This is interesting on the surface, but I’m not certain where it leads.
A former NCAA investigator launched an advocacy group for college athletes Monday. The College Athlete Advocacy Initiative plans to offer legal advice to athletes, as well as pursue campaigns to help them share in the billions of dollars generated by college sports, according to the group’s founder, attorney Tim Nevius. Initial funding was provided by Urban Justice Center, a nonprofit legal advocacy group in New York.
… “The calls I’ve gotten in the last year convinced me this was needed,” he said, citing players in major conferences who are verbally abused by coaches, coerced into giving up their scholarships and prevented from transferring. “And every athlete I talk to says, ‘What can I do about this?’”
The new entity will assist players in all of those areas, Nevius said, with a network of legal volunteers. It will also work to abolish the letter-of-intent, which ties players to a program even if their recruiting coach changes schools…
You can’t shame the NCAA and we know it’s not going to sit back helplessly in the face of threatened litigation “to help them share in the billions of dollars generated by college sports”. Although I will be curious to see where a campaign against the NLI goes; waking up a generation of Roquan Smiths could be interesting to watch.
The other issue of interest will be how heavy-handed the NCAA’s response to the CAAI is, if the latter starts to gain traction. If high schoolers and their families use the new group to bargain at signing time, does the NCAA go so far as to declare recruits ineligible if they retain the organization’s services? Color me skeptical but interested for the time being.
***************************************************************************
UPDATE: This kind of ups the ante.
According to the organization’s press release, assistance will be provided to families and athletes for issues related to “financial aid cancellations, transfer penalties, harmful recruiting practices, health and safety concerns and abuse and mistreatment.”
The organization plans to develop “a strategic advocacy campaign, including athlete-led demonstrations, to raise awareness of critical issues.”
“Demonstrations can be anything from wearing particular socks or wrist bands to taking a knee to raising a fist all the way to boycotting a game,” said Tim Nevius, CAAI founder and executive director. [Emphasis added.]
Get The Picture 
You can bet the NCAA will declare the first athletes who use the service ineligible in an attempt to chill others from using the service. One question that comes to mind immediately is since this service does not purport to assist players in negotiating professional contracts with the NFL and other pro leagues, as traditional agents do can a case be made to carve out an exception?
LikeLike
You have to hand it to the lawyers… legal engineering to get a piece of the pie all the time.
LikeLike
Absolutely, “verbal abuse by coaches”. God help us, and it isn’t just the lawyers now, you couldn’t get 12 citizens picked randomly that wouldn’t feature several who actually buy into this crapola. Of contested divorce cases, has even one recently not included this phrase? Errryybody doing it! Special them mean ass coaches.
What a bunch of BS we wallow in these days. Tick, tick, tick.
LikeLike
Does the name Jordan McNair ring a bell?
LikeLike
Sure. Do you generally apply isolated incidents to the norm and seek to make wholesale decisions that impact everyone? Punish the wrongdoers, don’t assume everyone needs the lesson, and punishment applied to them. In a country of 330 million, some judgement is required. Want to ban the use of motor vehicles for all due to the negligence of a, relative, few? One can follow that logic to a ridiculous level if you choose overkill to find balanced solutions. Everyone has their own opinions, we are both entitled to our own.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You don’t think college athletes should have the right to consult an attorney or other advisor about scholarship offers and other contractual matters before signing? Why? You can in YOUR business deals. Coaches have lawyers and agents who deal with the AD and the universities’ legal counsel. Why shouldn’t the players have the same rights? And I’m not talking about coaches yelling at someone. I’m talking about the legal ramifications of signing or not signing a NLI– that sort of thing.
LikeLike
My opinion is that a licensed attorney being consulted about contracts (NLI type of situation) should not be prohibited, don’t like the “advisor” label though. Too many sharks swimming in those waters, I feel advice from a regulated professional is a more controlled situation.
LikeLiked by 1 person
My comment you replied to had nothing to do with that subject though, just for clarification. You may have meant it for someone else.
LikeLike
I have tried many, many divorce cases and “verbal abuse” has rarely been a claim
LikeLike
Maybe the NCAA can get it through their thick skulls that the Olympic model is the way to go to keep from burning the whole thing to the ground. Emmert and his clan in Indianapolis are too dumb and stubborn to get this done.
If Zion could be paid by Nike to wear the shoe, who cares? If Jake can get the use of a Raptor from Akins Ford to appear in a commercial, why should it matter to anyone?
As a rule, the full cost of attendance scholarship with the development received will be adequate compensation for the average student-athlete who works his/her @$$ off to be a student-athlete.
For some, it’s not nearly enough … by the way, the Olympic model doesn’t cost the schools one dime more than they already pay.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Exactly.
LikeLike
I tend to agree…costs no one anymore money…gets the players “stuff”…gets the fellows providing “stuff” advertising. They could pay Jake to show on at the car lot to hawk cars, sign stuff…again, who cares? Who is hurt?
LikeLike
Rest assured, your point multiple will always be better enhanced by providing Jake Fromm with support through channels that will always see that he has the best athletic administrators he could ask for.
LikeLike
If boosters can just openly give players money, cars, condo’s, etc. then only the top football schools will sign 5* talent. Oh wait….
LikeLike
“Only one of us can prosper here…the student athlete doesn’t have stock in this formula”…ncaa slogan masters latest campaign…..
LikeLike
“coerced into giving up their scholarships and prevented from transferring.”
You actually believe this is going on in this day and time?
You think the NCAA is self serving and dishonest but think an attorney is honorable and just and will fix the “problem”. That is completely laughable. They will if successful ruin what has been a wonderful opportunity for many for generations.
LikeLike
When all you’ve got left to argue is that lawyers suck worse than the NCAA, you don’t have much of an argument.
LikeLike
That wasn’t my argument. I was giving you your own by saying basically if you think lawyers will help then you haven’t paid much attention to what happens to most everything else they touch.
LikeLike
If the lawyer does a shitty job he/she can always be fired by the player. Not so the NCAA or the university.
LikeLike
Right. I’ve practiced law for almost 40 years and haven’t paid much attention to my profession.
Thanks for playing.
LikeLike
And I’m sure that Nevius and his cohorts are establishing this new organization out of the kindness of their hearts and concern for the athletes and they won’t be taking any fees from its membership.
LikeLike
Yeah, I’m wondering how they get paid.
LikeLike
so this is a “network of legal volunteers”, volunteers don’t get paid right? lmao
LikeLike
Missouri got their ass in gear in a hurry when players threatened a boycott. If players act collectively in large enough numbers, they could wipe the floor with the schools.
LikeLike
If the players decided to “act collectively”, I would advise them to consider the law of unintended consequences. The schools may decide having a football program isn’t worth the trouble and simply do away with the source of the problem.
LikeLike
Right. UGA’s just gonna up and walk away from $84 million a year in profits.
Some of you guys are hilarious with this stuff.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah and the athletic association is going to default on the loans associated with the $93,000,000 in facility improvements.
LikeLike
What makes you think they borrowed the money for those improvements?
LikeLike
Because the Magill Society pledges to build those facilities were multi-year commitments.
LikeLike
If there are player walkouts, boycotts, demonstrations, etc., I can assure you they won’t be walking away from that much money because the fan interest will evaporate.
LikeLike
Believe it or not, you don’t speak for most.
I walked away from baseball after they cancelled a World Series, but the sport seems to be prospering without me.
LikeLike
It’d all be better handled by ending the need for players to enter college or foreign professional leagues before they can enter pro sports in the U.S.. At that point, some NCAA amateur athlete rules wouldn’t look as bad.
LikeLike
Ahh, so Update revels this really isn’t for helping athletes so to speak, but more for the advancement of furthering political agendas. Glad to see this new group tip their hand so soon so I don’t have to pay attention to them as an actual, serious effort to help players.
LikeLike
When did getting paid become a political agenda?
LikeLiked by 1 person
More for the tag at the end, about protesting. Now, if we’d be ensured that the ability to protest would be taken up by this org regardless of the nature of the protest, I would retract my statement.
How much do you want to bet this org will stand behind all protests they likely agree with, and will be silent (or even try to stamp out) protests they likely disagree with, though? How much do you want to bet if the players want to make a black lives matter protest in refusing to play, this org would fight tooth and nail to ensure they can, but if a group of players, or even one single player, wants to protest for what they believe are the rights of unborn children, this org would be nowhere to be found to ensure this is a protected act? Or even worse, work to make sure this player or players don’t protest at all? Remember, there is no true issue with the right to protest here, as the government wouldn’t be subverting their rights. So this organization would have control in the power they bring to bear on which protests are “acceptable” and which aren’t.
That is what I mean by this org is likely a purely political exercise and isn’t there to protect the players. Not really. They’re only there to protect players who have the “correct” thinking. It’s political. It’s not an issue of right or wrong. It’s another example of Neo-Progressive Leftism (with a capital L, and not to be confused with liberalism) intruding into sports under different auspices.
We’ll see, though, if they’re truly there to protect all players or only the ones who toe the line. I could be wrong, and will be happy to admit if I am, but this stinks a mile away.
LikeLike
I guess the Boston Tea Protestors were just liberal snowflakes.
LikeLike
Not at all, Debby. Please read what I wrote instead of assuming meaning from what you think I wrote. Consistency is the key. Protest away, for whatever reason you want. Protest for black lives matter. Protest in favor of abortion. Protest in favor in the right to life. Protest for gay marriage. Protest against gay marriage.
When politics are played, however, with what the organization may see as what is “acceptable” protests and what are not, that’s where I have the problem. And remember, this isn’t even a Constitutional issue, as the government is not infringing on individual rights.
I may be wrong, but I would bet my bottom dollar if players wanted to protest for the right to life and protest against gay marriage, they would receive neither the same protections nor the same legal representation from this group as those who wanted to protest the other side of those issues.
To put it another way, I may disagree with those who want to protest against gay marriage, but I have no problem if they want to do so. Either in the public or the private sphere, and I would worry that this group would offer no protection for those who do not fit into whatever internalized world view it would have. And that is where I find issue.
LikeLiked by 1 person
…..abuse and mistreatment….
Do you think this will go back 50 or so years. I am going to call and join.
I was never abused or mistreated but I have no problem telling this guy I was, if I get a bunch of money…
LikeLike