(ThyBlackMan.com) I read an article recently regarding Ben Simmon’s comments about The NCAA’s “one and done” rule. Here’s what he had to say about The NCAA:
“The NCAA is really f—ed up,” Simmons said on “One and Done,” a documentary that aired on Showtime on November 4th. “Everybody’s making money except the players. We’re the ones waking up early as hell to be the best teams and do everything they want us to do and then the players get nothing. They say education, but if I’m there for a year, I can’t get much education”
Here’s my thoughts about Ben’s statement: The NCAA operates in a cartel like manner and there are egregious human and labor rights violations that are happening to the athletes, 
particularly the black ones. The practices that The NCAA operates under would be declared illegal in any other industry in America.
Example: If JCPenny and Macy’s got together and said that we’ll pay our employees only $10 an hour, The Department Of Justice would shut it down.
But when you have these big universities like Louisiana State University, University Of Arkansas, and these other universities agreeing to only pay their athletes a certain wage via athletic scholarship, that would be declared illegal in any other industry in America.
Athletes and their families deserve to have labor rights. That basically means that they deserve the right to negociate their own salary.
Example: If an athlete is worth $5 million dollars to the university, then he has the right to negociate and be given at least $500,000 for his labor. It’s a win-win situation for both parties.
Here is the racial undertone to this exploitation of college athletes: Most of the guys that are contributing on the football field and on the basketball court are young black men and the guys who profit from all this unpaid athletic labor are mostly the administrators, athletic directors, coaches, and commentators from the suburbs and this is an huge example of The NCAA’s extraction of a billion dollars in wealth from our community that happens each year from our superior athletic ability.
And there is also no such thing as “free education” because athletes are often pulled out of class to practice from 6am-6pm as well as being forced to play in football and basketball games on days where they should be studying and getting prepared for exams, finals, and tests. And by systemic design, any athlete who uses academics as their top priority will be severely punished via loss of athletic scholarship.
And then on top of that, there are egregious violations that are currently happening on the academic front towards college athletes, particularly the black ones, due to these big universities toxic obsession for financial greed through their athletic departments.
Example: About 10 years ago at Auburn University, there were many black athletes that couldn’t read, write, nor do math that were put in these shadow classes so that they wouldn’t have to learn anything and they were doing this to not only keep the athletes eligible to play on the football field and basketball court, but also to ensure that they would remain uneducated.
The Conclusion – The “One and Done” Rule needs to be abolished because it’s not about developing players for a year to go pro, it’s mainly about exploiting them so they can make as much money as they can in one year off them.
Staff Writer; Joe Davis
FB Page; http://www.facebook.com/joe.davis.165470