like slave players chances

[smazza]

against oppressive and abusive ncaa

[smazza]

NCAA scholarship suit moving closer to trial

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By Steve Wieberg, USA TODAY

College officials are casting a restless eye toward California, where a lawsuit challenging the NCAA's cap on scholarship amounts is nearing a June trial.

Lawyers for the NCAA and the four named plaintiffs, all former football and basketball players, will meet with a mediator today in San Francisco, ordered by a federal judge to try to settle the 14-month-old antitrust case the NCAA's chief legal counsel says could "turn on its head our system of financial aid for student-athletes."

The class-action suit targets the NCAA rule limiting scholarship coverage to room, board, books, tuition and fees. Citing the NCAA's own acknowledgement that, on average, the value is approximately $2,500 less than the full cost of attending school each year, it seeks an injunction preventing enforcement of the cap. And it asks for unspecified damages, which would be tripled if an antitrust violation is found. A jury trial is set in federal court in Los Angeles June 12.

There's virtually no chance of reaching a mediated settlement today, said NCAA general counsel Elsa Kircher Cole. "It's the beginning point to see if, in fact, there is any room for compromise prior to the time of trial," she says. "In the NIT case, we went back and forth for weeks, months, talking about possible resolution before it actually occurred. The same is true here."

Basketball's National Invitation Tournament similarly sued the NCAA on antitrust grounds, challenging a requirement that teams accept invitations to its basketball championship. The NCAA settled the suit in mid-trial in 2005 by buying the event for $56.5 million.

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The stakes in this case could be higher. The suit is filed on behalf of football and men's basketball players in 16 of the 31 Division I conferences who've been on scholarship since February 2002. Damages, at potentially $2,500 a player a year and trebled, would be substantial.

Beyond that would be the impact of raising the NCAA's scholarship cap to allow schools to cover athletes' travel, laundry and other incidental expenses. Federal law would dictate equal treatment in women's sports, and the NCAA probably would be compelled to extend the same to all sports, not just football and basketball.

"We're talking about an issue that could cost schools a lot of money. A lot of money," Big East Conference commissioner Mike Tranghese said.

Not all schools could afford the extra expense and could wind up cutting sports, NCAA and other officials fret. Or the schools could choose to stick with the current scholarship limits and not cover the full cost of attendance, a scenario that creates concern about competitive equity if the best athletes were to gravitate to programs that could make better offers.

That competitive equity argument is at the heart of the NCAA's defense, Cole says. The association will point out, too, that athletes are allowed to receive need-based aid on top of their scholarships up to the full cost of attendance and have access to emergency and special-assistance funds.

"It really comes down to competitive balance," says Matt Mitten, who as director of Marquette's National Sports Law Institute teaches a class on antitrust litigation. "Is the rule necessary to further competitive balance? And is there a substantially less restrictive means of achieving competitive balance short of this?"

The suit, originated by the California-based Collegiate Athletes Coalition, an advocacy group that lined up the four players, claims the scholarship cap "is simply a cost containment mechanism that enables the NCAA and its member institutions to preserve more of the benefits of their enterprise for themselves." It frames what it says is the players' modest take from athletics revenues against million-dollar salaries commonly paid to

[Apis Bull]

Likening sholarship athletes to slaves really speaks volumes about you.

[smazza]

Likening sholarship athletes to slaves really speaks volumes about you.

and what does your refusal to acknowledge the truth say about you????

[Guest JulmisteForPrez]

Likening sholarship athletes to slaves really speaks volumes about you.

Amen to that.

What a ridiculous analogy.

:nope

[Apis Bull]

Likening sholarship athletes to slaves really speaks volumes about you.

and what does your refusal to acknowledge the truth say about you????

What truth are you talking about? Let's compare.

Slavery:

Taken from your family and homeland against your will.

Shipped across the ocean, packed into a ship like livestock.

Beaten or whipped for misbehavior.

Live out the rest of your days at the whim of someone else.

Scholarship Athletes:

Voluntary admission

Free college education

Free room and board

Platform to show your talents to the professional leagues

Commitments as little as one year

Leave whenever you'd like

What am I missing?

[Velcro]

Likening sholarship athletes to slaves really speaks volumes about you.

Amen to that.

What a ridiculous analogy.

:nope

That type of post is a recurring theme with Smazz, we should make up a new term for it... smazzist.

That was a very smazzist comment!

[Joe]

Smazza,

Your association with "slavery" and Student-Athletes is rediculous. Yes, you will get stories like that, but for every blackeye story against the NCAA there is a great story of a kid getting an education, with all the assistance in the world.

Only about 2-3% of the total NCAA Student Athletes go pro in their sports. You don't think getting the money, the board, the books, a personal Academic Advisor, any tutor you want to go to school for playing a sport is fair? Schools don't make money off of tennis, golf, and women's soccer. Rather they fund all these sports and the privledges that come with it through football and basketball.

The NCAA is not out to hurt anyone. In most cases they'll try their hardest to make sure that it is fair for everyone, it's just hard when you have 1000+ institutions with 10s of thousands of athletes with several different stories.

[smazza]

you arent being exploited and based on your past comments it is obvious you dont grasp the issues and simply brush them aside

[smazza]

Likening sholarship athletes to slaves really speaks volumes about you.

and what does your refusal to acknowledge the truth say about you????

What truth are you talking about? Let's compare.

Slavery:

Taken from your family and homeland against your will.

Shipped across the ocean, packed into a ship like livestock.

Beaten or whipped for misbehavior.

Live out the rest of your days at the whim of someone else.

Scholarship Athletes:

Voluntary admission

Free college education

Free room and board

Platform to show your talents to the professional leagues

Commitments as little as one year

Leave whenever you'd like

What am I missing?

the issue is way over  head

your prejudices are too deep rooted for you to comprehend anything i am posting

no need to discuss further