Donald Trump’s recent “Saving College Sports” round table proved to be a discussion amongst some of the most prominent names in both college football and Republican politics, with the former including the seven-time national champion head coach, Nick Saban. Alabama’s former play caller used the opportunity to voice his concerns about how the introduction of NIL has impacted the ability of coaches to prepare players for life and not just football.
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The majority of Saban’s testimony was aimed at stressing the importance of “creating a system that will help and preserve the opportunity for student athletes to have success in their future beyond athletics.” The President has since promised a “very all-encompassing” executive order that will address “solve every problem in this room, every conceivable problem, within one week.”
According to Cam Newton, however, the way in which this entire ordeal has been framed within the world of politics has been nothing more than “pure bologna.” During the latest episode of his 4th and 1 podcast, the 2015 regular season MVP suggested that, when it comes to returning to putting an emphasis on the “student” aspect of the phrase “student athlete,” we have officially hit “the point of no return.”
“Now, do I think we need some type of adjustment and laws abiding for athletes and coaches to adhere to? Absolutely. But if you fix one, then everything else will follow. That one thing that you need to fix is the transfer portal,” Cam said. “I am for players making money off of the name, image, and likeness… What I’m not for is for these athletes, woman or man, to have a different college than the one they are attending every single year of their collegiate eligibility.”
Citing all of the instances in which professional basketball players treated a year in college as nothing more than a formality, Newton made it abundantly clear that there was never truly an emphasis on the “student” aspect of “student athletes.” And that it always was, has been, and will continue to be, about the amount of money that one can generate for the institution that they are currently attending.
In other words, those still being the ones of the former face of the Carolina Panthers, “We never cared… That’s how I even got to the school. If I weren’t a good football player, I could have never had opportunities to go to these colleges.”
For as harsh as it may sound, Newton isn’t wrong. For decades now, the NCAA has made it readily apparent that one of its main concerns lies within profit margins and the ability to dictate how much, or how little, athletes can practice autonomy.
After years of players being forced to take down their personal YouTube channels and having to rely on someone else to buy them a meal, there’s finally a sense of freedom and reward that comes with being a student-athlete. So will it be possible for legislators to restrict that a bit? Of course, but at the same time, there will be no reliving of the old lie that players were going to Alabama for a quality education.
