Students playing ball

Over the weekend, two major universities -- Stanford and USC -- vied on national television to determine which could make the most costly errors and hand a football victory to its opponent.  It was close, but Stanford threw the final and determining interception.  The game, and my resulting disgust, are immaterial to the post that follows.  Only my mood has been affected.

The current issue of the Stanford alumni magazine contains a lengthy article entitled "Game Changer?"¹  The writers discuss college sports from a number of angles. The article results most directly from the recent ruling by an NLRB regional director that the granting of university scholarships to Northwestern University athletes causes them to be "employees" of the university, entitled to unionization and to collective bargaining for employee benefits.  The ruling has been hailed by many as striking a blow against "exploitation" of college athletes for the financial gain of their school. 

The implications for college sports -- and especially for smaller schools and for the financial ability of colleges to support minor sports at all levels -- could be profound.  The hearing examiner's ruling is under appeal to the full NLRB, and probably will end up in the federal courts.  Athletes at other schools have brought lawsuits directly against their schools that are pending in various federal courts.  (In August, for example, a federal judge ruled in O'Bannon v. NCAA that certain NCAA rules prohibiting compensation to former student athletes for a school's use of their images constitute an anti-trust violation.)

The Stanford Magazine article discusses many of these implications.   The article also discusses a question that has long bothered me -- the relationship between a university and its athletic program.  I have suggested on occasion, more or less facetiously, that colleges should go the logical next step -- contract with professional teams and license their use of the university name and colors.  Alumni could then continue to cheer for their schools -- with the concomitant urge to make annual donations -- and the school could focus on educating its students.  Obviously, Stanford's administration has similar concerns.

Stanford's president, John Hennessy, notes that Stanford sympathizes with the problems faced by many student athletes.  But calling them "employees" is not the solution.

Hennessy says such a result would destroy much of what Stanford values about athletics.  Rather than fielding teams of students who represent fellow students and the university, sports like football would essentially become mercenary enterprises -- a professional minor league.  In that event, he asks, "Why become involved in it?"

My question, exactly.

Stanford has been "going along to get along" with the Pac-12 and the NCAA.  It has accepted compromises -- like adding a twelfth game to the schedule, and adding games on week nights -- with which it feels uncomfortable.  But the school has been walking uncomfortably close to a line it doesn't want to cross.  It sees itself in serious danger of being forced by future events over that line.  Failure to keep athletics subservient to a school's academic program

would likely rupture the currently warm relationship between students who are athletes and those who are not.  "Here we are, Nerd Nation," Hennessy says.  "But not if we're paying the players."

The article warns of possible changes to come, should changes in the balance between schools and their athletics programs continue in their current direction.

It might mean leaving the Pac-12 and throwing in with like-minded schools, probably other highly selective privates.  (Imagine a conference made up of, say, Stanford, Rice, Vanderbilt, Duke, Notre Dame and Northwestern.)  Or the Cardinal could simply play at the Division III level, where athletic scholarships aren't allowed.

Leaving the Pac-12, which in its various mutations has been the Cardinal's conference since the school's earliest days, would be a sad change for its students and alumni, as would the school's decreased ability to compete with Cal in the Big Game. 

But I, for one, would support some such move rather than have Stanford accept a view of the  "student-athlete" (already a euphemism) as a professional, a view that is already increasingly covertly accepted by other large schools across the country. 
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¹Antonucci & Cool, "Game Changer," Stanford Magazine, Sept.-Oct. 2014.