National Collegiate Sports Counseling Center: Providing Student-Athletes with Comprehensive Advocacy Throughout Their Collegiate Career

Abstract

While student-athletes are not permitted membership to the NCAA, these young individuals are bound by the NCAA bylaws. Tasked with maneuvering a manual in excess of 400 pages, and ripe with detailed rules surrounding amateurism, eligibility, and violations, student-athletes are not only prohibited from obtaining adequate representation in the form of an agent when beginning their transition to a professional career, they are also not permitted to seek comprehensive representation prior to or throughout their collegiate career. While the NCAA allows member institutions to provide student-athletes with limited consulting services via a Professional Sports Counseling Panel, these panels fail to provide student-athletes with adequate and comprehensive representation as they navigate the tremulous waters of their intercollegiate athletic career within the framework of a regulatory structure rooted in the income-producing high-stakes world of collegiate sports.

Part I of this note discusses the history of the NCAA rules and regulations that govern the process and representation available to student-athletes throughout infractions proceedings. Part II considers the history and legal framework under which the NCAA operates free from the constitutional scrutiny of a due process analysis and the ramifications for student-athletes who have effectively no other option outside of the NCAA for intercollegiate competition. Part III evaluates the current resources available to student-athletes under the no-agency rule and explains why the current Professional Sports Counseling Panel permissible under NCAA rules is an insufficient resource to provide proper representation for student-athletes. Part IV proposes a National Collegiate Sports Counseling Center as a solution to providing student-athletes with increased guidance within the framework of the “no-agent” rule. In conclusion, Part V outlines the need for the NCAA to move pro-actively in the direction of increased representation for student-athletes in order to be supportive of its overall goal of integrating the athletic experience as a part of the educational experience.

Keywords: NCAA, student-athlete, collegiate sports, intercollegiate athletics, sport law

JEL Classification: L83