We Matter

by Etan Thomas

  If I can instill self-confidence, strong leadership qualities, and spirituality into my daughter, I can rest knowing that she will be able to navigate life successfully. I teach my girls that God created all humans equally. “We are all special in our own way, but not better than the next person.” It is so important that they know this because they will treat others with respect while accepting nothing less than the same treatment in return.

  Etan: What is your advice to young women who might be patterning their actions and lives after what they see on TV?

  Ali: Most of the reality TV shows that are being produced today depict women in a negative way. Sadly, young girls tune in and begin to emulate the women they are watching . . . You must understand that most of what you see on reality TV is not “real.” When it comes to role models, look to women who consistently command respect no matter where they go in the world, such as First Lady Michelle Obama. Aim high!

  Etan: Curtis, do you think athletes have a responsibility to be a positive light in all of this darkness? Or is it unfair to put that on them?

  Curtis Conway: I do my best to be a positive example to both adults and kids. With that being said, I don’t think athletes should automatically have the responsibility to be role models to kids, because we all have a right to decide how we want to live our lives and what image we want to portray. Just because you perform your profession in the public eye doesn’t mean you should have to feel pressure to change who you really are to fit the public’s opinion . . . There are a lot of athletes who haven chosen to be responsible with the platform they have, living positive lifestyles, and in some cases giving back to their communities. The media should start giving more coverage to those athletes.

  Etan: How important is it for girls to stand up for their rights and beliefs?

  Conway: As a father, I raise my girls to be strong, independent, and to stand for what they believe in. The only time I may not want them to take a stand is when it could physically hurt them. I’m just being real. That’s the father in me, being protective of my girls, because I feel as men, we need to protect our girls and women.

  Chapter 12

  Fighting for Your Rights Matters

  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar brilliantly described the exploitation of college athletes in a July 2014 Time magazine article:

  The irony is that the NCAA and other supporters claim paying athletes would sully the purity of college sports—desecrating our image of a youthful clash of school rivalries that always ends at the malt shop with school songs being sung and innocent flirting between boys in letterman jackets and girls with pert ponytails and chastity rings. In reality, what makes college sports such a powerful symbol in our culture is that it represents our attempt to impose fairness on an otherwise unfair world. Fair play, sportsmanship and good-natured rivalry are lofty goals to live by. By treating the athletes like indentured servants, we’re tarnishing that symbol and reducing college sports to just another exploitation of workers, no better than a sweatshop.

  The popularity of the NCAA bowl games and March Madness continues to skyrocket, and so do the astronomical television deals and overall profits that come with that growth. While this raises the eyebrows of some, it simultaneously causes universities to clench their Scrooge McDuck empires even tighter. College players don’t share in the spoils, yet the more money universities make, the more greedy they become.

  Let’s look at the facts, as laid out by Abdul-Jabbar in that article:

  • College athletic programs are a $6 billion-a-year industry. Yes, that’s billion with a “B.”

  • The NCAA president makes nearly $2 million a year. A salary that is steadily rising annually.

  • CBS and TBS split $1 billion per year off of March Madness alone.

  • The NCAA’s top ten basketball coaches earn salaries that range from $2.2 million to $9.7 million per year.

  • The average annual pay for coaches in the NCAA tournament field is $1.77 million. That’s based on sixty-two of sixty-eight schools in the field for which USA Today was able to obtain compensation figures.

  Yet the NCAA continues to oppose paying college athletes, and in polls, a slim majority supports this—but it’s hypocritical. These are young athletes who play every single game, risk permanent career-ending injury, and get only scholarship money as their compensation. Case in point: my wife Nichole Thomas.

  Some are naive enough to believe that the NCAA doesn’t want to pay college athletes because they are 100 percent committed to educational and intellectual enlightenment. Some are actually convinced that if the athletes were paid, the very fiber of our institutions of higher learning would be compromised and the focus of scholastic achievement would quickly dissipate.

  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar continues to let his voice be heard and utilize his influence and power as an athlete-activist.

  Many do not realize that if you have a career-ending injury, you’re no longer of any use to the university and can be sold up the river—or, in modern terms, lose your scholarship. I know this firsthand because it almost happened to my wife (then girlfriend), who, like me, played basketball for Syracuse University.

  After Nichole’s third knee surgery, the Syracuse specialist, Dr. Irving Raphael, told her that if she wanted to be able to walk without a cane and play with her kids in the future, she had to stop playing basketball. She was devastated, but after much convincing from the people who cared about her, Nichole made the right decision.

  Then–head coach Marianna Freeman, assistant coach Felisha Legette, and the rest of the Syracuse women’s program began a crusade to take Nichole’s scholarship away, because, after all, if you can no longer play, what good are you to them? Nichole actually threatened to sue the athletic director, Jake Crouthamel, and the university itself, in order to keep her scholarship during her senior year.

  If their main concern was education, this wouldn’t have happened. The bottom line is that it’s a business. When you play Division I sports, you’re there for two simple reasons: to play, and to earn money for the university.

  But naysayers will tell you things along the lines of:

  “Universities are dedicated to inundating capital into each and every student-athlete’s academic development.”

  “Paying college athletes would devalue the universities as a whole and discredit the student-athletes as scholars. It would diminish their overall academic growth and therefore be doing them a disservice.”

  “It wouldn’t be fair to the other students who are bogged down with student loans, work-study, and financial aid programs, so we just wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings.”

  If you believe any of that, I have some magic beans that you’d probably be interested in buying as well.

  Amid a lawsuit brought by former football and men’s basketball players in 2014, NCAA president Mark Emmert testified that paying college athletes a share of the revenue from commercial use of their names and images would alienate fans, damage competition, and ultimately harm the athletes. Emmert, who has led the association of 1,100 college sports programs since October 2010, said any such compensation would erase the boundary between college and professional sports. He has argued, “To convert college sports into professional sports would be tantamount to converting it into minor league sports,” with a much lower fan base.

  ESPN analyst Jay Bilas has continuously pointed out the ridiculousness of the entire argument. “It’s laughable, but it’s not funny. They pay the scholarship, which is the amount the school pays to itself. They’re not out a nickel. The athletics department pays the school. Then they claim that they’re poor. Then they pay themselves these outrageous salaries that are market-based, but they say they don’t have any money to give to the players, but they have $8 million to give to a football or basketball coach and $1 million to give a baseball coach.”

  If we are all waiting for the NCAA to feel remorse for the way they have exploited athletes for decades, we are fooling ourselves.

  Pulitzer Pr
ize–winning author Taylor Branch looked at the state of affairs in college sports and could come to only one conclusion: “For all the outrage, the real scandal is . . . that two of the noble principles on which the NCAA justifies its existence—‘amateurism’ and the ‘student-athlete’—are cynical hoaxes, legalistic confections propagated by the universities so they can exploit the skills and fame of young athletes.”

  Whether or not college athletes are actually being exploited shouldn’t even be a question. The only question is how we can rectify this problem.

  I looked to athlete-activist pioneer Oscar Robertson, an NBA legend and twelve-time all-star, to explore his role in changing the unfair system they were being subjected to in his day.

  Interview with Oscar Robertson

  Etan: My grandfather taught me about you at a very young age. I really credit you and Curt Flood for the entire free agency system that we have today. That all came about because of you challenging the system.

  Oscar Robertson: The whole challenge started when I first entered the league. I was asked to get involved in the Players Association during my tenure in the NBA, and once I was in there, I saw so many things that were just wrong. Doctors not being in attendance; we didn’t have a trainer. Say you played ten years and after the tenth year, you said, “Hey, I would like to go play for somebody else,” they could keep you from playing. You had no legal way of getting back into playing and we felt that was wrong. So we went to court . . . And of course the NBA owners didn’t like that at all. In fact, they railed at us and said how it was going to ruin basketball and all of these things, but of course it has not. Look at the players today, they are really small companies unto themselves . . . And of course the league is using them to the best of their ability, but the compensation and the piece of the pie that they are now receiving is definitely greater, as it should be.

  Etan: Did you have any idea of the long-term effect that you would bring about?

  Robertson: No, you can’t anticipate that. We started this fight and we were just plodding away on a rowboat and we didn’t know where we were headed or how this whole thing would end up . . . At first, it was hard getting players on board. They thought they were going to kick all of us out of the league, but that didn’t happen. Now, we were definitely threatened along the way, and I didn’t care about the threats because I felt that this was right and I was secure in my position in the league to be able to take that stance. Threats are interesting, and I have definitely been threatened throughout the years, but couldn’t give into it . . . There are factions in the world that don’t want certain things to change because they are making all of the money, so of course they don’t want things to change.

  Etan: So basically, it was like the league owned you—like you were property of theirs—and you couldn’t do anything about it

  Robertson: You had no say whatsoever. They held you without a contract forever . . . Up until then, everybody just went along with it because that’s the system that was given to us. So we went to court, and it took a few years . . . It was something that I felt I had to do. The world is changing, it was changing then and the pendulums were starting to change . . . Like I said, I am happy when I see these young players making the money they are making and commanding the dollars they are commanding.

  Etan: Curt Flood, who my grandfather also taught me about, really had to sacrifice a lot for challenging Major League Baseball.

  Robertson: Yeah, I wouldn’t call it sacrifice, because that’s when you give up something and make concessions and things of that nature. Curt was punished. He was an all-star center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, played for like fifteen years through the fifties and the sixties . . . and what he did changed everything for baseball. He didn’t accept a trade—and not only did he not accept the trade, he hired a lawyer and sued Major League Baseball . . .

  He went all the way to the US Supreme Court with this, and he should have won that case hands down, but he didn’t. He also didn’t have hardly any teammates who supported him. He had Jackie Robinson and Hank Greenberg and that’s it . . . They actually agreed that Curt Flood should have been able to be a free agent, but because of the antitrust laws that were in place, it could only be changed by an act of Congress. So they kicked him out of baseball, and he went overseas for some time, no longer allowed to play baseball. He eventually checked into a psychiatric hospital and recently passed away, so it was a really sad story . . . They went out of their way to prove to Curt Flood and the entire league that “we still have control of the situation and there will be a severe punishment for trying to go against us.” You see how things are now, and don’t get me wrong, they are far from perfect, but I was born in Tennessee, and I remember not being allowed to ride in the front of the bus.

  I remember seeing Whites Only signs and Colored signs, couldn’t go into any of the restaurants downtown, and when I came to Indianapolis, it was worse than Tennessee. When I lived in Tennessee with my grandparents for a while, the racism was there, but it paled in comparison to when I went to Indianapolis and I saw Ku Klux Klanners literally all over the place . . . Those were the times I grew up in. And we still have a long way to go, but we have progressed somewhat. Look at what sports has done for the world, and the Olympics, and how sports has been a bridge across the world. But what hasn’t changed is that they still want athletes to just play on the court or the field . . . and just be thankful . . . But how could you, as a man, not say something about it if you have been blessed with the platform to be able to do so?

  Etan: Do you feel that players are muted completely now?

  Robertson: Definitely not. I was just reading where the players from the New England Patriots have said that they are not going to the White House, and they are going to be criticized, but I always say, “If you can play, it doesn’t matter.” What is going on today, guys have been elevated from simply being college players or professional players to now rock stars, and for them to keep quiet . . . would be ridiculous.

  Etan: So you see guys speaking out on different topics—what do you think? Do you feel proud?

  Robertson: Definitely proud. I get a big smile on my face every time I see one of the current players using their voice. Like a proud dad watching his son playing ball and making the moves he used to make. I think back to Muhammad Ali, and when he didn’t go into the army . . . they just didn’t want him to influence other Black kids into not going into the army, because they knew the level of influence he had. Well, the same goes for today. They don’t want these athletes to influence Black kids. They want you to be peaceful, sedated, grateful to them . . . But you look at societies of the world—when things are going bad, people have a right to demonstrate and have a right to voice their disapproval, and that includes athletes. I was so glad to see [Steph] Curry get upset when the Under Armour guy said he was a big Trump supporter. Well, good, and you know why? Because they need Curry, and this is why it’s great to take advantage and know who you are.

  Etan: So how would you encourage players, especially those who have the limelight—the LeBrons and Steph Currys and Carmelos—to use their power?

  Robertson: I would repeat to them that they are speaking not just for themselves but for other people. Let’s take the Affordable Care Act—or as they like to call it, Obamacare. That benefits so many people—how could you take that away from them? It’s almost asinine, and you see these politicians who could care less about how many people would be affected by them taking it away, and you see other people fighting for it who may be able to afford their own health care but understand how much this benefits everyone. And that’s what I would keep pointing out to the current athletes, and they seem to get it . . . Of course, you have some outliers, but this young generation, they look ready and willing.

  Interview with Jimmy King & Ray Jackson

  Could unionizing collegiate athletics be the answer? It worked for Oscar Robertson, but they were met with exactly the same arguments that we are hearing today as to the
catastrophe unionizing would cause—for the sport, the country, and the entire world. Mark Emmert said that everything we hold dear in our hearts would be ruined. The treasured customs that are embedded in fans’ traditions and in their souls would be ruined. The camaraderie, the tailgating, the atmosphere of a stadium packed with tens of thousands of fans, and the pride of cheering for a university team would somehow, I’m not sure exactly how, all go away in a cloud of smoke the moment we decide to allow college athletes to get a piece of the pie. So in Emmert’s mind, he was in essence trying to do what was best for the American people as a whole.

  It’s almost laughable how ridiculous that is. But just as that doom-and-gloom scenario didn’t occur when Oscar Robertson helped bring about the new system of free agency in the NBA, it wouldn’t happen if NCAA athletes were paid. Hopefully, years from now, athletes will look back at the absurdity of this system the same way we look back at the backward system where a team owned your rights for the entire duration of your career and you had absolutely no say in where you would play.