Athletes vs. NCAA

It will likely be years before Monday's U.S. Supreme Court decision has ramifications for sports in Mercer County, if it ever does. But as change looms in college sports, coaches and athletes at all levels are taking notice.

The decision, which ruled that an NCAA restriction on "education-related benefits" such as laptops and study abroad trips given to college athletes violated antitrust laws, is widely seen as the first step toward paying college athletes.

"I go back and forth on it, but the biggest thing that I always come back to that's the deciding factor is, where does it stop, compensation-wise?" said Brody Hoying, a Coldwater alum who played football in Division I. "How do you determine which players get what?"

For now, compensation stops with academic benefits, but more change is coming. Already several states have passed Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) legislation, although similar legislation has stalled at the national level.

The limits of education-related benefits also aren't entirely clear.

"If a dude lives three miles from campus, and it's Alabama and he's the starting running back, are they allowed to get him a car to get to campus to park?" Hoying asked. "Versus if you're a fourth-string running back, they probably wouldn't do that. At the end of the day, these academic compensations are all going to fall back on what guys are doing on the field."

Wince Morris, the quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator at New Bremen, played on a scholarship at Miami University and then spent seven years as the director of player personnel at Nebraska and a year as the director of football operations at Bowling Green State University. Working in college football, he saw firsthand how important education benefits could be.

"Guys couldn't afford to buy a computer," Morris said. "So unless the computer lab was open, or the academic center that we were fortunate enough to have attached to our football facility, unless those were open, it would be tough for guys going back to the dorm to finish papers.

"I think the biggest thing that comes with this is post-secondary education. You have guys who want to go and get their masters degrees, and they're out an additional $50-60,000. If you're going out of state, even more. … You've got to make sure it's an academic piece that can help expand a person's career after whatever respective sport they play in is over."

While the court's decision opened the door for compensation and the NCAA is scrambling to catch up with the states on rules to allow athletes to profit off their name, image, and likeness, the court sidestepped the issue of salaries for college athletes. But it establishes a precedent that NCAA and its definition of amateurism isn't immune to antitrust laws, which would seem to limit its ability to enforce sweeping restrictions.

Hoying, a highly successful quarterback for the Coldwater Cavaliers, played cornerback at Eastern Michigan and trained for the NFL draft last year. The loss of rookie minicamps during the pandemic likely cost him a chance as an undrafted free agent.

Although he wasn't a blue-chip prospect in college and wasn't playing at a football powerhouse, Hoying and his teammates discussed the possibility of paying athletes as the winds of change started to blow through the NCAA.

"It was discussed, but not anything serious, because we knew it was never going to happen in my playing time," he said. "It was just something that it was accepted, it's not going to happen."

Eric Rosenbeck, St. Henry boys basketball coach, didn't get anything to play in college. He went to Division III Capital University in the mid-2000s before the NIL debate became prominent, and at the DIII level, schools don't offer scholarships.

"Even if I went to Bowling Green, I'm sure there's not a lot of people that are willing to give me money for my likeness," he said. "I think a scholarship and tuition and room and board would be more than enough payment. For most, and by most I'd say 90%, probably 95 or 99%, it's not a relevant topic. But for that 10%, yeah, I think we've got to make sure we're doing right by all parties."

In the end, as Hoying said, academic benefits likely will be determined by who generates the most revenue, which forces hard choices. Whether education-related benefits are available equally across different sports remains to be seen.

There is also the possibility that devoting more money to athletes in higher-profile sports like football and men's basketball will divert university resources from non-revenue sports.

"When I was at Nebraska, that wasn't going to be an issue, because we had a budget just under $100 million," Morris said. "But at other schools, you have to decide, number one, let's be honest: who's the money generator? Who's the cash cow? You don't want to cut the cash cow, but where do the calves go? Where do the little sports go?"

In Rosenbeck's coaching career, he has only coached one player who went to DI or DII - Ryan Mikesell, who went to the University of Dayton, played on one of the best teams in school history and has since played professionally in Spain.

But the level of national attention around top high school basketball players has gone through the roof in recent years, and Rosenbeck acknowledged that the question of compensating high school athletes could eventually come into play.

"If LeBron James goes to St. Henry High School and not Akron St. Vincent-St. Marys and leads to a lot of revenue coming in, I could see people, including Lebron, his family and whoever it might be at St. Henry High School wondering about where their stake is," Rosenbeck said. "I hope it doesn't ever come to that. I'm also not naive enough to think that we couldn't ever get there, in 10, 20, 40 years."

The definition of amateurism in college is at the heart of the issue, but the argument that education-related benefits threatened that definition didn't sway the Court.

"It's an interesting read, how the Supreme Court answered it, and I liked a lot of what they said. It made sense to me," Rosenbeck said. "I think ultimately, no matter what topic we're talking about, it's the idea of fair. But measuring fair, that is really, really hard to do, and I think I'll step out on that, trying to say what's fair for individuals."

- The Associated Press contributed to this story.