, Title IX 
compelled colleges to extend the hypocrisy to sponsor women's programs 
in approximate equality to men's programs. But to repeat: education is 
NOT the primary reason colleges sponsor college sports; the purpose of 
college sports is to represent the organization in its competition with 
other colleges for money and students. Title IX in that sense was a 
convenient cudgel to increase financial support for women's sports 
programs, in concert with females growing numbers in higher education 
and the changing perceptions of the role of women in society more 
generally. That battle in both the sports world and the wider world is 
still being waged. The NCAA's willingness to modify its rules vis-a-vis 
NIL is simply the latest instance in which its members try to adapt 
some but not so much as to alter its basic mode of operation, given 
their belief its basic mode of operation is working just fine.
    This illustration suggests precisely why my set of policies are 
unwelcome within the NCAA. It sets a standard that is too demanding. 
it's a standard that goes against the operation of both American 
institutions of higher education and college sports as (effectively) 
capitalist enterprises! It upsets the dominance hierarchy!!
NIL in the Present System of College Sports Makes Matters Worse
    The irony is: the argument for permitting athletes to sell NIL 
rights is valid only if college sports operate under my set of 
policies! Under the NCAA's modus operandi, NIL simply make matters 
worse. Why do I say this? Because . . .
    The giving of grants to athletes so that they might pursue an 
education has a ring of credibility to it consistent with the notion of 
student-athlete, as in ``student AND athlete.'' The selling of NIL 
rights by college athletes so that they might generate income beyond 
the compensation they receive from a school for ``expenses tethered to 
education'' is something entirely different. It further 
professionalizes the notion of what student-athlete means, as something 
now BOTH the school and the individual use to make money. The grant 
rewards an individual for being a student-athlete, with the principal 
objective (purportedly) being getting an education. Selling NIL rights 
rewards an individual for being a student-athlete-celebrity, with the 
primary objective being monetizing one's fame as a college athlete, 
claims to the contrary notwithstanding. In other words, the `student' 
element of the endeavor is likely to be diminished further. Celebrity 
being a rather amorphous trait, within the world of college sports as 
we know it NIL creates the potential for abuse and corruption on 
steroids. In effect, NIL monetizes the cultural link between student 
and community, thereby calling into question its authenticity, in a 
manner similar to the way commercialism of college sports undermines 
the representational link. Think NASCAR comes to college sports.
    Which is to say, unless the NCAA can find some way to separate NIL 
rights by college athletes from student-athlete-celebrity, freeing 
college athletes to sell NIL destroys the credibility of the notion of 
student-athlete. Can the NCAA find a Solomon-like set of policies that 
delineate an individual player's NIL into the parts derived from the 
school affiliation, the sports affiliation, the sports performance, and 
the athletic conference affiliation from the non-sports components of 
the individual's name, image, and likeness, defining some forms of NIL 
selling acceptable while others are not, and do so while claiming the 
primary purpose of it all is education, NOT making money?
    It is worth noting further in that regard that NIL has had a mostly 
negative orientation to it: one's NIL cannot be used/sold without one's 
permission. That was the central question in O'Bannon.
    NIL as now being discussed in the age of the Internet has a more 
positive orientation: NIL is imagined as a property right by which any 
and everyone can make money. Which is a two-fold self-deception: i) 
Logically, it's impossible that everyone can make money selling NIL. If 
everyone is selling NIL to everyone else, no one gains so why bother? 
NIL yields gain only if some relatively small subset sells to everyone 
else. Which is to say, NIL is not a property right of ANY value to 
almost everyone. Which points to a second set of issues/questions: ii) 
As a property right, what is it one is selling? Compared to other goods 
and services one can purchase or exchange, what is one buying? Of what 
(use-) value is NIL? Where does the money come from that is used to 
purchase NIL? Why does the buyer believe it worthwhile to spend money 
on NIL rather than on something else? Does the buyer buy it for 
personal use or to use to make a profit? How is the profit made? In 
either case, how does the buyer gauge how much to spend?
    Does anyone bother to ask such questions? Or does everyone simply 
accept the idea one tries to make money any way one can, which in this 
instance is rationalized as `modernizing?'
    Instead of pondering about athletes selling NIL, why isn't the 
focus on the question: If the lessons of competitive sports are so 
valuable, why is the opportunity to learn them limited to so few? What 
should be done about that? Of what value to society is it for people to 
be trying to sell NIL rights instead of doing something useful such as 
addressing real needs, solving real problems, that is to say, learning 
how to be productive, competent, empathetic participants in the polity 
and economy of their society? This is broader way of asking a more 
specific question applicable to college sports: Of what value to 
society is having elite athletes such as those in college sports if the 
bulk of the population are spectators, not participants? How 
representative of the society and how valuable to the society are elite 
athletes really?
Do Americans Want Integrity in College Sports?
    My personal experience begs a pertinent question: Who is the 
constituency in the U.S. that wants integrity in college sports?
    Do Americans want a system of college sports that operates with 
integrity rather than hypocrisy? Does Congress? Given the political 
divisions in the Nation in the 2020s, political agreement is hard to 
come by on pretty much anything, let alone on a subject about which 
most people have preconceived notions, personal biases, fond (or 
painful) memories, overt and covert agendas (axes to grind, favors to 
give or pay back, constituencies to protect or thwart, etc.), little 
and/or disjointed knowledge, and even less understanding.
    Indeed, the NCAA's request for Federal involvement in college 
athletes' NIL reflects the diversity of opinion and modes of operation 
manifest in the Nation's federated system of government and more 
crucially its ways of life, and the interrelationship between these and 
higher education. To put it bluntly, Americans think of the Nation as 
``united states'' only when dealing with the rest of the world; when 
dealing with each other, it's a ``what's in it for me?'' battle for 
self-enrichment and dominance. Big Time college sports manifest this 
understanding quite accurately. Which is to say, the question is, who 
wants integrity if integrity threatens one's standing in the hierarchy?
    Neither the pay-for-play critics nor the NCAA defenders come to the 
NIL debate with clean hands. The separate laws states are passing re 
college athletes' NIL, if they take effect, WILL fracture the NCAA and 
open a Pandora's box within college sports neither the critics nor 
anyone else have a clue how to close. Do state lawmakers care? Or are 
they simply complicit in pushing the NCAA to act to allow NIL in some 
fashion or other, as the NCAA has agreed to do, when neither lawmakers 
nor NCAA members have any idea how to regulate athlete NIL selling, AND 
when the harshest of the NCAA's critics don't want the NCAA involved in 
regulating athlete NIL at all? Without such regulation, what keeps 
college sports from becoming a version of professional sport in which 
athletes are employees? The critics believe the colleges leaders are 
bluffing when they say they will not sponsor such programs. Can the 
laws require colleges to sponsor such programs if the colleges refuse 
to do so? Might colleges faced with that demand instead choose to 
operate intercollegiate sports only if they revert to the original 
policy of NOT permitting grants-in-aid to athletes? Talk about irony! 
But reversion begs the obvious question: What ELSE needs to change if 
the same scandals are not to arise in college sports the second time 
around?
    On the other hand, the NCAA's willingness to ``modernize its 
rules'' to permit athletes' selling NIL is simply the latest recurrence 
of its Big Time members needing to salvage a deteriorating image, a 
cyclic task endemic to college sports throughout its history. The crux 
of the current task is clear as far as the NCAA is concerned: NIL is 
acceptable so long as NIL does NOT mean athletes are employees! While 
much attention has focused on the labor law complications of crossing 
that line (e.g., workman's compensation), my analysis argues colleges 
do NOT want to cross that line for a much more existential reason: it 
undermines the fundamental reason colleges and universities sponsor 
college sports!! It undermines college sports as an advertising 
vehicle, as a representation of the quality of the institution (and the 
socio-political economic milieu supporting it) to the larger world.
    Further, In that regard, the NCAA's concern about NIL not affecting 
recruiting is more about protecting the current dominance hierarchy 
within higher education than it is about protecting athletes. NCAA 
members are trying to figure out how to frame NIL as part of the 
difference in educational opportunities an institution makes available, 
rather than as another of the less honorable, unethical, or illegal 
techniques schools are suspected to benefit from/facilitate/resort to 
in order to maintain or improve their place in the dominance hierarchy 
of college sports and thereby higher education. My analysis is that the 
NCAA's efforts on NIL are simply an attempt to open Pandora's box more 
slowly, driven largely by the Big Time football and basketball schools' 
desire to continue to have it both ways! Which as noted above reflects 
larger political economic realities in which college sports 
competitions take place. Not surprisingly, then, the NCAA has NEVER 
explored other mechanisms for protecting the integrity of the 
matriculation of athletes into higher education.
    I contend permitting college athletes the opportunity to sell NIL 
will NOT bring integrity to college sports so long as college sports 
and higher education continue to operate as they have. I am arguing 
implicitly that permitting athletes to sell NIL is an attempt to offer 
a seemingly simple solution to what is in fact a complex set of social 
problems the Nation has been unwilling to address and thereby unable to 
solve--problems within college sports, the Nation's decentralized and 
unequal approach to educating its children, and American society as a 
whole.
    In that regard, I find it ironic to see NIL painted as a civil 
rights issue, as if NIL is a manifestation of inequality that demands 
urgent attention when in practice it affects relatively few, albeit 
highly visible individuals. How much of the rationale for NIL goes away 
if the Nation did not suffer from unequal funding of K12 education, 
lack of adequate housing, medical care, access to nutritious food, and 
employment and compensation equity for people of color and the poor, 
especially those who are female? To say nothing about the unequal 
opportunity to participate in sports and physical activity throughout 
one's lifetime. How many of those problems go away if college athletes 
are permitted to sell NIL?
    I find it similarly ironic that during a period when anti-trust 
laws have not prevented the rise of giant corporations we see anti-
trust law being used to alter the NCAA's conduct of college sports. The 
operation of college sports does need to be altered, that is true; but 
permitting athletes to sell NIL [or to receive even more in the way of 
`educational benefits'] simply overlays a new layer of hypocrisy onto 
the existing ones.
    Is it not even more ironic the debate over athletes selling NIL 
occurs during a time when the Nation is struggling to deal with the 
substantial loop into which the covid 19 pandemic has thrown it? Higher 
education did not escape the novel corona virus' impact, nor did 
college sports. Prior to covid 19, college sports and the NCAA were 
seen by their critics as a hypocritical, money-making monster. With 
covid 19, college sports as a component of higher education and the 
NCAA as an organization have been struggling to survive!!
    That the debate over NIL proceeded apace, rather than pausing, 
reflected an expectation the pre-virus `normal' of American life would 
somehow return relatively quickly. As of this writing (June 2021), we 
are in the early stages of finding out.
    While some leaders of higher education claimed they can afford 
``concierge 24x7 medical treatment'' for elite athletes, most cannot. 
For those who think they can, will they be able to do so should the 
Nation find itself battling this or new viruses for another year or two 
. . . or five? Will colleges' elite athletes be among the first to 
receive a vaccine? Will that set include all of higher education's 
elite athletes, or mainly those presently getting the concierge medical 
coverage?
    Congressional debate reveals even if the virus is not a factor of 
health care costs for elite college athletes, college sports has a 
health care funding problem of its own making. Sharing revenue is being 
discussed as a key element of any possible solution. But anyone 
familiar with the history of the NCAA knows reducing inequality by 
sharing revenue is as anathema in the NCAA as it is in the U.S. 
generally.
    Which points to another set of questions: Do the ``regular'' (i.e., 
non-elite athlete) students in higher education get the same level of 
benefits as the elite athlete students? If not, on what grounds do 
schools justify the difference in treatment? When is the difference in 
treatment between the two of concern and when is it not? When is a 
difference in treatment rectified and when is it not? Toward which side 
of the difference in treatment is the difference to be rectified--the 
athlete or the non-athlete? Is there a principle legitimating the 
answer to these questions; or is it simply a matter of politics and 
political power?
    Beyond the concern for athletes, what policies should/must schools 
put in place for fans to return safely? Will schools or athletic 
departments bear financial responsibility if an athlete or fan 
contracts covid and suffers serious health consequences or death?
    For that matter, why isn't the debate over health care for athletes 
part of the larger debate over health care for all Americans rather 
than part of the debate over what forms of special treatment should be 
extended to athletes? Likewise, if attending college were not so 
dependent on one's personal/familial financial resources, would we even 
be discussing the subject of compensating college athletes? Which is to 
say, as alluded to above, shouldn't the debate over equal treatment of 
athletes be part of a larger debate over equality in American life in 
general?
    Beyond the covid 19 pandemic, the Nation and the world wrestle--
unsuccessfully up till now--with many other challenges: climate change, 
economic stagnation, worsening inequality, and racism, to name four of 
the more prominent. How likely are these to be addressed in a way that 
allows return to the pre-virus normal? Indeed, does addressing them 
successfully not mean by definition we will NOT be returning to the 
pre-virus normal? If NIL is recognized as a potentially momentous 
change to the `normal' operation of college sports, is it not even more 
appropriate to incorporate these larger political economic concerns 
into the discussion of how to reform college sports? NIL addresses NONE 
of these; NIL is NOT the pacing item here, nor for that matter is the 
state of college sports, uncertain as the latter presently feels. I am 
not saying Congress should not be interested in promoting reform of 
college sports. I am saying I worry its attempt is likely to fall 
short--and quite likely to make matters worse--because the immediate 
issue, NIL, is being discussed in a socio-cultural political 
environment wholly deficient in its understanding of the college sports 
enterprise.
    I recognize my ideas about bringing integrity to college sports are 
dramatically outside acceptable bounds. I also acknowledge no one else 
understands the relationship between college sports and higher 
education and for that matter the larger society the way I do. That 
difference allows me but prevents everyone else from even contemplating 
how college sports will be affected should the pre-virus normal never 
return. To those acts, I plead no contest.
    No one else has come up with the combination of conceptual 
framework and policies I have because no one else has begun from the 
perspective I did and used the methodology I did to try to resolve the 
debate over college sports.
    Why has no one else come up with this result? Ideological bias, not 
on my part but on theirs. Think of it this way: If one sees an 
important sociological question is not being addressed adequately by 
the two dominant schools of thought in the field, and if each of those 
schools of thought believes itself superior to a third school of 
thought no one is using, wouldn't their failure to answer the question 
adequately incline one to consider looking to the third school of 
thought as a way to break through the blockage? It might . . . if one 
actually wanted to break through the blockage.
    If capitalism is the economic system of the society in which 
college sports and sports in general are quite prominent but also quite 
controversial in the way they operate, wouldn't one be inclined to 
presume a possible connection, and investigate further . . . if one 
wanted to break through the blockage and try to resolve the 
controversy? One might. But if one did resolve it, what reception would 
the research and its derived policy recommendations be likely to 
receive . . . if capitalism was implicated as central to the problem?
    In academia, as I discovered, the search for truth--especially when 
it comes to social matters--is not as unfettered as the marketing 
brochures advertise. Likewise, as the history of the U.S. demonstrates, 
when it comes to setting policy, not everyone is welcome to 
participate; and not all ideas are considered equally deserving of 
consideration. This is especially true when it comes to capitalism and 
the presumption of its superiority and inevitability as an economic 
system. After all, in spite of all the world's problems, doesn't the 
entire world know . . . ``there is no alternative to capitalism?'' Few 
in Congress--or at any level of government in the U.S., for that 
matter--are prepared to examine that subject with an empirically 
oriented, unbiased attitude.
    [Sidenote: The focus on `climate change' is a political sleight-of-
hand that distracts from understanding the nature of the problem more 
aptly by the phrase ``environmental sustainability.'' That is, 
Americans and people living in the world's other rich nations, consume 
resources, both individually and collectively, at an unsustainable 
rate. It's a logically simple problem to state but an exceedingly 
difficult political economic problem to solve, as the thus-far futile 
debate over reducing CO2 emissions demonstrates. Focusing on 
climate change allows everyone to avoid the more difficult questions: 
Is capitalism compatible with living environmentally sustainably? If it 
is, how did we get into our current precarious situation? If it is not, 
given our religious-like belief in capitalism, what are we to do?]
    I submit this statement not because I expect Congress to rush to 
support its understanding of college sports and implement its 
recommendations BEFORE taking on the issue of athletes selling NIL. 
Rather, I submit this statement as a prediction and a word of caution; 
I submit it to hint at the existence of a standard against which all 
other efforts should be assessed when one claims to be trying to reform 
college sports, to eliminate hypocrisy in college sports, to stop 
exploitation of college athletes, to balance academics and athletics in 
college sports, to prevent discrimination of various sorts in college 
sports, and so on. In short, I offer it to suggest what it is required 
for the notion of ``student-athlete'' to have integrity.
    Is there a constituency interested in and committed to bringing 
integrity to college sports? Not so far.
Addendum on balancing academics and athletics
    Many critics of the NCAA complain of the Big Time football and 
basketball programs' over-emphasis on athletics to the detriment of 
academics. To my knowledge, no one else has come up with the extensive 
set of policies I have that give credence to the ideal of student 
first, athlete second. Claims to the contrary notwithstanding, actions 
being taken, including those promoting NIL for athletes, indicate 
everyone else has given up trying to claim Big Time college football 
and basketball are anything but a fraud, `college-flavored sport' as I 
referred to it earlier. Genuinely balancing athletics and academics is 
more than anyone really wants to accomplish. How do I know? Because 
they reject out of hand ideas such as the following:

    One. Permit the recruiting of only those individuals whose 
outstanding academic performance in high school manifests their 
prioritization of academics over athletics and a desire to find the 
best academic fit for their scholarly interests as well as their 
sporting interests. For all other academically qualified individuals 
wanting to receive an athletic grant in their first year of college, 
distribute them via a draft. Schools select in each round of the draft 
by order of team graduation rate, higher rate before lower rate (as a 
reward), with ties broken by order of conference graduation rate. For 
each round of the draft, an individual is selectable if and only if his 
high school GPA exceeds the minimum GPA required to be eligible for 
selection in that round--minimum GPA in round 1 is greater than or 
equal to minimum GPA for Round 2, and so on.
    Two: Link academic performance with the opportunity to participate 
on the college's team in a way that makes it the shared responsibility 
of the entire college sports enterprise--individual, school, 
conference, and the NCAA--to graduate athletes. Key component: Athletic 
grants are linked directly to academic performance--a set of grants 
offered by the school for a sport's team is divided up into four 
subsets, each subset representing one of the four years of academic 
progress toward graduation. To receive a year-two athletic grant, one 
must be an academic sophomore; year-three, an academic junior; year-
four, an academic senior.
    This method means an athletic grant is not simply a vehicle by 
which a school offers an individual a total of up to four years of 
athletic participation/training on a college team, as is the case now. 
It's four one-year grants designed to ensure integrity of the 
representational link embodied in each student-athlete.
    Each year's athletic grant is thereby free-standing; an individual 
receiving a year-one athletic grant for example is neither guaranteed a 
year-two grant nor permitted to participate in a sport's season with a 
year-two grant unless he has garnered enough credits to be an academic 
sophomore. To ensure academic integrity from the start, freshman may be 
permitted to practice with a team but are not eligible to participate 
in games. They have to show their academic mettle before being allowed 
to perform athletically as a genuine representative, as a student-
athlete. (Returning to freshman ineligibility gets rid of the sham of 
``one and done'' athlete in Big Time college basketball.)
    With this arrangement in place, the definition of graduation rate 
is straightforward: the percentage of year-four athletic grant holders 
who graduate.
    But the knowing skeptic will ask: What about the fact that schools 
require athletes to spend so much time and energy on athletics, they 
have little time and energy left for studying and making academic 
progress? Answer . . .
    Three. Set a target rate of graduation for teams in the sport that 
reflects a `socially acceptable' commitment to graduating individuals. 
``Socially acceptable'' in this context is each school, conference, and 
the NCAA as a whole announcing their respective targets, and the public 
wading in on the acceptability of that set of targets. (Let that 
conversation become part of sports talk radio!)
    Enforce meeting those targets by linking opportunities to 
participate in the sport to such key elements as length of season, 
opportunity to perform in post-season tournament(s), and opportunity to 
HOLD a post-season tournament. Including the NCAA's Division 1 
basketball tournament!! Meaning, for example: If the set of schools 
playing Division 1 basketball is NOT graduating players at the target 
national rate, the following year's tournament is NOT held!
    Meaning: If the set of schools playing Division 1 basketball is not 
graduating players at the national target rate, shorten the season 
until the length of the season results in hitting the target! Shorten 
the season by the same percentage amount by which the actual rate 
missed the target rate. Example: target rate = 80 percent, actual rate 
= 50 percent, shorten the following season by 30 percent! Compute a 
miss In stepwise fashion. Example: actual graduation rate of 60 percent 
to 69.99 percent is a miss of 20 percent if the target rate was eighty 
percent! Coaches talk regularly about sports being a game of inches and 
precise execution; on what basis do they criticize making academic 
performance just as rigorous and unforgiving?
    ``Horrors, no way,'' the athletic departments' business managers 
screech! Doesn't this approach wreak scheduling and financial havoc? 
Only so long as the enterprise remains a fraud. Americans have 
tolerated the fraud up until now because no one else has put forward an 
alternative vision with accompanying rationale explaining what 
constitutes integrity, and not enough Americans have been incensed 
enough about the fraud in college sports to mobilize to stop to it.
    Contrast the orientation of the above ideas to that implicit in 
proposals put forward by others. To be blunt, they make a travesty of 
the claim colleges are striving to balance athletics and academics when 
they declare for example balancing may now include rewarding college 
athletes whose college athletic eligibility has been used up with an 
extended period of time and related benefits to attain a degree . . . 
of some sort. As if it's not pay for play if the pay comes after the 
play? Really?
    Perhaps the most notable and striking example of this line of 
adulteration was expressed by attorney Jeffrey Kessler during oral 
argument in the Alston case before the U.S. Supreme Court this past 
March. During an exchange with Justice Barrett, Kessler stated that the 
opportunity to complete training at a ``blue collar vocational school'' 
(transcript 63:25) AFTER an athlete's college sports career had ended 
would potentially yield ``life changing benefits'' for those 
individuals unable to garner either the big pro league contract or 
graduate from the four-year institution on whose sports team he had 
performed so admirably. Could the lack of integrity in the 
representative relationship in Big Time college football and basketball 
be acknowledged any more gingerly yet openly than that?
    If rigorous academic policies such as these above mean that not 
only colleges but also high schools and grade schools undermine 
academic integrity even more than they are believed to be doing 
already, simply to keep talented athletes academically eligible for the 
school's sports team, then how is the cause of educating a productive, 
engaged, honest, and physically and mentally healthy citizenry not 
completely lost?
    Not all great athletes are capable of or interested in attaining a 
college degree. For them, the professional leagues of basketball, 
baseball, and ice hockey in North America could easily contribute to 
and/or sponsor minor league clubs. As intimated earlier, however, 
tackle football is another story. Privately owned minor leagues of 
tackle football feel to be a financial money pit of the highest order. 
It is virtually impossible to imagine the tackle football equivalent of 
the baseball player who toils away in minor leagues for years trying to 
reach his boyhood dream, his big chance at the premier league of his 
sport. To repeat, tackle football is too expensive and too medically 
risky to operate as minor leagues without extensive (both direct and 
indirect) financial support from public coffers.
    If Americans want to see large-bodied men crashing into and 
tackling each other for fun, perhaps the time has finally come for 
American public education to drop tackle football and start supporting 
rugby. Even though the likelihood of injury remains, the medical costs 
of playing rugby are likely to be lower than those for tackle football. 
And the equipment costs would obviously be much, much lower. With 
smaller playing squads, rugby would give schools the option of either 
lowering costs when offering the sport or retaining the same level of 
cost by supporting multiple different teams, similar perhaps to the 
weight classes of wrestling.
    Such granular differentiation is of course an approach schools 
could adopt in any sport; doing so would go far toward helping schools 
(and the public) sort out the debate over participation by transgender 
athletes, for example.
    The big pot-of-gold pro league contract at the end-of-the-sports-
participation rainbow is already damaging enough to our society's 
priorities and well-being. How much longer can we afford to deceive 
ourselves believing the greatness of our pro athletes' performances 
symbolize our Nation's greatness when in fact they manifest its 
failings?
    Which prompts me to ask this: If Congress passes legislation 
granting college athletes the right to unionize, what do we hope will 
happen? Will college athletes negotiate for higher compensation and/or 
more opportunities to make money, to get better athletic training, to 
achieve more fame, to sell NIL without limit, to share sports-generated 
revenue more equitably, and so on? Or will they act to stop the fraud 
and organize to ensure they and their athletic programs are oriented 
toward athletes getting a meaningful college education and a diploma?
    If college sports operated with integrity already, would college 
athletes even need the right to unionize?
    So let me ask again: Do Americans want integrity in college sports?
    That's what we claim we want.
    Is it what our colleges' elite athletes want? Is it what the 
institutions' student bodies and alumni want? Is it what Congress 
really wants? Is that what the American public really wants?
    Not up till now; it hasn't been. When the Nation begins vigorous 
debate about policy ideas such as those indicated above, I will begin 
to believe otherwise.
    Only when we finally do want integrity in the representational link 
between athletics and academics in college sports, only then may we 
need Congress to pass legislation, including perhaps anti-trust 
exemptions, to reinforce our desire and commitment to make it happen.
    The current debate over NIL and other compensation for elite 
college athletes is nowhere near that conversation.
Postscript on the USSC's NCAA v Alston decision
    Not surprisingly, given the definition of the ``market'' upon which 
the Alston case originated, namely Division 1 football and basketball 
players, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the lower courts against the 
NCAA's cap on benefits tethered to education. Schools are now free to 
offer inducements that include scholarships for graduate school or 
vocational school, or other education-related benefits. The Court 
acknowledged its decision was narrow, compared to those wanting the 
court to open the door wide and allow college athletes to be paid 
outright. But the Court in its unanimous opinion agreed with the 
appellate court's statement: ``The national debate about amateurism in 
college sports is important. But our task as appellate judges is not to 
resolve it. Nor could we. Our task is simply to review the district 
court judgement through the appropriate lens of antitrust law.''
    In a separate concurring opinion however, Justice Kavanaugh 
scathingly criticized the NCAA's way of operating--i.e., the 
association and its member institutions wanting to have it both ways--
and invited thereby others to pursue further legal challenges against 
them. His analogy between low paid college athletes and low paid cooks, 
and other such purported parallels as illegal `labor price fixing' was 
accorded notable sympathetic visibility in media reports of the Court's 
decision. Ignored however was Kavanaugh's subsequent telling 
observation: ``If it turns out some or all of the NCAA's remaining 
compensation rules violate the antitrust laws, some difficult policy 
and practical questions would undoubtedly ensue.'' The questions he 
listed leave unclear whether he is among those hoping to bring 
integrity to the enterprise or hoping to destroy it.
    Kavanaugh's closing statement leaves little doubt however where he 
stands in the debate: ``Nowhere in America can businesses get away with 
agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market value on the theory 
that their product is defined by not paying workers a fair market 
value.'' The statement's analytical vagueness notwithstanding, when you 
understand college sports the way almost all Americans do, this 
statement seems to make sense. It would be more accurate to say, as the 
Court's opinion points out: The fundamental shortcoming of the NCAA's 
argument is that it claims to be defending amateurism as the core of 
its members' operation as commercial enterprises when evidence readily 
shows it has no consistent definition of amateurism, either across time 
or across sports.
    Nevertheless, the Court's claim that the legal system is agnostic 
in the debate over amateurism in college sports should be taken with a 
grain of salt; its decision in Alston joins with and gives legal stamp 
of approval to all those in the wider society who see college sports 
programs infused with exploitation and hypocrisy. If truth be told, 
that set includes many within the NCAA itself, a not-insignificant 
factor contributing to the association's legal defeat.
    Thanks to the assault via the cudgel of antitrust law, amateur and 
professional have become simply two versions of professional sports 
entertainment--the ``amateur'' one being the version operated by 
colleges and universities. The arguments waged under antitrust law talk 
about Big Time football and basketball in precisely this fashion, 
including in the Court's Alston decision. Thanks to antitrust law, the 
distinction between amateur and professional in the sports world has 
become simply a marketing one, a product differentiation one . . . 
based on the difference in FORM of compensation. But that begs the 
obvious--pending--question: If the Court is using consumer demand as 
the proof of the pudding, why imagine, as the pay-for-play critics 
dispute, the FORM of compensation is the decisive factor? Is NIL not a 
fortuitously convenient device to begin putting that hypothesis to the 
test?
    The unanimous decision against the NCAA led its Division 1 Board of 
Directors to pull back from its scheduled vote on the association's 
proposed uniform regulations on NIL. The last-minute change to the 
proposal to be voted on was seen reflecting a fear that uniform NIL 
regulations if approved would become the natural target for the legal 
challenges the Court's unanimity was encouraging implicitly and 
Kavanaugh's concurrence was encouraging explicitly (behind a quite-thin 
veil).
    If the NCAA chooses NOT to seek/fails to get an injunction (as 
seems likely) and if Congress is unable to act in time to pass Federal 
legislation superseding states' disparate NIL laws (as also seems 
likely), with the state-regulated floodgates allowing college athletes 
to sell NIL starting to open on 01 July 2021 and with the NCAA 
intellectually and politically powerless to hold back the resulting 
flood, the near-term future of college sports as of this writing (late 
June 2021) seems destined to be one of chaos and more lawsuits.
    As I have argued above however, the universally-held view is 
neither the most accurate way to understand college sports nor, by my 
assessment, the societally preferable way to operate them.
    The questions my analysis begs are these: Do Americans want 
integrity in college sports? That is: Do Americans want a system of 
college sports in which athletes are genuinely representative of their 
institutions, i.e., of their fellow students' academic capabilities and 
sports participation interests? Unfortunately, no one else--not the 
courts or the states or the Congress or the media or the various 
constituencies of higher education (students, faculty, alumni, staff, 
administrators, donors, foundations, suppliers, etc.)--is asking these 
questions.
    With the traditional notion of ``amateur'' now rendered meaningless 
in the case of college sports, the Court's statement above may be 
recognized to say that the Court is not interested in salvaging it; nor 
is the Court interested in articulating a new term/`theoretical 
construct' by which to label/understand college sports and move their 
operation in that direction. The courts struck down female physical 
educators' effort to operate college sports as amateur programs with NO 
compensation decades ago, and no other constituency has stepped forward 
since to take up the cause. Nor has any subgroup of scholars dedicated 
itself to developing an alternative conceptual framework and political 
economic understanding of college sports, so there appears to be no 
cause for anyone to take up anyway!
    Will college sports survive as an enterprise in which college 
athletes are paid outright and/or try to capitalize financially on 
their fame by selling NIL rights?
    How will such a change affect American higher education?
    How will it affect the American sports world?
    How will it affect American society?
    We seem poised to find out.
            Respectfully submitted,
                                                David Rose.
     DARose 2021
                                 ______
                                 
     Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Jacky Rosen to 
                           Christina Chenault
    Potential for Industry Restrictions and Student Contract 
Limitations. It is critical that any federal NIL laws include robust 
protections for student athletes against predatory endorsement and 
contract practices, and that endorsement, contract, and promotional 
deals meet reasonable integrity standards. However, I am concerned that 
these integrity standards could potentially restrict critical 
industries--such as those in the tourism, hospitality, and gaming 
sectors--from participation in NIL opportunities, and therefore limit 
student-athlete contract opportunities. These industries fuel Nevada's 
economy and are the drivers of economic growth and job creation in my 
state.

    Question. Might a prohibition on legal industry partners--such as 
those hotels and resorts offering gaming services in Nevada--
potentially limit the scope of NIL endorsement and contract 
opportunities for student athletes like your former teammates at UCLA, 
as well as those at colleges and universities in Nevada and across the 
country?
    Answer. A prohibition on legal industry partners would definitely 
limit college athlete freedoms within the scope of NIL endorsement 
opportunities. When I think about my former teammates as well as 
college athletes throughout the country, I believe they should have the 
equal opportunity to pursue NIL in the equivalent breadth and scope of 
their peers. Therefore, there shouldn't be a created ban on an issue 
that does not exist yet; as there has already historically been a 
hyper-surveillance of college athlete activity which is the very reason 
by which NIL freedoms are now being granted. Furthermore, I don't 
believe re-regulating college athlete NIL freedoms like a ``prohibition 
on legal industry partners--such as those hotels and resorts offering 
gaming services in Nevada'' is necessary. Instead, for fear of any 
unethical activity or found abuse of the NIL freedoms, there should be 
a proactive education for college athletes at the institutional (NCAA 
and respective school) levels to first clearly inform them of the newly 
allowable and non-allowable parameters. Integrity standards should 
account for predatory endorsement but not engulf other critical 
commerce industries at large. My fear is that re-regulation within 
critical commerce industries such as tourism, hospitality, and gaming 
sectors would disproportionately affect the nature of college 
recruiting and college athlete opportunity for those in respective 
industry locations or states. Namely, since incoming college athletes 
are now making more holistic college decisions including academic, 
athletic, and professional-industrial potential, they may miss out on 
an amazing academic or athletic opportunity due to a school's affected 
local key industry.
                                 ______
                                 
   Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Raphael Warnock to 
                           Christina Chenault
    Athlete Support. Thank you for sharing your testimony with us 
today. I am proud that we are elevating the health, professional, and 
academic needs of America's college athletes in the discussion 
regarding NIL legislation. I believe that by working together with 
athletes, coaches, athletic directors, and other involved parties, we 
can develop NIL legislation that benefits athletes and universities.

    Question. What steps can Congress take to ensure that any NIL 
legislation protects athletes' access to quality education and physical 
and mental health resources?
    Answer. In the lens of athlete protection within NIL, more 
prohibitions should be applied to the schools themselves. Illustrated 
on record through the development of college sports, it is the schools 
themselves and their subsequent administration that hold the power to 
manipulate rules and language for financial gain. With the emergence of 
NIL causing a landscape shift, it is hard to imagine after being a 
college athlete for 6 years that these operating tactics, which 
exemplify the well-rooted ethos and monetary motivations of schools, 
will simply dissipate. With this in mind, it would be a priority 
concern from the athlete perspective to constitute strict athletic 
scholarship safety despite any physical injury or mental health 
affective, to ensure the educational and psychological safety of 
college athletes. At some schools, athletes are handed papers listing 
majors deemed ``conducive for their sport activity''. This is one 
example of many, that displays the unethical educational tracking 
athletic departments have over their athletes that should also be 
outlawed. Any style of legislation that can prohibit this current 
educational mistreatment of college athletes that is polluted by a 
school's athletic program influence, academically referred to as the 
``Flutie effect'', would better support athlete education.
                                 ______
                                 
   Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Raphael Warnock to 
                              Sari Cureton
    Athlete Support. Thank you for sharing your testimony with us 
today. I am proud that we are elevating the health, professional, and 
academic needs of America's college athletes in the discussion 
regarding name, image, and likeness (NIL) legislation. I believe that 
by working together with athletes, coaches, athletic directors, and 
other involved parties, we can develop NIL legislation that benefits 
athletes and universities.

    Question. What steps can Congress take to ensure that any NIL 
legislation protects athletes' access to quality education and physical 
and mental health resources?
    Answer. Senator Warnock it was an honor to speak before your 
committee and I appreciate your question. I think that the College 
Athlete Bill of Rights provides some of the best guidelines to 
protecting student-athletes' access to quality education and health 
resources. For example, the establishment of a medical trust fund helps 
protect the health of athletes after they are done competing for their 
institutions. As it relates to mental health resources, I believe every 
institution needs to provide access to mental health professionals. The 
NCAA should offer funding for universities that are not able to afford 
on site professionals. However, there is concern that athletes would 
not trust staff that work for their department to properly care for 
their mental health or that department staff might gatekeep access to 
these professionals. I think one way to combat this is having hired 
psychologists, psychiatrists, or counselors be accountable to student 
health services rather than an athletic director. Continued oversight 
of institutions will be necessary to make sure that student-athletes 
are actually being connected to resources. It is also crucial that 
student-athletes who wish to seek assistance outside of the university 
have the necessary financial and logistical assistance from their 
institution to access care. This need not only applies to mental health 
but physical health as well. If an athlete wishes to seek a second 
opinion, they should not face out of pocket expenses. In regard to 
quality education, I encourage any passed legislation to maintain the 
College Athletes' Bill of Rights prohibition on the interference of 
department staff in the process of athletes selecting their majors. 
Legislation should also maintain a scholarship safeguard that ensures 
athletes will have access to their scholarship for as long as it takes 
for them to complete their undergraduate degree. My hope is that this 
will allow student-athletes to fully explore their academic interests 
so that they may be better prepared for life after sports. There are 
also other important areas to discuss as it relates to the rights of 
student-athletes. For example, I believe it is crucial that the NCAA is 
forced to uphold Title IX. Another important aspect is enforcement and 
oversight because otherwise these measures will not be effective. I 
believe that the Commission on College Athletes could be an extremely 
important tool in the protection of student-athlete rights. However, 
this commission can only be effective so long as intuitions are not the 
ones in complete control. Along with the creation of an oversight body 
there needs to be a reporting mechanism that allows student-athletes to 
report any violations of their rights not only to the NCAA but to this 
commission as well. Many athletes are scared to report these incidents 
therefore it is imperative that those that do come forward can do so 
safely and without repercussion. I hope that my answer has offered 
greater insight to my written and oral testimony. Thank you again for 
your time and attention.
                                 ______
                                 
   Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Raphael Warnock to 
                             Martin McNair
    Question. What steps can Congress take to ensure that any NIL 
legislation protects athletes' access to quality education and physical 
and mental health resources?
    Answer. I believe that Congress can ensure that Federal legislation 
with NIL creates a baseline standard notable provision of safety first 
and economic freedom second across the board in all states. Senators 
Booker and Blumenthal's Student Athletes Bill of Rights is the template 
to follow in order to accomplish this.
    Senator, the bipartisan effort in the State of MD regarding the 
Jordan McNair Safe and Fair Play Act is the example that all states 
should follow regarding the health and wellness of all student athletes 
in this country.
    College athletics is one of the many things we enjoy by leaving our 
cultural, financial and political views outside the door. We're all 
parents and family members of these student athletes. Let their health 
and safety be a paramount priority before we consider paying them for 
their Name Image and Likeness.
                                 ______
                                 
   Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Raphael Warnock to 
                              Kaira Brown
    Athlete Support. Thank you for sharing your testimony with us 
today. I am proud that we are elevating the health, professional, and 
academic needs of America's college athletes in the discussion 
regarding name, image, and likeness (NIL) legislation. I believe that 
by working together with athletes, coaches, athletic directors, and 
other involved parties, we can develop NIL legislation that benefits 
athletes and universities.

    Question. What steps can Congress take to ensure that any NIL 
legislation protects athletes' access to quality education and physical 
and mental health resources?
    Answer. One way that Congress can ensure protection of student 
athletes is by ensuring independent enforcement for established rights. 
Currently, although there is some positive guidance and guidelines 
provided by the NCAA, the enforcement for these guidelines can be weak 
or nonexistent. If Congress were to provide a dependable mechanism for 
outside oversight for student-athlete protections, this would be a 
significant step to protect student-athletes' rights to quality 
education and physical and mental health. This entity would oversee the 
enforcement of protections for student athlete physical and mental 
health such as practice hour limits and safety guidelines.
    It is imperative that this outside enforcement group also be 
uninfluenced by the current governing bodies of college sports. If 
groups such as the NCAA, conference commissioners, and heads of schools 
were to oversee the enforcement body, nothing would change with the 
current system. These governing bodies have proven that, given the 
opportunity to protect student athletes, they will not. We need the 
outside enforcement body to be overwhelmingly made up of people who 
have student athletes' best interests in heart. For example, the 
enforcement body must include athletic trainers and sports 
psychologists to speak on physical and mental health. A significant 
portion of the enforcement body must also be made up of current and 
former student athletes.
    In addition to an external enforcement body, there are certain 
assurances that Congress could provide that would also help physical 
and mental health for student athletes. One such assurance would be 
Federal legislation ensuring the promise of a four-year scholarship. 
While many schools and conferences purport that they guarantee four-
year scholarships, the lived experience of many student athletes is 
that their scholarship is not promised from year to year. This is 
obviously incredibly stressful, especially for athletes who likely 
could not afford to attend the institution without this financial 
assistance. The knowledge that their scholarship is constantly in 
danger of being taken away can also lead student athletes to push their 
bodies further than what's medically safe in order to please their 
coaches and keep their scholarships. Thus, if athletes could feel 
confident that their scholarships were guaranteed, this would alleviate 
a huge mental burden as well as empower them to make the best choices 
for their bodies.
    In conclusion, the present governing bodies of collegiate athletics 
often rule with their economic interests at heart rather than the 
interests of student athletes. Congress can protect and uplift student 
athletes by putting athletes, not the NCAA, first in their legislation 
and their enforcement. Congress must hold the NCAA and other governing 
bodies accountable for the protections the NCAA professes but fails to 
grant. They must then go further and establish a permanent 
accountability apparatus so that the NCAA and other such organizations 
no longer feel empowered to overlook the needs of the very people they 
claim to serve.

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