PASADENA, California. (AP) — A California legislator launched a invoice Thursday that may require main school sports activities faculties to pay some athletes as much as $25,000 a yr, in addition to cowl six-year assured athletic scholarships and post-college medical bills. .
The College Athlete Protection Act is sponsored by Assemblyman Chris Holden, a former San Diego State basketball participant, and is the kind of state-level laws that the NCAA is seeking to federal lawmakers to forestall.
“I know how close you can get to an injury that robs you of not only the game you love to play, but your ability to graduate from college,” Holden mentioned at a press convention exterior the historic Rose Bowl.
California was the primary state to move a regulation making school athletes eligible for identify, likeness and picture compensation again in 2019. This prompted comparable motion by state legislatures throughout the nation.
Holden is dedicated to bringing the state again to the forefront.
“I’m not prepared to wait for Congress to decide this pressing issue,” he mentioned, standing in entrance of a bronze statue of Jackie Robinson, the UCLA multisport star. “This is an extremely competitive and comprehensive bill that I believe will provide the income and health care that our college athletes deserve.”
The NCAA lifted its ban on athletes utilizing their fame by means of sponsorship and promoting offers, however greater than two dozen state-level NIL legal guidelines have left the affiliation unable to create its personal detailed and uniform guidelines.
Just final week on the NCAA conference, school athletic leaders reiterated the necessity for Congressional assist to control NIL compensation and shield the affiliation from state legal guidelines that undermine its potential to control school sports activities.
“We need to make sure federal law takes precedence over state law with respect to college sports,” Baylor President Linda Livingston, chair of the NCAA Board of Governors, mentioned final week. “In areas like NIL, we are already seeing state legislators take actions they believe will give universities in their states a competitive edge over their neighbors.”
Assembly Bill 252, launched by Holden, a Democrat in whose district Pasadena is positioned, requires Division I faculties in California to share 50% of income with athletes who’re thought of undervalued as a result of their athletic scholarships don’t match their market worth. . This will primarily goal athletes competing in income-generating sports activities equivalent to soccer and basketball, however not completely.
“This is a bill that will end the egregious exploitation of California college athletes,” mentioned Ramogi Huma, government director of the National Association of College Players. “The economic model of the NCAA is illegal and based on racial injustice. The NCAA is using amateurism as a front to systematically de-wealth generations of predominantly black athletes from low-income families in order to pay lavish salaries to predominantly white coaches, athletic directors, commissioners and administrators of the NCAA.”
The money paid for scholarships will be included in the 50% that goes to the players. The remainder will go into a fund that will be paid annually. Individual payments will be determined based on what the schools bring in and cannot exceed $25,000 per year for any athlete.
Any surplus income from the Athletes’ Share will go to a degree fund, from which athletes will be eligible to receive funds after graduation for a period of six years.
“This will improve the situation not only for football players, but for all student-athletes at the college level, which is great,” mentioned Elisha Guidry, a San Jose State graduate pupil and soccer participant who joined Holden in asserting the invoice.
“I came here and collegiate sports have been a certain way and I would like to think when I finish my career that collegiate sports are better and heading in a better direction for the future,” said Guidry, who previously played at UCLA. Angeles. prior to release last year.
The bill also calls on schools to cover sports-related medical expenses, establish and enforce safety and transparency standards in hiring, maintain all sports programs, not just income-generating ones, and comply with Title IX.
Also joining Holden in the Rose Bowl was Amy Leclerc, a 2017 San Jose State graduate who competed in gymnastics. She said that she was bullied and manipulated by her coaches, and during her career she was sexually abused by the program’s head coach.
“Universities have not earned the privilege of running smoothly and are not trustworthy,” Leclerc said. “I never imagined that the system itself, designed to protect me, would become the source of my exploitation. That is what prompted me to sit down here today to help protect NCAA athletes.”
The invoice resembles a invoice launched federally in 2020 by 4 Democratic senators, together with Cory Booker of New Jersey. Bill of Rights for College Athletes.
This invoice, like many others launched in Congress concerning collegiate sports activities and the NIL specifically, got here to nothing.
Holden launched College Athletes Civil Rights Act of 2019 this was ultimately signed into state regulation. It required faculties to doc and inform athletes of their rights and prohibited retaliation towards athletes who reported violations or abuse.
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Rousseau reported from New York.
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