This blog is set up for the HHP 126, HHP 157, HHP 420, and HHP 428 courses along with other Sports Students as a way to communicate with fellow classmates and faculty members
Primary on-site contact for assigned sports/facilities including daily operations of the CFSB Center.
Summary of Job Duties and Responsibilities:
Organize, oversee and execute logistical operations and setup/strike for all events (internal, external and athletic) in facility.
Oversee the event merchandise at the CFSB Center in conjunction with athletic department business office.
Develop, create and implement concepts and ideas to improve event operations.
Aggressively promote and recruit external events (concerts, regional events, etc.) to be hosted at the CFSB Center.
Assisting in development and execution of marketing plans and promotions related to hosting of external events at the CFSB center.
Communicates various events with all internal and external departments to prevent any possible conflicts.
Assist with the CFSB Center budget preparation and formation.
Submit all work orders for CFSB Center via the AiMS system.
Serve as department daily contact for all Concession repairs, renovations and construction. Provide the Assistant AD for Operations with timely progress reports on projects.
Supervise all students, groups and temporary part-time staff.
Plan, schedule and supervise appropriate levels of personnel (full-time, part-time, and students) in all areas of responsibility, including overtime, while staying within budgetary limitations and university policy.
Overseeing the day-to-day operation/maintenance of all concessions stands in coordination with vendors and SSC.
Responsible for ordering concession stand products.
Ensuring concession products are received and stocked according to product storage procedures.
Serve as a representative of the Athletics/CFSB Center while attending various activities encouraging growth and interest in Murray State Athletics, Murray State University and the local and regional communities.
Work in collaboration with Athletic Director and Resources & Operations within the athletic department to establish partnerships within the local and regional communities regarding scheduling of events.
Overseeing, approving and managing all timecard approvals at the CFSB Center.
Serve as athletic department representative for the CFSB Center while also working within the Resources & Operations Division of Murray State Athletics.
Will be responsible for producing $200,000 in annual revenues from facility rentals, booking of external events and other revenue streams.
Maintaining ultimate responsibility for coordination, management and communication of comprehensive facility schedule to include all events (internal, external and athletic) to all parties involved.
Coordination of all housekeeping and general maintenance for the CFSB center.
Serve in a support role for gameday event management for home football games, basketball games and other events as assigned.
Ability to promote a positive and inclusive workplace.
As a member of the Murray State University Athletic Department, you shall comply with all applicable NCAA rules and regulations as provided in the NCAA Division I Manual. If you are found in violation of NCAA regulations, you shall be subject to disciplinary or corrective action as set forth in the provisions of the NCAA enforcement procedures, including suspension without pay or termination of employment for significant or repetitive violations.
Minimum Education Requirements:
Bachelor's degree required.
Minimum Experience and Skill Requirements:
Two years supervisory experience required within a multi-purpose athletic and special event venue.
Knowledgeable in OSHA standards in maintaining a safe working environment.
Must possess ability to plan, develop, organize and manage all aspects of the operational activities of the facility.
Must have demonstrated ability to work in facility management and event operations.
Excellent public relations, interpersonal communication skills, and customer service are a high priority.
Must be detail-oriented, organized, and computer proficient.
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STANFORD (KPIX 5) – Hundreds of student-athletes at Stanford staged a protest outside the school president's office Monday, hoping to convince the university to reverse its decision to cut 11 varsity sports programs.
"It just becomes so much more real when you have a crowd of people who are supporting this effort out in front of the administration, saying 'This is our livelihood, these are our dreams. Please don't cut them. Please listen to us,'" said Claire Smythe, a senior on Stanford's women's lightweight rowing team.
In July, Stanford announced that it was cutting 11 varsity sports teams, including men's and women's fencing, field hockey, lightweight rowing, men's rowing, coed and women's sailing, squash, synchronized swimming, men's volleyball and wrestling.
Supporters of recently cut Stanford athletic programs gather outside the university president's office on April 26, 2021. (CBS)
In an open letter to the Stanford community, the university explained that the athletic department was facing a "serious and growing financial challenge" that was exacerbated by the pandemic. In the current fiscal year, university officials estimated they were grappling with a $12-million shortfall.
However, many students say given the size of the university's endowment they question if the cuts were truly necessary.
"With a $29 billion endowment, there is no figure too large to save these 11 communities – these 11 sports – that have been cut," says Kyler Presho who plays on the Men's Volleyball Team.
There is evidence that the student's lobbying campaign may be paying off. The president of the university met behind closed doors with the board of trustees.
A spokesperson for the university says an announcement about whether or not the university can restore some or all of the sports programs will likely be made in the next few weeks.
Project could hinge on results of expected feasibility study
Tennessee State University leaders are looking into starting an NCAA Division I ice hockey program, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation.
The school will reportedly announce soon announce plans to conduct a feasibility study with the goal of determining the viability of starting a hockey program at TSU as well as how much fundraising would need to be done. If officials push on from there, TSU's would be the first Division I hockey team in the history of the country's Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
TSU officials did not respond to requests for comment.
The sources also said that a partnership between TSU and the Nashville Predators could be announced in the future. The two organizations have teamed up before, most recently in March 2020 for the "$1 million in 1 month" fundraising campaign to benefit merit- and need-based scholarships for TSU students.
The initiative shattered its expected goal, raising $1.7 million in total that funded more than 500 scholarships. The Preds made an initial $100,000 donation.
The Predators also worked with TSU to form the GUIDER group (Growth, Understanding, Inclusion, Diversity, Equality and Representation), which aims to reduce social discrimination and bring about social change in Nashville.
STANFORD (KPIX 5) – Hundreds of student-athletes at Stanford staged a protest outside the school president's office Monday, hoping to convince the university to reverse its decision to cut 11 varsity sports programs.
"It just becomes so much more real when you have a crowd of people who are supporting this effort out in front of the administration, saying 'This is our livelihood, these are our dreams. Please don't cut them. Please listen to us,'" said Claire Smythe, a senior on Stanford's women's lightweight rowing team.
In July, Stanford announced that it was cutting 11 varsity sports teams, including men's and women's fencing, field hockey, lightweight rowing, men's rowing, coed and women's sailing, squash, synchronized swimming, men's volleyball and wrestling.
Supporters of recently cut Stanford athletic programs gather outside the university president's office on April 26, 2021. (CBS)
In an open letter to the Stanford community, the university explained that the athletic department was facing a "serious and growing financial challenge" that was exacerbated by the pandemic. In the current fiscal year, university officials estimated they were grappling with a $12-million shortfall.
However, many students say given the size of the university's endowment they question if the cuts were truly necessary.
"With a $29 billion endowment, there is no figure too large to save these 11 communities – these 11 sports – that have been cut," says Kyler Presho who plays on the Men's Volleyball Team.
There is evidence that the student's lobbying campaign may be paying off. The president of the university met behind closed doors with the board of trustees.
A spokesperson for the university says an announcement about whether or not the university can restore some or all of the sports programs will likely be made in the next few weeks.
Two members of U.S. House add new elements to bill on NCAA athletes' name, image, likeness
Two members of the U.S. House of Representatives are re-introducing a bipartisan bill on Monday regarding college athletes' ability to make money from their name, image and likeness.
The measure from Reps. Anthony Gonzalez, R-Ohio, and Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., is largely similar to the version that they offered last September but was not acted upon before that Congressional session ended. However, according to a copy of the bill provided to USA TODAY Sports, there are changes that could benefit athletes more than their initial measure did.
This becomes the third bill related to college sports and the issue of name, image and likeness (NIL) to be introduced during this Congressional session. But unlike bills from Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and from the tandem of Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., this one has support from multiple legislators from both parties. Three other Democrats and three other Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors.
"We thought that it's time for us to put a stake in the ground so that we can begin to talk and negotiate on this issue," Cleaver told USA TODAY Sports. "We obviously realize we've got to reconcile a House bill with a Senate bill. At this point, there's no hostility. It's not like the House version versus the Senate version. . . . All of us pretty much want the same thing. This is a civil rights issue and we want to set the athletes free — not unlike what Moses did."
This version of the Gonzalez-Cleaver bill has two notable changes from its earlier iteration:
►In addition to allowing the NCAA, conferences and schools to prohibit athletes from having sponsorship deals with certain types of companies, like tobacco companies or brands, it now has a parity clause. If the NCAA, a conference or a school did prohibit athletes from having deals in a certain business category, then that entity also would not be allowed have a sponsorship deal with a company in that category.
One of the product categories where such prohibitions would be allowed is with "any casino or entity whose primary business is sponsoring or promotion of gambling activities." But because some schools have deals with casinos and/or state lotteries, if they want to keep those deals, they also would have to allow their athletes to make deals in that area.
The suggestion to add the parity clause largely came from Democratic members who were willing to accept the idea of schools having the right to set category limits based on school morals and philosophies, but those members also felt the limits also should apply to the schools themselves.
►The new version also would appear to give athletes greater leeway to make endorsement deals with shoe and apparel companies. The new version says a school can prohibit an athlete from "wearing any item of clothing or gear with the insignia of any entity during any athletic competition or athletic-related university-sponsored event." This would mean that an athlete attending a non-athletic event or studying abroad could wear apparel in connection with an endorsement contract.
"The athletic director can decide that the players are all going to wear Nike shoes, or whatever, and the players have nothing to say about that at all," Cleaver said. "My belief is strong that the decision to use one's name and likeness should begin and end with the individual, and not with the university."
As with the original version, the new bill's "rules of construction" — or guidance related to the legislators' intent — state that none of the bill's provisions can provide the basis for an antitrust lawsuit. They also state that athletes who make endorsement deals will not be considered school employees.
LSU fires law firm, plans to ban Derrius Guice, scrub record books after harassment scandal
Ausberry won't be allowed at games in 2021 season
In its strongest actions to date in the ongoing sexual harassment scandal at LSU, the university terminated Taylor Porter, its law firm for the past 80 years, and is preparing a "vote of disapproval" resolution saying the Board of Supervisors disapproves of three former members not telling the rest of the board about the allegation of misconduct made in 2013 against then-football coach Les Miles.
LSU administrators and board members have been pilloried for only suspending two employees and transferring two others after a scathing report by the Husch Blackwell law firm last month that documented years of officials covering up sexual misconduct complaints made by students.
"These are difficult decisions, and the board has tried to work to get it right," LSU board Chair Robert Dampf told The Advocate | The Times-Picayune on Friday night. "We regret some of the actions we've had to take. But these are very complicated, fact-specific issues. They take time."
Dampf noted that these actions, some of which are still in the works, partially address what has taken place in the past. Going forward the university already is establishing stronger protocols for addressing and investigating complaints, with definitive discipline when not followed; establishing a Title IX office in the center of the Baton Rouge campus; and hiring an expanded staff with expertise in harassment complaints and the federal law, Title IX, that governs them.
The university also is in the process of banning Derrius Guice from all future LSU activities and will remove his statistics from LSU record books.
The star running back was charged in three separate domestic violence incidents in 2020 and two women accused him of sexual assault while he was a freshman in 2016. A third LSU student had complained in 2016 that Guice had taken a partially nude photo of her, without her knowledge, then showed the pictures to his teammates.
LSU also imposed a bit of additional discipline on Verge Ausberry, an assistant athletic director who received a text message in 2018 from a football player who admitted to hitting his girlfriend. Ausberry did not report the incident to police or Title IX, and the player went on to abuse his girlfriend for several more months, breaking into her apartment and nearly strangling her one night.
Ausberry already has served a 30-day suspension without pay and is continuing training on how to handle sexual misconduct complaints. The punishment was light in part because LSU, at the time, had confusing rules on to whom to report such incidents and his superiors had covered up similar instances in the past.
LSU interim President Tom Galligan said Friday night that administrators were looking for some additional way to discipline Ausberry that would be meaningful to him and decided on not allowing him to attend football games for the upcoming season.
"We continue to review the issues arising out of the Husch Blackwell report," Galligan said.
Taylor Porter, a Baton Rouge law firm, was notified Friday that the firm would be removed from pending litigation because of a lawsuit filed by an LSU employee who claims to have been retaliated against for trying to bring to light the mishandling of sexual harassment claims.
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Dampf said the move was mostly because the law firm was named as a co-defendant along with LSU in the lawsuit. Co-defendants often have conflicting claims, plus he didn't like the optics of the law firm defending LSU in other cases while sharing the defense table in this lawsuit, Dampf said.
Galligan said Taylor Porter was representing LSU in several ongoing Baton Rouge lawsuits and one in Alexandria. The university will reevaluate the relationship after the litigation by the LSU employee is finished, he added.
But a board member said privately, "We tried to offer Taylor Porter a soft landing and they didn't want to take it."
"We regret that our relationship with LSU has ended amid publicly disseminated misinformation and false accusations involving matters over which our ethical obligations to LSU preclude us from correcting and defending," David Shelby, Taylor Porter's general counsel, said Friday night.
On May 15, 2013, the law firm met with only three of the 16 LSU board members — Hank Danos, Bobby Yarborough and Stanley Jacobs, none of whom is still serving — plus then-athletic director Joe Alleva and senior associate athletic director Miriam Segar to review allegations of improper behavior lodged by two female students against Miles. They agreed on how to discipline Miles, who still maintains his innocence, and that the allegations should be kept quiet.
"Those present agreed that this was appropriate administrative action that could and should be taken without further review by the full Board," stated the Taylor Porter memo of the meeting.
Shelby says the firm acted ethically and properly.
"Our firm's attorneys made no recommendations about who should be informed of the results of the investigation. Indeed, it was not our place to do so in light of the issues presented by the investigation. Any suggestion that Taylor Porter orchestrated or participated in a cover-up is absolutely false, and, in time, the full record will make this clear," Shelby said.
A resolution voicing disapproval of the three supervisors for not telling their colleagues about the allegations in 2013 — the Miles situation was made public in March — is being prepared for a vote at the next board meeting. Husch Blackwell felt that the circumstances at LSU would not have become so grave had the Miles affair been handled better.
Dampf said the names of the three will not be included in the resolution. Rather, LSU wants to put on record that such actions are unacceptable. The resolution will include wording that any "similar personnel matters should be shared with the full board going forward."
"The resolution is designed to show what we think is a better way to do business. All members are entitled to the information," Dampf said.
LSU conspired to cover up reports of sexual misconduct and dating violence, new lawsuit claims
Seven women filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Louisiana State University, its leadership, athletic fundraising arm and several top administrators on Monday, alleging they conspired to cover up the women's reports of sexual misconduct and dating violence, discriminated against female students and deprived them of their rights.
The women include three former LSU tennis players, two former football recruiting office student workers, a former student and a current student.
Together, they accused the school of prioritizing its reputation and football program above their safety and welfare and for creating a "culture of silence" where student victims were discouraged from and retaliated against for reporting Title IX offenses, according to a copy of the 124-page lawsuit obtained by USA TODAY. They are seeking damages in excess of $5 million, plus court costs.
All seven previously shared their accounts of assault, harassment and institutional betrayal with USA TODAY, whose reporting on the cases led LSU to hire an outside law firm, Husch Blackwell, to review its handling of them.
Husch Blackwell confirmed USA TODAY's reporting and found a "serious institutional failure" in LSU's response to physical and gendered violence complaints.
The class-action status of the women's lawsuit means others who were harmed by LSU's failures to provide resources for student victims of sex discrimination from 2013 to the present can potentially join as plaintiffs. Attorneys for the women said they believe the affected class extends to thousands of current and former students.
"We have filed an action against LSU on behalf of the young women that have bravely come forward, the young people that are still afraid, and every young person who had the dream of going to LSU," said Karen Truszkowski, an attorney for the women, in a statement to USA TODAY. "Until the priorities shift back to the mission of this university, the flagship school of Louisiana, to educate and support young people in their quest to better themselves, we will not stop the quest for change."
Ongoing legal trouble at LSU
The lawsuit is the latest fallout from USA TODAY's reporting on LSU's failure to protect women from gendered violence and harassment.
The U.S. Department of Education is conducting two investigations into the university for violating Title IX and the Clery Act – two federal laws meant to protect students from interpersonal violence and sex discrimination. LSU also disciplined two athletic administrators in connection with the scandal, and two former top LSU employees lost their jobs at other universities – the University of Kansas parted ways with football coach Les Miles, and Oregon State University accepted the resignation of President F. King Alexander.
This is the second lawsuit against LSU and its leaders filed this month. Sharon Lewis, LSU's longtime football recruiting director, filed claims alleging retaliation from her supervisors and a similar organized criminal enterprise to cover up Title IX complaints.
Reached Sunday, LSU Vice President for Communications Jim Sabourin said the school was not aware of the latest lawsuit and could not comment on it.
"We are focused on taking actions to ensure that we create a campus that is safe, just and worthy of the trust that has been placed in us," Sabourin in a statement.
Defendants in the lawsuit include one former and six current athletic department officials, as well as the Tiger Athletic Foundation, a nonprofit that funnels millions of dollars in donations to the LSU athletic department.
The lawsuit alleges the foundation and the officials engaged in a state and federal RICO Act conspiracy to keep complaints against athletes and coaches in house and fraudulently certify their compliance with the laws and NCAA rules in order to protect athletes and keep donations and revenue flowing. Lewis' suit also included a RICO Act claim.
The athletics officials named in the suit are: former athletic director Joe Alleva, executive deputy athletic director Verge Ausberry, senior associate athletic director Miriam Segar, women's tennis coaches Julia and Mike Sell, Lewis and assistant director of recruiting operations Keava Soil-Cormier.
Also named as defendants are the LSU Board of Supervisors, Alexander; former human resources director A.G. Monaco, former Title IX coordinators Jennie Stewart and Jim Marchand, and student accountability director Jonathan Sanders and associate director Tracy Blanchard.
Lawsuit: LSU officials indifferent to assault claims
Two of the women in the most recent lawsuit said LSU officials were deliberately indifferent to their reports of sexual assault and misconduct by former star running back Derrius Guice. Former tennis player Abby Owens said Guice raped her. Former student recruiting worker Samantha Brennan said Guice took a partially nude photo of her without her consent and shared it with others on the football team.
Owens detailed her account to USA TODAY in August and Brennan did so in November. Although their incidents were disclosed to several officials, including Lewis, Segar and Julia Sell, no one from LSU's Title IX Office ever reached out to them to conduct an investigation or offer support, resources or accommodations, they said.
Former student Calise Richardson, who shared her account with USA TODAY in December, said she and other students in the football recruiting office were encouraged to do anything to lure top football recruits on visits to LSU, including having sex with them. Players, coaches and other men affiliated with LSU solicited her for sex on multiple occasions, she said.
One recruit raped Richardson in 2015 during an official visit, the lawsuit said. Guice attempted to rape her in fall 2016, she said, and then spread rumors around the football program that she would have sex with anyone, which led to additional sexual advances from others.
Guice has previously denied the allegations through his attorney, Peter Greenspun.
Richardson also said she was physically and emotionally abused by then-LSU football player Drake Davis from 2016 through 2018. Lewis and Soil-Cormier took no action in response to Richardson's complaint in 2016, laughing at her and mocking her instead, she said, while telling her she could go to the police if she wanted to ruin Davis' life.
Richardson said the lawsuit is the "last thing" she wanted to happen.
"I spoke out in 2018 and 2020 and for the same reason, I want accountability, justice and change," she told USA TODAY. "LSU isn't listening to what the public wants, so we have to find a new way to make them listen. Hopefully, they'll take us seriously now and start caring about the safety and well-being of their students."
For more than a year beginning in spring 2017, Davis repeatedly physically assaulted and strangled former tennis player Jade Lewis, another plaintiff in the suit. Numerous LSU officials, including the Sells, were aware of the assaults, the lawsuit said. Davis even admitted to punching Jade Lewis in an April 2018 text message to Ausberry, who did not report the information to anyone.
LSU officials dragged their feet in charging Davis, who continued to practice with the football team while the abuse was escalating into death threats. Meanwhile, LSU officials wasted little time charging Jade Lewis for having a candle in her campus apartment – a candle that was found during the investigation into Davis' dating violence.
Davis pleaded guilty in March 2019 to criminal charges stemming from multiple assaults of Lewis. He was not expelled from LSU until July 2019.
Kennan Johnson, another former LSU tennis player, said Julia Sell emotionally and mentally abused her and discriminated against her on the basis of her sexual orientation. Johnson said Sell told her to keep her "lifestyle" out of the locker room.
Julia Sell held Johnson's lifelong dream of playing tennis for LSU over her head, repeatedly telling her she wasn't good enough to be on the team and forcing her to lose a certain amount of weight each week in order to stay, she said. Julia Sell created a toxic environment on the team, pitted players against each other and insulted them behind their backs, the lawsuit said.
Johnson also said she reported Davis' physical abuse of Jade Lewis to Julia Sell. Additionally, Johnson said Julia Sell instructed her and other teammates to stay away from Jade Lewis after Davis was arrested in August 2018.
Johnson told USA TODAY that LSU has become a place she dreads going to, and that she no longer feels part of the Tiger family.
"LSU has done a disservice to not only its employees but also to its students, and it's not just about LSU. It's about cultural change that needs to happen within institutions," Johnson said of the lawsuit. "Overall there is work to be done and people who need to be fired and things that need to be reevaluated, and if this is the step that I have to take to make a change, then so be it."
The other two plaintiffs had no affiliation with athletics.
Elisabeth Andries detailed her assault by a fraternity member to USA TODAY in November. Although the fraternity member was ultimately found responsible for sexually assaulting her and a second student on the same night, the Title IX process dragged on nearly six months, during which LSU rejected the women's requests for protections, rarely gave them updates and failed to interview key witnesses.
In the meantime, LSU moved Andries out of the classes she shared with him, instead of the other way around, which goes against Title IX's best practices. And it issued a mutual no-contact order to her and the fraternity member, which the lawsuit said amounts to retaliatory disciplinary action against a complainant, because she could have been subject to sanctions had she violated it.
Despite the frat member being found responsible twice, Sanders issued him a deferred suspension – a punishment that resulted in no actual suspension and allowed him to continue his coursework uninterrupted.
Only in October 2019, after the second woman appealed the deferred suspension, was the fraternity member suspended for two semesters and banned from campus.
The seventh plaintiff is listed as "Jane Doe" in the lawsuit to protect her confidentiality, but she spoke to USA TODAY about her case. It is USA TODAY's policy not to identify individuals who allege sexual crimes and domestic violence without their permission.
As a freshman in spring 2019, the woman reported a student in her residence hall for sexual harassment and stalking. She said he sent her sexually harassing messages from several phone numbers, groped her at a Chipotle and stole items from her dorm, offering to give them back only if she submitted to his sexual advances.
Four LSU officials interviewed the woman, only to determine the male student's conduct did not fall under Title IX. LSU then excluded her from receiving any information about the process, did not inform her of the outcome of the investigation and provided her incomplete case records when she requested them earlier this year.
While the male student ostensibly received no discipline, LSU expelled her in fall 2019, when her grades plummeted in the aftermath of the harassment, she said. The school granted her appeal to re-enroll, but she dropped out of school on her own a few months later, she said, after she continued to see the student on campus.
A daughter of LSU alumni, she grew up loving the Tigers, she told USA TODAY. When it came time to apply for colleges, it was the only school where she applied. It still holds the same place in her heart, she said, but she wants it to change.
"They couldn't even take care of my case, which seemed pretty straightforward. And they still aren't doing the right thing," she said. "I don't really want to go anywhere else. I guess I want to go back, but I want to get it all sorted out first."
Two members of U.S. House add new elements to bill on NCAA athletes' name, image, likeness
Two members of the U.S. House of Representatives are re-introducing a bipartisan bill on Monday regarding college athletes' ability to make money from their name, image and likeness.
The measure from Reps. Anthony Gonzalez, R-Ohio, and Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., is largely similar to the version that they offered last September but was not acted upon before that Congressional session ended. However, according to a copy of the bill provided to USA TODAY Sports, there are changes that could benefit athletes more than their initial measure did.
This becomes the third bill related to college sports and the issue of name, image and likeness (NIL) to be introduced during this Congressional session. But unlike bills from Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and from the tandem of Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., this one has support from multiple legislators from both parties. Three other Democrats and three other Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors.
"We thought that it's time for us to put a stake in the ground so that we can begin to talk and negotiate on this issue," Cleaver told USA TODAY Sports. "We obviously realize we've got to reconcile a House bill with a Senate bill. At this point, there's no hostility. It's not like the House version versus the Senate version. . . . All of us pretty much want the same thing. This is a civil rights issue and we want to set the athletes free — not unlike what Moses did."
This version of the Gonzalez-Cleaver bill has two notable changes from its earlier iteration:
►In addition to allowing the NCAA, conferences and schools to prohibit athletes from having sponsorship deals with certain types of companies, like tobacco companies or brands, it now has a parity clause. If the NCAA, a conference or a school did prohibit athletes from having deals in a certain business category, then that entity also would not be allowed have a sponsorship deal with a company in that category.
One of the product categories where such prohibitions would be allowed is with "any casino or entity whose primary business is sponsoring or promotion of gambling activities." But because some schools have deals with casinos and/or state lotteries, if they want to keep those deals, they also would have to allow their athletes to make deals in that area.
The suggestion to add the parity clause largely came from Democratic members who were willing to accept the idea of schools having the right to set category limits based on school morals and philosophies, but those members also felt the limits also should apply to the schools themselves.
►The new version also would appear to give athletes greater leeway to make endorsement deals with shoe and apparel companies. The new version says a school can prohibit an athlete from "wearing any item of clothing or gear with the insignia of any entity during any athletic competition or athletic-related university-sponsored event." This would mean that an athlete attending a non-athletic event or studying abroad could wear apparel in connection with an endorsement contract.
"The athletic director can decide that the players are all going to wear Nike shoes, or whatever, and the players have nothing to say about that at all," Cleaver said. "My belief is strong that the decision to use one's name and likeness should begin and end with the individual, and not with the university."
As with the original version, the new bill's "rules of construction" — or guidance related to the legislators' intent — state that none of the bill's provisions can provide the basis for an antitrust lawsuit. They also state that athletes who make endorsement deals will not be considered school employees.
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A Dad Fights to Bring Back School Sports. His Son Moves On.
Pandemic-canceled seasons gave a top high-school athlete the chance to get a first job and see a future career, leaving his sports dad to campaign alone
By | Photographs by Max Whittaker for The Wall Street Journal
VISALIA, Calif.—Over the years, the three Walker boys gathered a trove of medals and trophies in football, basketball, track and swimming. Their father, Phil Walker, poured his heart into their pursuits and thousands of dollars into equipment, private leagues and training camps.
"We're all passionate about this!" Mr. Walker bellowed through a bullhorn at a rally last month of 75 or so similarly minded families. They had gathered to demand school officials restart sports benched in the pandemic. "A lot of us are hurt about what's going on," the 56-year-old financial executive said, standing on the bed of a pickup pinned with a banner saying "Let Them Play."
Youth sports are returning in California and other parts of the U.S., but not as swiftly as some parents want, and not for every athlete. The Visalia Unified School District where Mr. Walker lives had approved spring sports but decided against a shortened season for water polo and football, fall sports canceled last semester.
"People so badly want everything to return to normal," said Visalia Unified Superintendent Tamara Ravalin, who empathized with upset parents. But health worries and limits on staff and space put a cap on sports offerings, she said.
Mr. Walker was desperate to see his youngest son, Gage, a high-school senior, play football one last time. He has a video he shot on his phone from the stands at a regional playoff game in November 2019. His sons Hudson and Gage were on the field for the Redwood High School Rangers. The team was trailing in the game's closing minutes when Hudson blocked a punt and Gage recovered the ball on the three-yard line. The Rangers almost won.
"There was no pandemic going on," said Mr. Walker, who choked up watching the replay before the rally. "We had no idea what was coming."
In many American households, "the family's identity has been largely wrapped up in sports," said Travis Dorsch, the founding director of the Families in Sport Lab at Utah State University.
Parents are "driving this 'Let them play' movement more than anything else," said Tom Farrey, the executive director of the Sports & Society Program at the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan research and policy group.
Nearly three out of 10 children have no interest in returning to the primary sport they played before Covid-19, a September survey of parents by the Aspen Institute and Utah State found. The parent responses indicated their children preferred unstructured play—driveway hoops, bike riding and pickup games they organized—rather than activities run by adults.
Gage Walker, 17, stood quietly at the Visalia school district rally. His father had pressured him to go.
Before the pandemic, sports took up most of Gage's free time, and he liked the competition. The pandemic-canceled seasons left him to find other ways to keep busy. He discovered snowboarding and took his first part-time job. The pause also helped him figure out what he wanted to study in college.
Maybe missing football "wasn't such a bad thing for me," he said. "I probably matured a little bit during quarantine."
Competitive advantage
Inspired by his success as a sports dad, Mr. Walker set up a website in February last year called Recruitdad.com, offering tips for parents seeking athletic scholarships. He created an accompanying YouTube channel. It was launched weeks before Covid-19 shut everything down.
"It's so easy to waste thousands of dollars trying to help your son get a football scholarship, we certainly did," Mr. Walker said in an introductory video.
He told viewers he wanted to share what had worked and what hadn't. A photo flashed on the screen showing the Walker family, all smiles, on the day Hudson accepted a scholarship to play Division I football at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
Phil Walker, left, with his wife, Lissa, and their sons Hudson, in front, and Gage.
Photo: Sarah Franklin
Mr. Walker's own sports dreams were derailed as a boy. He grew up in Anaheim, Calif., and was a standout in baseball until he was pulled from sports over a suspected heart condition. He learned later his heart worked fine. By then, he had turned to the saxophone and considered a career performing.
He is a vice president of a reverse-mortgage firm, and his wife, Lissa, directs marketing for a home-building company. During the financial crisis, their income fell by half, and both looked for new jobs. Mr. Walker said it was tough finding work without college degrees, and the couple faced lean times for several years. Their daughter is now 32, and their sons are 17, 19 and 23.
Mr. Walker, who dropped out of community college, said he didn't want his children to experience similar financial struggles. In his view, the best way was to teach them to "put in the work now," he said, and gain a competitive advantage. He believed sports taught that.
Visalia is 230 miles southeast of San Francisco, set against the Sierra Nevada in California's Central Valley. The midsize city is the economic hub of Tulare County—by sales, one of the largest growers among all U.S. counties, known for its navel oranges, beef, dairy and almonds.
It is an ethnically diverse city that, in many ways, is united by its embrace of competitive youth sports. Mr. Walker stood out for his tenacity.
Phil Walker.
When he coached Gage's baseball team, Mr. Walker took ideas from "Moneyball," the book about the Oakland Athletics' use of quantitative analysis. "We destroyed every team we played," he said, scoring as many as 50 runs in a game. "Other parents hated us."
When his middle son Hudson was miserable in his first youth tackle football season, Mr. Walker said he tried to make it seem as if cramps and throwing up were a good thing, making the boy stronger and faster. Hudson wasn't convinced. Mr. Walker bought his son an Xbox gaming console to keep him playing, and Hudson later became a top defensive end.
Mr. Walker required each of his sons to play two sports. He didn't expect them to be the best, only to improve at each practice. If a son went from the eighth-fastest in sprint drills one week to seventh-fastest the next, he said, "we were getting an ice cream on the way home."
His oldest son Brandon, a high school pole vault star, said his father would play videos of the teenager's vaults in slow motion to see whether Brandon needed to tweak his approach or straighten his legs. At track meets, he could hear his father screaming in the stands. "It would consume him in a great way," Brandon said. "We were a real duo out there."
Brandon Walker, who now writes computer code, said sports gave him the confidence and focus to earn a computer science degree at California State University, Long Beach.
Gage Walker posed with a swimming medal during his sophomore year in 2019.
Photo: Philip Walker
Mr. Walker always had similar aspirations for Gage, who made the varsity swim team at Redwood High as a freshman. In February last year, Gage pulled ahead to win the 100-meter freestyle in his first swim meet of the season. Days later, the season was canceled.
Sports, Gage said, "was our whole entire life. We never really got a break from it. I got kind of bored of it to be honest."
Last summer, an electrical contractor his mother knew hired Gage to wire houses. He loved it.
Let them play
In August, Gage told his father, "I don't think I want to swim in college."
They were talking in Gage's bedroom, where the teenager has been taking remote classes for the past school year.
Mr. Walker said he felt shock. He had been hunting athletic scholarships for Gage, he said, and several Division II swim coaches were interested.
Gage said he wanted to study electrical engineering, a difficult major that would require all of his attention. Mr. Walker said he wanted his son to think it through. He didn't want him to have regrets. Mr. Walker had hoped to see his son compete in college. Also, he said, "we're going to have to spend full tuition to send him to college when that wasn't originally the plan."
Brandon, Gage's older brother, was sympathetic and not entirely surprised. He had heard Gage talk before the pandemic about wanting to stop a sport. Once a new season approached, Gage would always want to be part of it, he said. This time seemed different. Gage's discovery of electrical work opened a new path. "I think that is what pushed him," Brandon said. "I think he finally came to a crossroads."
Mr. Walker was relieved Gage at least wanted to play football his senior year. But a surge in Covid-19 cases last summer canceled the season, and Gage started work at a local Dick's Sporting Goods store.
Hudson's first football season at Cal Poly also was postponed. No longer rushing from game to game, Mr. Walker felt adrift. He gained 20 pounds. Brandon, his oldest, sensed a void. "I could hear it in his voice," he said of his father. "My family didn't play sports just to play sports. We've always treated it like a job, and all the sudden everyone is getting laid off."
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In California, where many public schools are reopening to students, Gov. Gavin Newsom loosened pandemic guidelines for high-contact youth sports in February. Local school officials retain leeway over which sports to bring back and when. In the Visalia Unified School District, where in-person high-school classes opened last month, parents received a March 3 email saying the spring athletic season was ramping up, but there would be no water polo or football games. Mr. Walker said it felt like a gut punch.
Gage didn't return to the swim team in spring, but he said he would play football if the district reversed course. On Friday, March 5, Mr. Walker helped launch a "Let Them Play Tulare County" Facebook page.
The next day, Mr. Walker drove a couple of hours to see Hudson's football scrimmage at Cal Poly. Despite the "no spectator" signs, Mr. Walker saw a man standing on a bench and peering over a fence to watch the team. He sensed a kindred spirit and walked over. "Is this the dad zone?" he asked.
By the end of the weekend, Mr. Walker's "Let them Play" Facebook page had nearly 1,000 members. In an early morning post on March 9, Mr. Walker urged parents to join a rally that night outside the school board meeting and call for the return of water polo and football. "Let's do it for the kids," he wrote.
At the rally, players spoke. Parents held signs saying, "Stop hurting our kids," and "Mama Bear for Student Athletes." Irma Wheeler brought a large cardboard cutout of her son's face. Her husband, Jeff Wheeler, said the family had spent thousands of dollars a year on water polo club teams and tournaments for their son, a high school junior. The family traveled to competitions almost every weekend. "We've lost all that," Mr. Wheeler said.
The crowd followed a live-stream of the board meeting on their phones. "The pandemic has been horrible," said Juan Guerrero, board president. "It breaks my heart. But you know what? We still have to make decisions for the good of the whole district."
In the morning, Mr. Walker planned his next steps at the kitchen counter. "These athletes are being denied their identity," he said. "They're football players. They're water polo players. That's who they are."
Gage shuffled in wearing slippers. He said one last football season would have been a cool experience. But with that a long shot, he planned to look for a new job, play pickup basketball and work out with friends.
Mr. Walker said his son was better able to weather the pandemic than others. "Gage had 12 years of sports that developed his character," he said. "He's having to deal with his first calamity, and I think he's better prepared for it."
Mr. Walker kept searching for ways to jump-start a Redwood High football season for spring, but he knew time was running out. He recognized a growing maturity and wisdom in Gage. He liked the idea of Gage working this summer and sent his son a job application from a drive-through coffee shop.
Cal Poly late last month also opted out of spring football, adding to the family's disappointment. "For the last 13 years we have lived for football season," Mr. Walker said.
With urging from his wife, Mr. Walker reminded himself that his sons had to make their own mistakes and chase their own successes. He remains angry about the canceled seasons and has joined other parents seeking to recall members of the Visalia Unified school board.
Mr. Walker has started thinking about his own next act as an empty-nester, maybe picking up saxophone gigs. But retiring as a sports dad will be painful. He keeps a Redwood High "Ranger Pride!" yard sign out front and a "Cal Poly Football Dad" sticker on his SUV in the driveway.
Gage is excited for college, he said, and a chance to "go out and do my own thing." He decided on Fresno State, an hourlong drive away. He and Mr. Walker walked on the campus this month and visited the engineering building.
In some ways, Gage said, he felt closer to his father. In the past, he said, "It was just sports. `You got first place, congratulations.' Sports was what had us hanging around each other."
Gage said he liked how they now talk about other things, including noncompetitive recreation. They are planning a camping trip together.
Phil Walker by the driveway hoop at his home in Visalia, Calif.
