"How can the NCAA blithely wreck careers
without regard to due process or common fairness? How can it act so ruthlessly
to enforce rules that are so petty? Why won't anybody stand up to these
outrageous violations of American values and American justice?"
In the four years since Joe Nocera asked those
questions in a controversial New York Timescolumn, the National
Collegiate Athletic Association has come under fire. Fans have begun to realize
that the athletes involved in the two biggest college sports, men's basketball
and football, are little more than indentured servants. Millions of teenagers
accept scholarships to chase their dreams of fame and fortune - at the price of
absolute submission to the whims of an organization that puts their interests
dead last.
For about 5 percent of top-division players,
college ends with a golden ticket to the NFL or the NBA. But what about the
overwhelming majority who never turn pro? They don't earn a dime from the
estimated $13 billion generated annually by college sports - an ocean of cash
that enriches schools, conferences, coaches, TV networks, and apparel
companies...everyone except those who give their blood and sweat to entertain
the fans.
Indentured tells
the dramatic story of a loose-knit group of rebels who decided to fight the
hypocrisy of the NCAA, which blathers endlessly about the purity of its
"student athletes" while exploiting many of them: the ones who get
injured and drop out because their scholarships have been revoked. The ones who
will neither graduate nor go pro. The ones who live in terror of accidentally
violating some obscure rule in the 400-page NCAA rulebook.
Joe Nocera and Ben Strauss take us into the
inner circle of the NCAA's fiercest enemies. You'll meet, among others:
- Sonny Vaccaro, the charismatic sports marketer who convinced Nike
to sign Michael Jordan. Disgusted by how the NCAA treated athletes,
Vaccaro used his intimate knowledge of its secrets to blow the whistle in
a major legal case.
- Ed O'Bannon, the former UCLA basketball star who realized, years
after leaving college, that the NCAA was profiting from a video game using
his image. His lawsuit led to an unprecedented antitrust ruling.
- Ramogi Huma, the founder of the National College Players
Association who dared to think that college players should have the same
collective bargaining rights as other Americans.
- Andy Schwarz, the controversial economist who looked behind the
façade of the NCAA and saw it for what it is: a cartel that violates our
core values of free enterprise.
Indentured reveals
how these and other renegades, working sometimes in concert and sometimes
alone, are fighting for justice in the bare-knuckles world of college sports.
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