Marcus Lattimore. Tyrone Prothro. And now maybe Nick Chubb.
If you have followed college football for the past decade, you probably not only recognize these names but also grimace when you read them. Your memory may conjure up images of some of the most gruesome moments ever recorded in the sport.
These are young men whose futures were supposed to involve seasons of play on the professional football field, earning millions of dollars and the accolades of fans. Instead, one of them, Tyrone Prothro, never made it to the NFL and has worked as a teller at a bank cashing checks for the Alabama fans who used to scream his name from the stands. One of them, Marcus Lattimore, went to the NFL but the ongoing pain from his injuries kept him off the field. He never played a down in a regular season game before he “retired” due to the pain.
Georgia’s Nick Chubb was injured on the first play from scrimmage against Tennessee last Saturday. Before that game, he had a school-record string of 13 straight games rushing for at least 100 yards. He was ranked second in the SEC for the season with seven rushing touchdowns and 745 rushing yards, averaging 8.2 yards per carry. He is expected to undergo surgery within the next two weeks. Whether it affects his future in the pros remains to be seen.
Author’s Note: I started writing this article last week before Chubb’s injury. It is an ironic timely example of the relevance of this issue in collegiate athletics.
One of the biggest stories so far of this college football season has been the performance of LSU’s Leonard Fournette. His seemingly ready-to-go-pro talent has once again raised the question of whether football players should be able to go straight from high school to the pros without the risk of career-ending injuries those of like Lattimore and Prothro.
First, the facts.
The NCAA’s obligations
“Intercollegiate athletics programs shall be conducted in a manner designed to protect and enhance the physical and educational well-being of student-athletes.” [quote from the 2012-13 NCAA Division 1 Manual]
What is basically a platitude is the guiding principle for healthcare for college athletes. In a 400-page manual, other than this, there is a list of healthcare services that may be provided for student-athletes at the pleasure of the institution. Schools have no contractual or legal obligation to treat even strains and pains. (California is the only state that has recognized the obligation by passing a law specifying healthcare services for college athletes at some institutions in the state – the four that earn over $10 million annually in sports media revenue. One of those schools, Stanford, is balking at the law, asking why it should pay when schools with less revenue shouldn’t.)
Just for comparison purposes, the NCAA published a 38-page document in 2011 on rules for transgender athletes. My educated guess after almost 40 years in sports journalism is that the athletes who suffer catastrophic injuries on the field outnumber the transgender athletes in NCAA locker rooms. Yet the injuries get far less attention.
Here’s another lesser-known example:
Stanley Doughty played at the University of South Carolina as a defensive tackle. His promising talent led him to declare for the draft after his junior year. While he wasn’t drafted, he was invited to try out for the Kansas City Chiefs and two weeks later had a two-year contract worth $400,000 with the team. As are all new players, he was required to undergo a mandatory battery of tests to certify his health for play in the NFL.
Doughty had been in at least two major collisions on the field during his college career, both leaving him momentarily unable to move. When evaluated by the team after the first injury, a congenital defect was found that caused his spine to narrow at the base of his neck, but it wasn’t enough to keep him off the field. A year later, a similar injury occurred but he was only briefly taken to the locker room and put back in the game.
As a result of the tests ordered by the Chiefs, Doughty was found to have another spinal injury in addition to the congenital defect. This injury was attributed to a blow to the spine similar to those that Doughty had experienced while at South Carolina. The Chiefs chose not to keep Doughty on the roster due to the potential of further injury.
Doughty went back to the University and asked whether they would pay for the surgery he needed but was declined. He now works at a car dealership.
Possible protections
Insurance is available to collegiate players through both the NCAA and private issuers, but the NCAA coverage is only available to players projected to be drafted within the first three rounds of the next year’s NFL draft. Obviously, that leaves all but about 100 players in college without coverage.
Lattimore has filed a claim against a disability insurance policy for $1.7 million which he purchased while at South Carolina that is supposed to pay off if he doesn’t appear in at least four NFL games. But he paid over $15,000 in premiums for the coverage while he was in college. Players are allowed to borrow money to pay the premiums but those funds must be repaid if the player signs a pro contract…or if he is actually paid benefits under the policy.
Of course some say that Lattimore may actually benefit more in the long run if he receives the insurance proceeds given the durability (or lack thereof) of running backs in the NFL, either due to injury or not being able to make the transition from college defenses to the behemoths on the other side of the line of scrimmage in the pros.
Back to Fournette…and the NFL
The NFL has the strictest rule of any professional league regarding when an athlete can enter the NFL draft which, of course, limits the ascension of college players to the pros. Other professional leagues like the NBA, NHL and MLB have avenues that allow a high school player to be groomed for the pros without ever setting foot on a college campus. Given its propensity to regulate everything in its grasp, many assume that the NCAA sets out the rules for when college football players can enter the draft. But it is actually the NFL itself that regulates it:
“To be eligible for the draft, players must have been out of high school for three years and must have used up their college eligibility before the start of the next college football season. Underclassmen and players who have graduated before using all their college eligibility may request the league’s approval to enter the draft early.”
Some coaches, agents and administrators agree wholeheartedly with the rule, citing reasons such as physical maturity and emotional maturity. Anyone could probably name a handful of examples of even veteran NFL players who have been arrested for everything from criminal mischief to murder, not to mention the League’s recent efforts to rehabilitate its image after numerous instances of domestic violence by its players. Is an 18-year-old mature enough to resist the temptations of fame and fortune that even seasoned pros in their thirties can’t avoid?
As for physical maturity, especially regarding Fournette and other running backs, coaches and players emphasize two measurements: one, the size of NFL defenders vs. the size of their collegiate counterparts; and, two, the size of the holes that collegiate athletes run through as compared to the much smaller ones facing professional players. According to experts, only a few players have had the ability to make that leap. Some think that Fournette may be one of the few.
For his part, Fournette has said that he is happy where he is. He is already highly touted as one of the best players expected to come out of college in the next couple of years and could meet the NFL requirement without ever playing another down. Some in the industry have even suggested that he sit out his junior year, even to the point of forcing himself into ineligibility by selling autographs or other memorabilia. But doesn’t that prove the point: if an athlete has to break an NCAA rule to comply with an NFL rule to ensure that he eventually plays in the pros, isn’t something wrong with using colleges as a minor league farm system?
What is the AD’s role?
As reported in a 2013 article in The Atlantic, NCAA statistics showed 20,718 injuries in college football each year, including 841 spinal injuries. Granted, most of these are not career-ending or life-threatening, but if the schools won’t protect their stars, how little are they doing for a second-stringer?
To some degree, ADs are in a lose-lose situation. They must comply with NCAA rules to keep their school off probation, but they are also responsible for the safety of their program’s athletes. An AD is pulled in many directions: profits, winning records and safety for the athletes. But buying insurance for a roster of 85 scholarship players or paying for their injuries bites into the profits which, at least on a balance sheet, make the AD appear to be failing at an important criterion. And that is much more visible than former players suffering from lifelong disabilities who are off the radar because they are no longer making a contribution to the institution’s athletic program.
With very little in the official manual to guide them, except in the state of California, ADs seem to have carte blanche to make, or at least propose, policies for their institutions. Whether insurance is the answer or workers’ compensation or scholarships guaranteed regardless of play (which the NCAA does not require), and whether these benefits are guaranteed for all student-athletes or on an individual basis, it may be time to consider alternatives. Or perhaps push the NCAA to consider better rules for the players.
Two updates since this article was first written:
One, in LSU’s win over Florida, Les Miles apparently saw too many cheap shots targeting Fournette. He sent video to the SEC office of questionable plays involving his star running back and the Florida defense. Several clips show Fournette being pushed back after the whistle had blown on forward progress. Fournette also said that he was poked in the eye during the game but didn’t venture an opinion on whether it was intentional. None of the plays resulted in a penalty. Miles said he wants a dialogue with the conference officials to understand “how it operates, what the ruling is so we can teach it best”.
In the second instance, Nick Chubb is scheduled for surgery within the next couple of weeks according to Georgia coach Mark Richt. Chubb tore his PCL and two other ligaments and had damage to the cartilage in the joint after an injury on the first play from scrimmage in the Tennessee game on October 10. Richt said he is hopeful for Chubb’s return in 2016.
Feature image via B. Sanderlin/AJC
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