Green Bay Packers Hall of Famer Gilbert Brown has dedicated his life to helping those that are less fortunate. Fans know him now as a successful former professional football player, but many do not realize that he had to work hard to get where he is.
Like many current and former NFL players, the deck was stacked against Gilbert all of his young life. That is why giving back to underprivileged youth is so important to him. He once was in their position.
Former Green Bay Packers Defensive Lineman Gilbert Brown Addresses Arguments Against Paying College Athletes
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Recently, Congress passed a law that made it legal for college athletes to be paid. Now, one thing that is commonly assumed is that the universities are the ones dishing out millions of dollars to these athletes. That is simply not true.
Instead, college athletes, like professional ones, are now able to sign name-image-likeness deals with brands and corporations that pay them in exchange for that company to use their name, image, or likeness to sell or advertise their products.
Again, no college or university is [legally] paying their athletes to play for them.
Now, this new reality has upset a lot of people. They do not believe that college athletes (who are, by the way, legal adults) should be paid by anyone for the use of their name, image, or likeness.
On his weekly segment “Under the Helmet with the Gravedigger” on The Earl Ingram Show, Gilbert defended college athletes’ right to be paid:
“Here’s the thing: [the universities] pulled the wool over the fans’ eyes, man. They pull the wool over their eyes. They don’t tell you how much they make. They don’t tell you what they get.
“Let’s take, for instance, this college football video game. When they were using the players’ likeness and everything, and they [the universities] were getting paid on top of that from ticket sales, butts in the seats, and you can’t kick over a little bit to the guy you’re using?
“‘Because we gave you a scholarship. Shut up and take it!’ No way!”
So the first issue that Gilbert raises is the issue of using a college athlete’s name or likeness in a product without paying them for their name and likeness. As he points out, universities defended this practice for years by saying the athlete’s scholarship was their payment.
Student Athletes Are Better Off Being Paid For Multiple Reasons that People Refuse to See
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But there’s a big problem with that. First of all, it is unethical to use a person’s name, image, or likeness without fair compensation. While a college education is worth a great deal of money, athletic programs were raking in millions of dollars using their athletes’ likenesses, whether they wanted to be used or not.
On top of the unethicalness of the practice, there is also this problem: how is a college athlete, whose days are completely taken up by classes and commitments to their program, supposed to have any money to survive?
Gilbert shared his story from his days as a college athlete at Kansas:
“Let me break it down for you, Earl, because people don’t really understand. ‘You got a scholarship. You got a three or four year scholarship. You got your books taken care of. You got your food taken care of. You got all this stuff taken care of. Shut up and play the game!’
“No. No. There’s other factors into this. And that’s what they need to understand. These kids come from nothing. We got all of that. Now you’re using me to enrich your school.
“And do you see how much that school is making off of you? And they got to have clothes. They got to have a social life with food and all that. They want to go do this that and the other, and they can’t do that because they don’t have the money.
“I was in that same position. I was in that same position, and my mama only gave me $50 to last me a month. When there’s a kid out there that don’t even get the $50 from home, what is he supposed to do? How is he supposed to live, when this college is making $2-3 million off of his likeness?
“Like, you have no say-so anymore. How are you supposed to be a man with someone telling you what to do?
Another excellent point Gilbert makes is that more athletes are staying in school longer because of the NIL deals that they get. Before, many would leave school early to go pro and make their millions of dollars. They were not making any kind of living in college.
But now, with the NIL, they can afford to take care of their families while going to school.
And yes, a miniscule percentage of student athletes become professionals. But the perspective professional athletes are not the only ones getting NIL deals! This law is helping thousands of people live comfortably and provide for families back home that have nothing.
For more of Gilbert’s thoughts on this matter, as well as his thoughts on the current running back franchise tag issue in the NFL, listen to the show linked above.
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