NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
College athletes, the players who arguably need a union the most, don't have one. But that could be changing.
The Collegiate Athletes Coalition, formed in January 2001, is recruiting members on major college football teams around the country this fall, and aims to go after major basketball team members later this year.
Working with a staff of two people, the group is backed by the United Steelworkers union rather than any of the major sports unions. But its demands, unlike those of baseball players, may get many average fans on the side of the athletes rather than the owners, or in this case, the colleges and universities.
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| The University of California football team is one of several major teams to have a majority of players join the Collegiate Athletes Coalition, which aims to be a union for college players. |
The coalition wants health insurance coverage for athletes outside the academic year, when many of them are required to attend practices; protection of scholarships in case of injuries, so that a school can't discard a hurt player; and a modest $2,000-a-year stipend to cover incidentals from laundry to transportation that aren't covered by scholarships.
"You wouldn't believe half the stuff out there players have to worry about," said CAC co-founder Ramogi Huma. "When you're in high school and coaches are recruiting you, you wouldn't know in a million years that these pitfalls are there, but they are there."
Huma started the coalition while he was a football player at the University of California-Los Angeles. He is targeting big-money sports now, but eventually would like the coalition to act as a voice for all college athletes. He doesn't expect the group to become a formal union, because he doesn't expect athletes to become true employees of their universities.
Huma has his work cut out for him. Many of the things that CAC wants aren't only a matter of getting schools to come up with money; the NCAA would have to change its rules.
"Even if UCLA wanted to pay for medical coverage during the summer, the NCAA wouldn't allow it," Huma said.
NCAA spokesman Wally Renfro said the group is studying what can be done on the issue of insurance, but that it is a multi-million dollar issue that can not be addressed overnight. He says the group has some problems with the arguments made by the CAC, but sees value in hearing from student athletes.
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The cost of giving $2,000 cash to every major college football and basketball player would be about $27.6 million a year, or about 10 percent more than Texas Rangers shortstop Alex Rodriguez makes. But despite the fact that major college football and basketball teams take in a total of about $3.5 billion, or about the same as Major League Baseball, it's not going to be easy to win even that modest stipend from schools and universities.
The fact is that the majority of major college football and basketball programs lose money when the cost of scholarships is factored in. So poorer schools might balk even if the CAC convinced the NCAA to allow stipends or health insurance.
"I've yet to find a college president who believes there should be a stipend or a salary to pay athletes to participate in sports," said the NCAA's Renfro. "Some would like to enhance current scholarship to cover full cost of attendance. But most schools are losing money on these sports. In order for 300 schools in Division 1 to all be able to compete, you don't get to accomplish what the richest programs can afford to do."
And even Huma said he can't picture a day when he could convince his membership to strike.
"If you had asked me that (the chance of a strike) three years ago, I might have said yes. But after two years of doing organizing I've learned they don't want to strike," he said. "They have very short careers, they're looking to the pro leagues, and they don't have time to go out there and strike over $200 a month."
Still Huma said that so far his group has about 1,000 members among football and basketball players. Several schools have a majority of their returning players on the coalition.
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"We have other ways to influence the NCAA than a strike," Huma said. "When you look down our list of goals, they're moving the way we want them to." He cites new proposals on safety guidelines for workouts, which the association has opposed in the past, and the recent easing of rules to allow an athlete to earn money from tutoring others, such as kids, in his or her sport.
College presidents and the NCAA would be making a mistake if they ignore the potential of such a group to change the sport, even if its backing comes from the Steelworkers union. The Major League Baseball Players Association started out working on modest issues such as improved pension and health benefits before moving onto free agency and salary arbitration.
And Marvin Miller, the pioneering leader of the baseball players union, came out of the Steelworkers.
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