On the surface, things have worked out for Marcus Lattimore.
Hailing from Duncan, South Carolina, where the median household income is below $30,000, the running back received a $1.7 million insurance payout after the second of two devastating knee injuries he suffered playing at the University of South Carolina ended his NFL hopes.
The second was so catastrophic that Lattimore — a guaranteed first rounder — slipped to the fourth round in the 2012 draft. After trying to rehab the knee for over two years, Lattimore called it quits without seeing a single snap. Due to his injury status, he didn’t collect his salary from the 49ers, but was awarded a $300,000 signing bonus. A cool two million for five years of work; not too bad for a kid now returning to college to finish his degree.
You could fill a book nobody would ever read with manipulative, draconian NCAA tactics and its practice of modern indentured servitude. The biggest problem with the organization and its supporters is that they have embraced the ultimate capitalist impulse — the commodification of its workforce.
When Lattimore retired on November 5, the university and his former head coach Steve Spurrier were lauded in the press for offering him a job with the program if he so chooses, citing the cherished memory of Lattimore’s bruising running style that made him so popular on campus. But how noble is a program that drives its athletes to their collapse while hiding behind the nebulous curtain of amateurism?
Supporters of the NCAA have a rote response to charges of exploitation: a) nobody told these kids to play football and b) they get a free education out of the experience. But these arguments simply deflects from the severe inequalities innate to the system.
Consider the University of South Carolina before Lattimore’s arrival. In the five years that Spurrier was head coach before Lattimore, the program never won more than eight games. USC was considered a fallback option by college recruits who failed to make it into the bigger programs and divisional powerhouses — Alabama, Georgia, Florida.
After Lattimore, the team immediately vaulted into National Championship consideration. Quality recruits rolled in, sales of Lattimore’s jersey (with his number but no name) at $60-a-pop skyrocketed.
Williams-Brice Stadium was renovated and Spurrier’s income jumped from $1.75 million to $4 million annually in a five year time span (2009-2014). All this occurred while Lattimore was the team’s thoroughbred, carrying the ball up to 40 times a game. Everybody involved makes money except those creating the product.
Athletics have never been about the individual players — they’re eminently replaceable cogs in a machine. As fans, we’ve become conditioned to ignore the very real human costs of gladiatorial sports. We are far too desensitized to catastrophic injuries that bring games to screeching halts before the player is removed from the field and the important stuff continues. We don’t see the hours, weeks, and months of rehab, or the persistent pain that shadows athletes throughout the rest of their lives.
So why do we adamantly substantiate the NCAA’s absurd claim to amateurism, reverting to talking about tuition and living costs? Consider that in many sports leagues, there is a union mandated minimum salary — $420,000 per year for a rookie in the NFL, a compensation that reflects the dangers of the sport and the limited lifetime earning potential of athletes.
For a college system that is every bit as profitable, is a $40,000 annual ‘salary’ (in terms of cost covering) a sufficient repayment for the sweat, equity, and hazards these athletes invest and experience? Not in the least.
