Branch: NCAA 'still powerful like Oz'

It has been two years since “The Shame of College Sports.” In it, you go through the concept of amateurism in college sports and whether such a thing should exist in the NCAA. How do you think the conversation regarding amateurism in college sports has advanced since then?

I think the conversation has spread. If you saw TIME magazine recently, they just had a cover saying that college athletes ought to be paid, which is not my message but it’s related to it. My message is they should have the same rights as everyone. It has been two years since I raised that issue. Since then, there have been many columns by Joe Nocera of The New York Times, and others who’ve raised that question. I’ve had talks with a lot of people who are just astonished that the prevailing view is, ‘We love our sports and this is going to mess it up’ and ‘How would any of that change work? We better leave things alone.’

It’s not surprising. It’s like there’s something sweet and sentimental about college sports that don’t involve money for the athletes. That’s the kind of whole frame of reference that most people have and they can’t see anything else. There’s sentimentality about it, even though top schools treat college athletics like professional sports and there’s no sentimentality whatsoever.

There’s a strong sense of fear and intimidation among the athletes because they’re generating all the money, but they’re not getting an education and they don’t have any rights. I think people are slowly coming awake to the fact that they need to think about this. The current system may be blinding us, not just with college sports, but also in higher education as a whole, and I think that’s more important. Until there’s clear thinking about the governing of sports in college, sports and education will be on a shaky foundation.

Following University of Denver v. Nemeth in 1953, the NCAA, led by then-president Walter Byers, coined the term “student-athlete” to protect the NCAA from workers compensation lawsuits from its collegiate athletes. With that standard now going on 60 years, why does the NCAA hold to this term when today’s NCAA, and the revenue generated by it, is radically different than when the phrase “student-athlete” was first adopted?

To a certain degree, Walter Byers was a visionary and he knew there was a lot of money in sports. He negotiated those first TV contracts in the 1950s and he saw them mushroom quickly. He coined the term student-athlete, and NCAA officials repeated that term infinitely; it’s like a mantra with them. It’s a hybrid concession that conceals the fact that money has grown so astonishingly.

Basically what is involved is that anyone who plays college sports has two totally separate roles. In the athlete role, they’re putting in 40 to 60 hours a week and generating lots of money, but are under the control of the coaches. The student part is more or less the same, but is one that’s in conflict. The NCAA term student-athlete has masked this conflict under the idea that the student-athlete is a special creature that only the NCAA understands. But when, in fact, as long as you think about it that way you can’t even begin to address the potential conflict in the role of student and the role of athlete in the role of campuses.

[Byers’ move] was very shrewd. It not only worked in lawsuits, but also in the realm of public relations to convince millions of viewers that only the NCAA could run these peculiar creatures. I think it was a ruse, but a very clever ruse to pull the wool over our eyes to make us think that student-athletes are special creatures for our benefit.

Right now, the NCAA is in a curious position. On one hand, the NCAA is at the height of its powers, with football and basketball bringing in record revenues, including significant TV contracts. On the other hand, the O’Bannon lawsuit and the active concussion lawsuits have brought the individual rights and health of student-athletes to the forefront. Are we heading toward a tipping point?

It’s a very, very interesting circumstance because the NCAA is surrounded by controversy over health and putting money over failed education. All of it points to the fact that the athletes have no voice and have no rights at the table. If they had a voice, we wouldn’t be here. But the squabble over money and the inertia involved is very strong, because [the NCAA] has so much money. There are so many people who just want to cheer and boo the athletes, and don’t consider them like fellow citizens, but as circus performers. It’ll be very interesting to see how it will turn out, whether the fights will pull the NCAA apart or whether people will wake up and start addressing the basic issues of principles. But no one thinks it can go on the way it is. I think the NCAA is strained in so many different directions that I don’t think any avenue of reform is likely to succeed.

Your reporting from “The Shame of College Sports” was just turned into a documentary. What was it like seeing it come to life? What did you take away and learn from the film?

It’s based on my work as a starting point, but the filmmakers went all over the country. Some of the major stories – the story of Kent Waldrep getting his back broken, suing for 26 years and getting nothing, as well as the story of the Ed O’Bannon lawsuit – were from my reporting, but a lot of others, such as Arian Foster, are not. I think what the film really emphasizes is how much pressure the high-profile athletes are under. We don’t really realize what they’re lives are like.

I think one of the athletes said something about how you don’t think you’re preparing for a good day of school when you’re waking up at 5:30 in the morning and working out in the weight room until you vomit. They have no choice but to do so. I think the film did a much better job than I did in showing and making real what the life of a big-time college athlete is like and what pressure they’re under. These athletes have two very demanding careers at once. If they succeed in both of them on a university campus, they deserve 10 times the respect we currently give them – and we don’t do that now. We don’t really think of them as kids working on college, but, instead, as adults who generate billions of dollars in revenue.

(Below is a clip of Branch from the new documentary "Schooled.")