Should College Athletes Be Paid to Play?

sports1On April 19th I participated in a lively panel discussion debating the pros and cons of paying Division I Football Bowl Championship football and men’s basketball players for their services, hosted by The Ohio State University Sports & Society Initiative, which was recently started by its College of Arts & Sciences.  Despite the commercialized nature of these sports, I advocated that college student-athletes should not receive economic benefits based on their playing ability, including cash stipends, in excess of the full cost of attendance at their respective universities.  In my view, there should be greater emphasis on ensuring they receive a meaningful education and earn a college degree that well prepares them for a career other than professional sports, which could include lifetime free tuition and cash bonuses for earning an undergraduate degree. Other panelists included sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, who expressed substantially the same views, as well as Joe Nocera, a New York Times writer, and Vince Doria, a former ESPN senior vice president, who both asserted that college football and basketball players should be paid based on their individual athletic ability and accomplishments.  A video of this panel discussion along with a second panel of former Ohio State football, men’s and women’s  basketball players (including Maurice Clarett, Lawrence Funderburke, and Shawn Springs), and a women’s golfer discussing this issue is available here.

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Take Part in Sports, But Minimize the Risks, Sports Concussion Expert Says

Julian Bailes does not say that kids younger than 14 – or anyone else – shouldn’t take part in contact sports such as football.  But they should know the risks, follow the rules, and make sure they are involved with coaches and others who do the right things when it comes to the health of players.

Bailes is someone whose views are particularly worth attention. A former team physician for the Pittsburgh Steelers, he has been a central figure in medical work that has brought to light the links between repeated hits to the head and long-term brain damage among football players.

During an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program Tuesday at Marquette Law School, Bailes outlined the history of awareness of the toll that concussions and “sub-concussive” hits to the head can have, going back more than a century. But it has been in recent years that work by doctors, most notably  Bennet Omalu and Bailes, has established the high incidence among former professional football players of a form of brain damage known as CTE.

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Applications Still Being Accepted for Study Abroad in Germany

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There is still time to join law students from Wisconsin, throughout the United States, and around the world as they come together in Giessen, Germany from July 16 to August 13, 2016 for the Eighth Annual Summer Session in International and Comparative Law. The program already has the minimum number of participants necessary to move forward, but additional participants are welcome and applications will continue to be accepted until May 27.

The faculty includes Marquette Law School’s own Professor Ed Fallone and Adjunct Professor Doug Smith, as well as Professor Heinz Klug from the University of Wisconsin Law School, Professor Thilo Marauhn of the Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany, and Professor Sorcha MacLeod of the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom.

Participants can choose two classes from the following four courses: 1) Comparative Constitutional Law: The E.U., Germany and the U.S.; 2) International Economic Law & Business Transactions; 3) Business Ethics and Human Rights Law; and 4) Comparative Corporate Governance. The schedule includes field trips to Berlin and Hamburg, as well as free time to travel Europe on your own.

Applications can be downloaded from the “Study Abroad” link on the Marquette Law School webpage. Interested students from Marquette or other ABA accredited law schools should contact Prof. Ed Fallone at edward.fallone@marquette.edu for more information.

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