Player unions could help prevent college sports catastrophes, and save a troubled industry from itself.
“Say what you want about Jimmy Hoffa,” Ohio University professor B. David Ridpath, a former college wrestler and coach, told me, “but my dad was a Teamster. My dad had severe back issues and didn’t have medical coverage for that. But once the union was put together, the Teamsters were able to actually have representation, actually able to have greater health and welfare protections and have a seat at the table.
“Athletes since the beginning of college athletics have not had a seat at the table,” Ridpath pointed out. “They’ve not even had a voice in their own health and welfare protections.“It’s a no-brainer,” Ridpath said of whether college athletes should unionize. “The reason the NCAA gets sued so much is they’re treating college students as employees and they’re not giving them employee protections. The best way to give yourself antitrust protection is to negotiate with the labor.
“I really don’t understand why the knee jerk opposition [to a college athletes union], because to me, it seems easier for an employer to deal with a union rather than hundreds of individuals,” Liebman said. “And particularly if there is a mature relationship that develops over time between the employer and the union, they can work out problems, they can have a mechanism for resolving disputes.
All these years later, the construction trade is not devoid of harassment between members. But it does have a means to obviate the kind of catastrophe that obstinate college sports officials have allowed to mar their industry.
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