Far removed from his playing days, details of the National Labor Relations Board’s ruling Wednesday in favor of Northwestern football players still rang true to Steve Mooney. The former Georgia Tech linebacker could relate to feeling like an employee during his days as a Yellow Jacket.
“My personal thoughts are that I certainly understand the board’s reasoning,” said Mooney, now an attorney in Atlanta, “because when I was a player 30 something years ago, they pretty much told you where to be every single day of the year, even when you were on vacation, and nowadays, it’s even more regulated.”
Reaction to the ruling was wide-ranging. Mooney, a partner at Weinberg, Wheeler, Hudgins, Gunn and Dial, was unlike many in that he had an unusually informed perspective — a former college football player and an attorney who has dealt both with the NCAA and the NLRB.
“This is a really, really messy situation,” Mooney said. “This ruling’s probably the worst thing that could have happened to the NCAA in a long time. Not just because of the decision, but it really has stirred up a hornet’s nest.”
The decision came from the Chicago district of the NLRB, which ruled Wednesday that Northwestern football players can be considered employees of the university and hence can form a union.
Players’ time commitment to the sport and the fact that they had received the scholarships because of their ability to play football were cited as reasons to recognize them as employees and grant them union rights.
Under U.S. law, an employee is regarded as someone who, among other things, receives compensation for a service and is under the strict, direct control of managers. In the case of the Northwestern players, coaches are the managers and scholarships are a form of compensation, NLRB regional director Peter Sung Ohr concluded.
The decision could potentially change the landscape of college athletics, an industry worth billions of dollars, particularly in the realm of athletes being paid beyond their scholarships.
Mooney’s coach at Tech, Bill Curry, offered another educated insight. The former coach at Tech and Georgia State was the president of the NFL players union as a player from 1973-75 and led a player strike in 1974. He called the actions by the Northwestern team “like deja vu for me.”
“They will be able to be heard,” Curry said of the benefit of unionization. “We were taken seriously in the ’70s because we could go to the NLRB in Washington, D.C., and call the parties together at a table for bargaining with the owners’ representatives. Having a voice like that was something new to us.”
Mooney predicted that the ruling won’t stand on appeal to the NLRB’s Washington headquarters.
“I don’t see it standing up under the law or just as a matter of principle,” he said.
Still, it seems inevitable that the ruling will have repercussions, some unpredictable. The Northwestern players’ objectives were better medical coverage, concussion testing and the possibility of being paid. Mooney raised potential implications in relation to Title IX, income taxes, forthcoming lawsuits and, of course, recruiting. It was clear to him that the ruling has the NCAA’s full attention.
“I don’t see an easy compromise, and I don’t see one coming any time soon,” Mooney said.
On Thursday, Georgia linebacker Ramik Wilson spoke to the risks players take with their bodies to be part of an entertainment product. He also shared that, before the day’s spring practice, running back Keith Marshall showed teammates a study that college football players spend nearly 40 hours a week on their sport.
“I’ve got the same pair of jeans I’ve had since my senior year of high school,” said linebacker Jordan Jenkins, a rising senior linebacker at Georgia. “I’ve got, like, two pairs. I’m in support of (a stipend). I’m not saying outrageously give us money. … (Money for) gas going back and forth to practice every day of the week. It’s just not enough. We’ve got guys struggling to pay their means.”
Teammate David Andrews, a center, was against payment.
“I don’t see us becoming employees, and I don’t know why you’d want to become an employee,” he said. “You can get fired and stuff like that. We’re here to play football and enjoy the game while it’s still not a job.”
Roddy Jones, a Tech football captain in 2011, said he never felt like an employee at Tech, even though his obligations to football ran up to 40 hours weekly during the season.
“I felt like my opportunity was to get this education and kind of make the most of the opportunity, and that was my goal, and having two degrees paid for by playing football, that’s kind of enough for me,” he said.
However, he understood the pro-union rationale and said that he had teammates who would have been interested in unionizing.
“I think there were some guys that were a little more, I don’t want to say radical because it has a negative connotation, but a little more vocal in their opinion about how they feel we should be compensated,” he said.
Jihad Ali, a two-time team captain for Georgia State’s basketball team, said that simply paying athletes wouldn’t work, as some schools would have the means to do so and others wouldn’t.
“A good solution is, if a student-athlete comes into school and graduates on time, they should be able to get a secondary or advanced degree paid for by the NCAA,” said Ali, who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Georgia State. “The money can come from a fund paid for by the colleges.”
Tech athletic director Mike Bobinski did not have comment Thursday, but addressed the issue with ESPN before the ruling.
“We kind of backed ourselves into this corner by wanting to control every waking moment and have our kids here year-round and have access to them all the time,” he told ESPN. “That sounds great, and coaches love control, and I get that. I know why they feel that way, and I appreciate that, but the other side is now this feeling that we own these young people, and their every thought and decision is something that has to be run through us, and I don’t care for that.
“Some of the backlash we’re seeing now is a result of that frustration that’s built up over that sense of lack of control of your own destiny.”
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