FOR decades high schools and colleges in the United States have restricted compensation for students generating billions of dollars in revenue by imposing an amateurism clause. Could this amateurism be a charade for unfair practice especially for those students recruited from outside the USA?

There are about four or five ways that the national agency in charge of college sports (NCCA) and the varsity leagues of high school in the USA can restrict students in state schools from benefiting from endorsements. Students cannot accept the promise of pay in athletic contests; they cannot use their athletic skills in a commercial on television; a student’s name cannot be on a draft except for basketball; student-athletes also cannot play on professional teams. If the student athlete’s team member breaks any of these rules and the athlete appears on a team with the ineligible member, the athlete may become ineligible for funding from high school and college. Many argue that the opportunity to get an education and exposure to people who might give a student athlete a major contract after being groomed in college or university should be paramount. Looking at the statistics, however, the road to professionalism from high school through college is not very smooth. In the USA, only about 15 per cent of athletes who competed in high school go on to compete at college and less than one tenth of those becomes professional. A similar picture is seen for Jamaican students who compete at Champs yearly. Data from ISSA and the Sports Medicine Associations in Jamaica including data from physical therapists in direct contact with these students indicate that many of the students are lost to injuries and a good many do not transcend into the professional league.

The reality in Jamaica and the USA is that many of the revenue-generating athletes do not graduate college or university and those who graduate tend sometimes to be not as good as those who spend more than 40 hours per week in training. The NCAA is facing pressure from anti-trust lawsuits from former students who are claiming some of the money from the use of their names and images on merchandise. Many of these student-athletes, although extraordinary in school and college, are now almost destitute and are living from hand to mouth. The NCAA is arguing that they use the money from merchandise and commercials to run the schools and do administrative functions but parents are arguing that they often have to supplement scholarships when the money made by these students provides most of the revenue for the schools.

The NCAA takes in excess of $1 billion

in advertising revenues yearly and have multi-billion-dollar broadcasting contracts with CBS and Time Warner. The parents/students argue that if the student gets injured and cannot perform he/she loses the scholarship. The NCAA has gone ahead and instituted The Catastrophic Insurance Programme for a student-athlete, the student coaches, managers and trainers who become injured during a “covered event.” Definition of “covered event” is: (i) a Qualifying Intercollegiate Sport competition; (ii) official team activities; (iii) gym practices and (iv) training sessions.

They have also instituted the Exceptional Student-Athlete Disability Insurance Programme. This programme keeps the student-athletes away from agents that promise insurance for the student-athlete to sign a contract by providing insurance for students who are exceptionally talented.

Because of clamouring from advocates and the O’Bannon ruling passed in August, 2014, the NCAA is currently appealing this ruling, however, in the verdict which is currently held, a California judge ruled schools would be allowed to set aside a trust for student athletes to be accessed after their graduation. There was also a stipulation that the NCAA cannot cap the fund under $5,000. It means that even if injuries derail a student athlete’s career, he/she will still be entitled to some funds because he/she had participated at some time.

The big question is what is in place to benefit Jamaican athletes who are contributing to revenues generated for the United States of America? Each year more than 40,000 Jamaicans from the Diaspora travel to the Penn Relays mainly to watch the student athletes from Jamaica who starred at Champs and usually go on to perform outstandingly at the relays. It is at the Penn Relays that I met Christianna Williams, who ran a brilliant leg for Edwin Allen High School in one of the relays. She now trains with Stephen Francis of MVP and should be one of our new representatives at the 2015 World Championships and 2016 Olympics. I also met the outstanding hurdler Megan Simmonds at the Penn Relays. They and other student-athletes from Jamaica have contributed to the reported $US2.7 million generated yearly by the Penn Relays. If the USA is to institute a trust fund for student-athletes who contribute to revenue for schools and cities, then Jamaica should explore the O’Bannon ruling to ensure Jamaican students benefit from the largesse that these students generate for Penn Relays yearly. Ambassador Stephen Vascianne and Bancroft Gordon, vice-president and senior counsel at Marriott who understand the running of these relays by being present there yearly, must be advocates.

They are knowledgeable and can connect to the ‘Penns’ network and must lead the charge of advocacy to ensure that some of the money generated by Jamaican student-athletes at Penn Relays be put in a trust fund for the students.

Our Minister of Sports and ISSA should probably relook at the Sport Policy document to ensure that a trust fund in Jamaica, much akin to O’Bannon’s, be set up for outstanding school athletes who may have fallen from glory along the way to becoming a professional. The sporting industry in this era, whether school-based or professional, is a multimillion-dollar industry and must guarantee equitable returns for sporting contribution for all groups.

Editor’s Note: Dr Rachel Irving is the Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of the West Indies, Mona.