#'i trusted 'em': when ncaa schools abandon their injured athletes

[quotesfrommyreading]

For Doughty, the interest started trickling in late junior year—recruiters calling his high school coach, letters arriving from schools that wanted the wide-set defensive tackle behind their scrimmage lines. The teenage boy even got to go inside Nick Saban's house during a visit to the University of Alabama. But it was the recruiter South Carolina sent to the Doughtys' home on dusty G Lane that sealed the deal. The middle-aged man sat on the loveseat, against the front wall and across from the only window in the room, and told the 17-year-old and his parents this would be the best decision of his life.

Sandra Doughty, who was reluctant to send her son so far away, recalls how the recruiter kept saying if anything happened, they would take care of him, and they would call immediately. "We were so sure they were going to have his back 100 percent," she says.

That's what the Division I football sales pitch is meant to do: gain trust. It starts when a coach narrows in on a high school player and decides he wants him on the team. But he's not the only coach searching for talented young men to stock his roster in hopes of building a winning and lucrative program, and, ultimately, securing his job for another year. There are hundreds of recruiters on the prowl, all competing to convince a small number of top players to choose their school.

How is this accomplished? By sitting in the boy's living room and telling his parents that for the next four years their son will be in good hands. By forming a bond, and bringing the boy to campus. By convincing him this is the best decision for his future. Some may imply that the boy's scholarship will cover the entire tenure of his education—even if doesn't. Some, as in what the Doughtys say was their case, may promise that if anything happens the university will take care of it. "Of course I believed them," Sandra Doughty says.

There's no paperwork except for the letter of intent. Senior year Doughty inked his, along with two other players from his high school team. His classmates each played a year before dropping out.

The Doughtys didn't even think to ask about healthcare conditions, insurance, or long-term assistance. Stanley Doughty was the first in his family to go to college. How could his family have been familiar with the business side of Division I sports?

After Doughty discovered his injury, he went back to the university with the latest medical records. Doughty says his old coaches initially said they might be able to help him with the surgery and getting him back into school. But then, he says, they stopped returning his phone calls and denied his re-entrance. Stymied, Doughty went home, where he moved back in with his parents. He says that he often feels tingling and burning along the right side of his body and struggles to reach for things above his head without sharp, shooting pains. He's now on disability.

South Carolina's lawyer has declined to comment on the school's handling of Doughty's football injuries. Team doctor Jeffrey Guy had this to say: "At the end of the day, we take very good care of our athletes. We don't send them out and say we're not going to take care of you anymore."

  —  'I Trusted 'Em': When NCAA Schools Abandon Their Injured Athletes

[pamperedwolf]

To Pay or Not to Pay....

“If you look at a program like [University of] Louisville, …they generate about $45 million a year in revenue. They give out 13 scholarships. That adds up to about $400,000 a year. The rest of it gets spread out to the coach, who makes $8 million a year, to the assistant coaches, who make as much as a half-million dollars a year. All throughout the athletic department, people are making six-figure salaries. It does not go to the players, what I call the unpaid workforce.” (Bloomberg, 2021) It always the people laboring, putting in the most work, making the least, and getting the short hand of the stick. These are the stars of the show but they are getting compensated like the guest stars. When we attend these games, the answer is obvious as to who we come to see and who we are mostly entertained by, it is the players on the field. The universities are profiting, and by quite a bit, and it seems quite unfairly on the backs of their athletes.

"In 2017, 67% of former Division I athletes had sustained a major injury and 50% had chronic injuries, 2.5% higher than non-athletes" Pulling form Megan Walsh article I Trusted Em: When NCAA Schools abandons Their Injured Athletes. Another example is that it is an requirement for players to have health insurance, but the NCAA does not pay for health insurance for its players, and the absurdity even goes so far that if a player in injured with a sports injury they can refuse to pay for medical expenses. And it is important to note that the NCAA does not stop schools from canceling a players scholarship if they do end getting hurt.

All in all there are racial undertones here, majority of the college athletes are young black men, I have to question and wonder if it was majority young white men would the stance on this be taken less lightly and be bombarded with less excuses. Athletes are risking theirs bodies as well as their futures while often receiving an inadequate education. Athletes are often worth over 1 million dollars but due to the many restrictions they have regarding not being able to take endorsements or not being allowed or the time to pick up side hustles they are often living under the poverty line while the schools are making millions off of their performances. "About 25% of Division I athletes reported food poverty in the past year and almost 14% reported being homeless in the past year." (NCPA, 2011)

Bloomberg. “The NCAA Raked in over $1 Billion Last Year.” Fortune, Fortune, 8 June 2021, https://fortune.com/2018/03/07/ncaa-billion-dollars/.

“Study: ‘the Price of Poverty in Big Time College Sport’ - 9/13/2011.” Www.ncpanow.org, https://www.ncpanow.org/research/study-the-price-of-poverty-in-big-time-college-sport.

Walsh, Meghan. “'I Trusted 'Em': When NCAA Schools Abandon Their Injured Athletes.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 1 May 2013, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/05/i-trusted-em-when-ncaa-schools-abandon-their-injured-athletes/275407/.

[quotesfrommyreading]

During a practice just three months into that initial semester, though, a teammate fell on Hardrick's right leg, eliciting a pop loud enough for the whole gymnasium to hear. He felt like he'd been struck with a sledgehammer and collapsed on the hardwood floor in pain.

Team doctors said X-rays didn't show a tear. They estimated Hardrick would only miss the first few games. But he didn't end up playing once the whole season. Or at the start of the next season. During practices, Hardrick felt shooting pains whenever he tried to run or jump. He says when he told his coaches about the discomfort, they said he wasn't trying hard enough. "I was in pain," Hardrick says. "I had to fight just to get though warm-ups."

That January, a year and four months after the injury, the phone rang at Valerie Hardrick's house. It was a woman from a medical clinic, saying the family owed money for an MRI their son had undergone the previous fall. Valerie said they must be mistaken—her son had never gone for an MRI. And she would know if he had. The administrator persisted, going on to say that the film showed a torn meniscus.

The family says that when they confronted the school, the staff disputed the results of the MRI and continued to maintain Hardrick had only pulled a groin muscle. Meanwhile, Hardrick says, officials began pushing him out. He recalls that the athletic director told him to start thinking about other options, saying maybe this wasn't the best place for him. He was no longer told about team meetings, he says, and then one day when Hardrick went to the gym, he discovered his keycard had been deactivated.

Spring break of his sophomore year, Hardrick used his dad's military insurance to get surgery on his own. The surgeon who did the operation told him the tear was so severe he had to remove 10 percent of the tissue, which had been flapped behind the knee, making it painful to bend or run on. When Hardrick, still determined to get back on the court, asked Oklahoma for a medical redshirt waiver, which gives injured players an extra year of eligibility, the family said the athletic director continued to deny the injury and, therefore, the waiver request. By summer, Hardrick resigned himself to transferring, and signed up for one last set of summer-school classes. Then in July, he received a bill for $3,500 and a letter informing him that the university had canceled his scholarship—effective at the close of the previous semester.

Since Hardrick had a decent grade-point average, many other Division I schools were interested. All he needed was for Oklahoma to give him a medical hardship waiver (NCAA rules say players must sit out a year if they transfer, unless they didn't play the previous year because of an injury). Although Capel was no longer coaching at Oklahoma when Hardrick lobbied for the needed paperwork, he wrote a letter to the conference officials supporting his claims that he was unable to play because of his injury. The athletic director, though, would only grant a medical hardship waiver if the Hardricks signed a release saying there was never an injury and they would never sue (records of the correspondence confirm this). The family declined.

So the 20-year-old ended up transferring to a junior college. He's since had two more surgeries on his knee and has moved up to a Division II college, Southern Nazarene University, where he hopes to continue his recovery and finish his education (Southern Nazarene is paying for his rehab). Hardrick still believes that if his injury had been addressed immediately, he might be playing in the NBA right now. "I don't love basketball anymore," Hardrick says. "Not after everything that's happened."

  —  'I Trusted 'Em': When NCAA Schools Abandon Their Injured Athletes

[quotesfrommyreading]

Upon joining a Division I team, every participant must have insurance and undergo a medical examination before playing. But when it comes to protecting players, who generate billions of dollars every year, from having to pay unanticipated medical bills or ensuring they receive superior, impartial healthcare, there are no official NCAA provisions in place.

Thus, when a player is injured, nothing prevents the athletic director from refusing to pay related medical bills—which sometimes keep coming for years. Even for those with private insurance, some policies don't cover varsity sports injuries, have high deductibles, or refuse to pay the entire amount due. In such situations, the remaining costs fall to the athlete (many schools, though, do pay those bills).

The NCAA has a catastrophic injury fund that kicks in when personal deductibles exceed $90,000. Doughty's surgery would cost around $20,000. According to Ramogi Huma, president of the National College Players Association, schools are more likely to help cover costs if the player is high-profile and the injury is severe or public, such as the one Louisville's Kevin Ware suffered when he broke his leg during a 2013 March Madness game. Or when running back Marcus Lattimore twisted his knee almost 180 degrees during a televised game last year.

There is also no provision in the Division I Manual to prohibit a coach from revoking a scholarship the year after a recruit gets hurt. For those from poor families and without coverage through a parent, this means that a young man or young woman can be enlisted on the promise of an education, get injured on the field, and lose his or her only source of medical insurance precisely when he or she needs it most. "There is no doubt there are horror stories out there about schools terminating scholarships," says Warren Zola, assistant dean for graduate programs in the Carroll School of Management at Boston College and a sports business expert. "It comes down to the ethos of particular schools."

Many from low-income families are completely dependent on the school's healthcare system, which in some cases means being cared for solely by team doctors and trainers—many of whom may feel pressure to keep a team's healthcare costs low or to get an injured player back on the field. Several lawyers experienced in college sports point out that the relationship between athletes and team doctors is unique because the university, not the patient, does the hiring. Doughty wasn't encouraged to seek out care by an impartial physician, and it didn't cross his mind to. "I put everything in their hands and trusted them," Doughty says. "They said I would be taken care of."

  —  'I Trusted 'Em': When NCAA Schools Abandon Their Injured Athletes

[comphub]

The National Collegiate Athletics Association Division I manual includes more than 400 pages of mandates for its member schools.

But there is less than a page regarding healthcare for athletes.

Instead, there's a half-page list of healthcare services that institutions may finance should they choose. Athletic departments (with the exception of those in California, where specific legislation has been passed) don't have to publish their healthcare policies in writing, leaving players to rely solely on the promises of recruiters.