https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket...g-unionize

(09-14-2023 08:45 PM)andybible1995 Wrote:  https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket...g-unionize

It has begun....

Lol. I’m sure they can find some other decent basketball players that would take the free ride to an Ivy League school.

(09-14-2023 09:24 PM)KRoach11 Wrote:  

(09-14-2023 08:45 PM)andybible1995 Wrote:  https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket...g-unionize

It has begun....

Lol. I’m sure they can find some other decent basketball players that would take the free ride to an Ivy League school.

The Ivy League doesn't give athletic scholarships

(09-14-2023 09:52 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  

(09-14-2023 09:24 PM)KRoach11 Wrote:  

(09-14-2023 08:45 PM)andybible1995 Wrote:  https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket...g-unionize

It has begun....

Lol. I’m sure they can find some other decent basketball players that would take the free ride to an Ivy League school.

The Ivy League doesn't give athletic scholarships

Would be interesting to see what they think they're worth. Dartmouth MBB hasn't had a winning basketball record in 27 years.

Last thing on earth college sports needs...

(09-14-2023 08:45 PM)andybible1995 Wrote:  https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket...g-unionize

It has begun....

Yes, indeed. A development that many will be watching with great interest.

Best of luck to the students.

(09-14-2023 08:45 PM)andybible1995 Wrote:  https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket...g-unionize

It has begun....

Actually, this is more like another episode in the saga. At the core of any unionization matter is an organization with really bad management choices.

It will be interesting to learn what the thrust of the push was to petition to unionize. On the larger stage, I'm intrigued by the educational experience and potential quality differentials that student athletes could face given the changes in athletic operations at the collegiate level over the years. I actually think an Ivy League school could be a very ripe fruit for the picking to explore the topic further. Without athletic scholarships, student athletes appear no different than anyone else on campus. Except, if they carry commitments, conditions, and are exposed to a derivative educational experience seen/perceived as less than/unequal to other normal students or student athletes, or denied similar opportunities, and then sprinkle in those conditions leadership/coaches/college administration places on the athletes, and, it's worth a look whether the athletes resemble employees more than students volunteering to participate in a sport.

I agree with the decisions made on the Northwestern case, where these things go school by school.

I hope this fails spectacularly. Unions are the last thing we need in collegiate sports.

(09-16-2023 09:03 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I hope this fails spectacularly. Unions are the last thing we need in collegiate sports.

Collegiate sports do not lend themselves to unions very well. The NCAA is currently VERY lenient on the time an athlete can remain eligible. 4 years + redshirt + medical redshirt + Covid…7 years is a pretty long time. But if unionization efforts were to actually succeed, they could very easily remove all redshirts of any kind. 4 years then you’re done. Not much there for the kids to unionize over in that case.

Looking at this from the justification for unions, if college sports were so evil and exploitative, then why is there a line a mile long to make a team? So…not much money for hangers-on in the lower tiers, not much upside for kids who actually hope for a future in the pros, and what are we left with? Kids who only got into the Ivy League at all bc they can play basketball.

As an aside, Dartmouth recruited me to play football when I was coming out of high school. I mean, I’m pretty smart, but there is no way in hell an Ivy would care at all about me if I wasn’t a good football player. It was my chance to get in, and I can’t imagine what would have convinced me to spit on their offer of friendship by turning around and stabbing them in the back like this.

(09-16-2023 11:17 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  Collegiate sports do not lend themselves to unions very well. The NCAA is currently VERY lenient on the time an athlete can remain eligible. 4 years + redshirt + medical redshirt + Covid…7 years is a pretty long time. But if unionization efforts were to actually succeed, they could very easily remove all redshirts of any kind. 4 years then you’re done. Not much there for the kids to unionize over in that case.

Looking at this from the justification for unions, if college sports were so evil and exploitative, then why is there a line a mile long to make a team? So…not much money for hangers-on in the lower tiers, not much upside for kids who actually hope for a future in the pros, and what are we left with? Kids who only got into the Ivy League at all bc they can play basketball.

As an aside, Dartmouth recruited me to play football when I was coming out of high school. I mean, I’m pretty smart, but there is no way in hell an Ivy would care at all about me if I wasn’t a good football player. It was my chance to get in, and I can’t imagine what would have convinced me to spit on their offer of friendship by turning around and stabbing them in the back like this.

It is not necessary that an organisation be 'evil and exploitative' for collective bargaining to be a helpful idea. Collective bargaining itself is a right. Exercising a right that belongs to you is not normally understood as a 'stab in the back.'

Collective bargaining has become a normal mechanism on many campuses for managing professional relationships with faculty, staff, research assistants, librarians, and student employees. For student athletes to become part of this trend is a foreseeable and logical evolutionary development.

The students with pro prospects? They may as well get used to professional realities. The NFL has a union, too.

(09-14-2023 09:52 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  

(09-14-2023 09:24 PM)KRoach11 Wrote:  

(09-14-2023 08:45 PM)andybible1995 Wrote:  https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket...g-unionize

It has begun....

Lol. I’m sure they can find some other decent basketball players that would take the free ride to an Ivy League school.

The Ivy League doesn't give athletic scholarships

Oops…

(09-14-2023 08:45 PM)andybible1995 Wrote:  https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket...g-unionize

It has begun....

I guarantee, Dartmouth makes no money off men's basketball. They might break even.

(09-16-2023 11:17 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(09-16-2023 09:03 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I hope this fails spectacularly. Unions are the last thing we need in collegiate sports.

Collegiate sports do not lend themselves to unions very well. The NCAA is currently VERY lenient on the time an athlete can remain eligible. 4 years + redshirt + medical redshirt + Covid…7 years is a pretty long time. But if unionization efforts were to actually succeed, they could very easily remove all redshirts of any kind. 4 years then you’re done. Not much there for the kids to unionize over in that case.

Looking at this from the justification for unions, if college sports were so evil and exploitative, then why is there a line a mile long to make a team? So…not much money for hangers-on in the lower tiers, not much upside for kids who actually hope for a future in the pros, and what are we left with? Kids who only got into the Ivy League at all bc they can play basketball.

As an aside, Dartmouth recruited me to play football when I was coming out of high school. I mean, I’m pretty smart, but there is no way in hell an Ivy would care at all about me if I wasn’t a good football player. It was my chance to get in, and I can’t imagine what would have convinced me to spit on their offer of friendship by turning around and stabbing them in the back like this.

It's the Ivies. Redshirting almost never happens unless it is assumed it will take 5 years to graduate since the Ivies also do not allow grad students to play on their teams, leading to some of their best players using the grad transfer to keep playing.

(09-16-2023 11:32 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(09-16-2023 11:17 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  Collegiate sports do not lend themselves to unions very well. The NCAA is currently VERY lenient on the time an athlete can remain eligible. 4 years + redshirt + medical redshirt + Covid…7 years is a pretty long time. But if unionization efforts were to actually succeed, they could very easily remove all redshirts of any kind. 4 years then you’re done. Not much there for the kids to unionize over in that case.

Looking at this from the justification for unions, if college sports were so evil and exploitative, then why is there a line a mile long to make a team? So…not much money for hangers-on in the lower tiers, not much upside for kids who actually hope for a future in the pros, and what are we left with? Kids who only got into the Ivy League at all bc they can play basketball.

As an aside, Dartmouth recruited me to play football when I was coming out of high school. I mean, I’m pretty smart, but there is no way in hell an Ivy would care at all about me if I wasn’t a good football player. It was my chance to get in, and I can’t imagine what would have convinced me to spit on their offer of friendship by turning around and stabbing them in the back like this.

It is not necessary that an organisation be 'evil and exploitative' for collective bargaining to be a helpful idea. Collective bargaining itself is a right. Exercising a right that belongs to you is not normally understood as a 'stab in the back.'

Collective bargaining has become a normal mechanism on many campuses for managing professional relationships with faculty, staff, research assistants, librarians, and student employees. For student athletes to become part of this trend is a foreseeable and logical evolutionary development.

The students with pro prospects? They may as well get used to professional realities. The NFL has a union, too.

Collective bargain is hardly a right for amateur student athletes. My club basketball team couldn’t collectively bargain with A&M for better rec courts for example. Even if student athletes are deemed “professionals”, they’d still have to unionize to be able to collectively bargain, and even then…it’s 130 teams with a bunch of kids who mostly are just excited to be there.

If colleges decide on their own to pay kids, and they unionize then collectively bargain, then that would probably be a win for everybody. However, if the NLRB or some Rogue Judge try to force schools to pay athletes and arbitrarily deems them to be employees, then the fallout would be insane. Not for my school, not for your school, we already pay our athletes far more than any minimal required salary that might be imposed upon us in the future….but for Dartmouth or almost every other D1 program? They’d drop every single NCAA sport, quit giving preferential admittance to athletes, and instead sponsor some very very good club sports.

(09-16-2023 11:17 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  Collegiate sports do not lend themselves to unions very well. The NCAA is currently VERY lenient on the time an athlete can remain eligible. 4 years + redshirt + medical redshirt + Covid…7 years is a pretty long time. But if unionization efforts were to actually succeed, they could very easily remove all redshirts of any kind. 4 years then you’re done. Not much there for the kids to unionize over in that case.

Looking at this from the justification for unions, if college sports were so evil and exploitative, then why is there a line a mile long to make a team? So…not much money for hangers-on in the lower tiers, not much upside for kids who actually hope for a future in the pros, and what are we left with? Kids who only got into the Ivy League at all bc they can play basketball.

As an aside, Dartmouth recruited me to play football when I was coming out of high school. I mean, I’m pretty smart, but there is no way in hell an Ivy would care at all about me if I wasn’t a good football player. It was my chance to get in, and I can’t imagine what would have convinced me to spit on their offer of friendship by turning around and stabbing them in the back like this.

There’s precedent for labor unions for college students. In New York, the public university teaching assistants and graduate assistants are part of a CWA local called the Graduate Student Employees Union. They’re still part-timers, but they get a healthcare plan and can participate in the TIAA-CREF retirement system that’s fairly popular in academia (but not the pension option that the full-timers can choose). Say what you will about New York state government, but nobody thinks the TAs are the biggest problem.

(09-16-2023 06:29 PM)CenterSquarEd Wrote:  There’s precedent for labor unions for college students. In New York, the public university teaching assistants and graduate assistants are part of a CWA local called the Graduate Student Employees Union. They’re still part-timers, but they get a healthcare plan and can participate in the TIAA-CREF retirement system that’s fairly popular in academia (but not the pension option that the full-timers can choose). Say what you will about New York state government, but nobody thinks the TAs are the biggest problem.

Yes, and NY stands as an example for a larger trend. Unionisation on campuses everywhere is gaining ground.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/facu...orkers-say

(09-16-2023 06:29 PM)CenterSquarEd Wrote:  

(09-16-2023 11:17 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  Collegiate sports do not lend themselves to unions very well. The NCAA is currently VERY lenient on the time an athlete can remain eligible. 4 years + redshirt + medical redshirt + Covid…7 years is a pretty long time. But if unionization efforts were to actually succeed, they could very easily remove all redshirts of any kind. 4 years then you’re done. Not much there for the kids to unionize over in that case.

Looking at this from the justification for unions, if college sports were so evil and exploitative, then why is there a line a mile long to make a team? So…not much money for hangers-on in the lower tiers, not much upside for kids who actually hope for a future in the pros, and what are we left with? Kids who only got into the Ivy League at all bc they can play basketball.

As an aside, Dartmouth recruited me to play football when I was coming out of high school. I mean, I’m pretty smart, but there is no way in hell an Ivy would care at all about me if I wasn’t a good football player. It was my chance to get in, and I can’t imagine what would have convinced me to spit on their offer of friendship by turning around and stabbing them in the back like this.

There’s precedent for labor unions for college students. In New York, the public university teaching assistants and graduate assistants are part of a CWA local called the Graduate Student Employees Union. They’re still part-timers, but they get a healthcare plan and can participate in the TIAA-CREF retirement system that’s fairly popular in academia (but not the pension option that the full-timers can choose). Say what you will about New York state government, but nobody thinks the TAs are the biggest problem.

They are already getting paid by the Universities and are classified as employees. It’s one thing for a group of paid employees to unionize, that happens all the time, but it’s quite another to force over 1000 colleges to reclassify student athletes as employees. That sort of thing is far more likely to come from from elected rather than appointed govt officials, at least if they want the policy to stick.

(09-16-2023 07:35 PM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(09-16-2023 06:29 PM)CenterSquarEd Wrote:  There’s precedent for labor unions for college students. In New York, the public university teaching assistants and graduate assistants are part of a CWA local called the Graduate Student Employees Union. They’re still part-timers, but they get a healthcare plan and can participate in the TIAA-CREF retirement system that’s fairly popular in academia (but not the pension option that the full-timers can choose). Say what you will about New York state government, but nobody thinks the TAs are the biggest problem.

Yes, and NY stands as an example for a larger trend. Unionisation on campuses everywhere is gaining ground.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/facu...orkers-say

Local to me, Penn's health system residents voted (in an overwhelming majority) to unionize. This one Inquirer article (behind a paywall, though) from one of the residents did a decent job reflecting how nuanced, challenging, and conflicted the decision was.

Quote:We are underpaid, despite being a valuable resource for the hospital. A Pennsylvania Hospital intern working their max hours made around $16.15 an hour in 2021. Combine that with the average resident’s student debt of $200,000, and many find themselves struggling to keep their heads above water.

...

The uncertainty is possibly the biggest reason to pause. I don’t trust the Committee for Interns and Residents, who would represent us. The CIR will be getting paid dues from my salary while we try to shoehorn a large number of contrasting demands into one contract that covers an eclectic rainbow of different specialties, regardless of whether we make any real progress or not.

From that IHE article, "a shared sense of exploitation" runs through the core of so many of these collective efforts to unionize. If one were to spotlight the many dysfunctions within higher education's labor structures, any "trend" should not be surprising.

I'm eager to hear more from the Dartmouth petitioners on this. "The honor of being a student here" thing aside with Ivy League-level schools, the degree isn't as valuable as the relational currency of social mobility these places provide. There is no doubt student athletes experience college learning differently than the non-athletes. Whether it's a derivative and potentially detrimental experience is one thing (like those in the Northwestern case had indicated). But in a school where you aren't getting an athletic scholarship, yet possibly expected to follow any number of conditions without a voice in operations, it's an intriguing avenue to explore.

(09-16-2023 11:17 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(09-16-2023 09:03 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I hope this fails spectacularly. Unions are the last thing we need in collegiate sports.

Collegiate sports do not lend themselves to unions very well. The NCAA is currently VERY lenient on the time an athlete can remain eligible. 4 years + redshirt + medical redshirt + Covid…7 years is a pretty long time. But if unionization efforts were to actually succeed, they could very easily remove all redshirts of any kind. 4 years then you’re done. Not much there for the kids to unionize over in that case.

Looking at this from the justification for unions, if college sports were so evil and exploitative, then why is there a line a mile long to make a team? So…not much money for hangers-on in the lower tiers, not much upside for kids who actually hope for a future in the pros, and what are we left with? Kids who only got into the Ivy League at all bc they can play basketball.

As an aside, Dartmouth recruited me to play football when I was coming out of high school. I mean, I’m pretty smart, but there is no way in hell an Ivy would care at all about me if I wasn’t a good football player. It was my chance to get in, and I can’t imagine what would have convinced me to spit on their offer of friendship by turning around and stabbing them in the back like this.

Ever read Moneyball? In it, Billy Beane said he was offered a baseball scholarship to Stanford out of high school but he chose to go pro. After his first season, he decided he wanted to take some college classes so he applied to Stanford. They rejected his application.

(09-17-2023 06:40 AM)AssKickingChicken Wrote:  

(09-16-2023 11:17 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(09-16-2023 09:03 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I hope this fails spectacularly. Unions are the last thing we need in collegiate sports.

Collegiate sports do not lend themselves to unions very well. The NCAA is currently VERY lenient on the time an athlete can remain eligible. 4 years + redshirt + medical redshirt + Covid…7 years is a pretty long time. But if unionization efforts were to actually succeed, they could very easily remove all redshirts of any kind. 4 years then you’re done. Not much there for the kids to unionize over in that case.

Looking at this from the justification for unions, if college sports were so evil and exploitative, then why is there a line a mile long to make a team? So…not much money for hangers-on in the lower tiers, not much upside for kids who actually hope for a future in the pros, and what are we left with? Kids who only got into the Ivy League at all bc they can play basketball.

As an aside, Dartmouth recruited me to play football when I was coming out of high school. I mean, I’m pretty smart, but there is no way in hell an Ivy would care at all about me if I wasn’t a good football player. It was my chance to get in, and I can’t imagine what would have convinced me to spit on their offer of friendship by turning around and stabbing them in the back like this.

Ever read Moneyball? In it, Billy Beane said he was offered a baseball scholarship to Stanford out of high school but he chose to go pro. After his first season, he decided he wanted to take some college classes so he applied to Stanford. They rejected his application.

I haven't read that, but that story seems quite plausible. Once the baseball coach wasn't pushing to get him on the team, he was evaluated alongside all the national merit scholars and top 1% applicants from all over the world and he no longer was above the cut line.

It's very interesting to me to think about how hard it is for just an Average Joe to get into an Ivy, or any other T1 school for that matter. Some student slots are earmarked for good basketball/football/rowing/lacrosse/etc etc athletes. Some are earmarked for minorities (though perhaps not as many anymore). I didn't look up all of the ivies, but harvard and yale only have about 1500 freshmen each this year. Stanford has 1736. Texas has 9109. My takeaway: if you get an offer from a school like that, you'd better jump on it (unless you're like Billy Beane and destined for Baseball Greatness perhaps).