Pitt Panther Prowl

Who really has the power?

There have been two issues in the past month that have brought to the forefront the issue of who has the power in the relationship between student-athlete and school. I don’t know that most people have put the two together to see the real tension between the two.

The incident last month with Cassin Diggs leaving the Pitt basketball team, apparently against his will, brought about lively discussion about how the schools/athletic departments hold all the power in the relationship. This argument goes like this: the players have no rights or power. Instead, they are just pawns in the greater chess game of intercollegiate athletics. This doesn’t turn out to be a problem for a lot of players because they live up to their potential and therefore are treated well. But in the case of a guy like Diggs, being “asked” to transfer showed that these athletes have to please the brass or they will be forced out. It is the ugly side of college sports, and the players become victims.

There is another side to the issue. Consider the OJ Mayo incident that has been in the news recently (or even more recently, Darrell Arthur from KU). If the allegations are true, and for the sake of the point I am making, we will talk about them as if they are, then USC will be punished for Mayo’s actions. The school could have its wins taken away. They could lose scholarships. If Mayo is found to have accepted money dating all the way back to high school, USC will almost certainly be on probation and be kept from post-season play for at least a year. In addition, a highly touted recruit just withdrew his commitment because of the scandal.

In the Arthur case, it is suggested that his grades may have been fixed back in high school. If that is true, the NCAA could take away all the wins during any season that Arthur was on the team; meaning the national championship could potentially be in jeopardy.

So while one argument is that the student-athletes have no power in the relationship; we can see on the other side that they have tremendous power. Even bigger than potential sanctions brought by one player’s indiscretions has been the impact of the one-and-dones of college basketball. The players have to have at least a year of college before they can go to the NBA, so they treat college like it is NBA mini-camp. OJ Mayo was free to accept cash and gifts because he was never committed to USC. He wanted USC to showcase his talents so he could go to the NBA and make millions. And if he gets the school in trouble, he loses nothing because he is still drat eligible and will still go in the first round.

This is a tremendous amount of power to be put in the hands of one player. While most schools don’t have stars of the Mayo caliber, if Levance Fields or Joe Alexander or another star was taking money, having grades fixed, etc., they would equally bring down the wrath of the NCAA upon their schools. This is why teams try to impose sanctions on themselves as soon as infractions are brought out into the open. Because they know that the mistakes of one or a few kids can ruin the whole program.

Who remembers the Fab 5 from Michigan? Probably most of us. Who doesn’t remember them? The historical records of their accomplishments. Why? Because more than ten years after they all left for the NBA, it was found at that Chris Webber was accepting money while at Michigan. Webber had a successful NBA career, making lots of cash. Michigan was left to have their names erased from the history books.

So who really has the power? I believe that the argument that these kids have no power, as if they are somehow victims (I would like to be a victim of the crime of being given a college degree) is overstated. I don’t disagree that there is an imbalance of power. But the imbalance is on both sides. The schools may have too much power in forcing a kid like Diggs out. They might have winning on the mind too much, to the detriment of some really good kids. However the players have the ability to destroy a program as well. By being selfish, they can destroy the post-season aspirations of their teams. They can harm recruiting by being involved in scandals. They can cause their schools to have their names removed from the records. All the while, it costs the player nothing. If he was good enough to play in the NBA, he will still get to.

While the schools may have the power to harm individual players; the players have the ability to harm the whole program. That, to me, is an imbalance of power.