Unpaid internships, but with brain damage.

9/5/2012 update: A paper in the journal Neurology today reports that NFL players are 3x more likely than average to contract Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. And in today's story on college football brain injuries Ron Richmond of the RG reports that
Dr. Greg Skaggs, the UO director of athletic medicine, also declined a request through an athletic department spokesman to be interviewed for this series.
Not exactly consistent with UO's academic mission.

9/3/2012. That's the deal for big-time college football players, thanks to the NCAA Infractions Committee and its vigorous enforcement of the cartel's rules against paying the players, or even letting them hire agents to look after their interests.

Jim O'Fallon, a former law professor at UO, sits on this committee. He's paid by UO as our "Faculty Athletics Representative" to look after the players and particularly their academic performance. Contract here. That's the theory. In practice, he hasn't had a performance review in 24 years and the NYT reports he spends his time enforcing NCAA rules like the one against letting "student athletes" get free textbooks.

Today, Matt Walks of the ODE has a sad report on the pro outcomes of the spectacularly successful 2011 Ducks. Darron Thomas made millions for the UO athletic department and its coaches, got to keep none of it, and now can't get an NFL contract.

Meanwhile this story reports an NCAA footballer is 60 times more likely to suffer 2 or more concussions per year than they are to end up with a paying contract with the NFL. And from Sunday, the first of Ron Richmond of the Register Guard's 5 part series on brain damage and football. They start with 5-year-olds.
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4 comments:

  1. This is a superb website. And this issue -- high school kids getting sweet-talked by coaches, telling them that, for example, UO is the best, and most direct route to the NFL -- and then never getting there: that's the rub. Thomas worked for Kelly, for Knike, and UO. And got nothing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Do you have evidence that UO coaches tell prospectives that "UO is the best, and most direct route to the NFL"? I don't think you do because you're talking out your ass, like many of the commenters here.

      Delete

    2. This reads like an attempt to start a flame war. Go away.

      Delete

  2. Kudos to Joe Nocera for printing the names of the NCAA star chamber members. Public shaming might help.

    ReplyDelete

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