But Ramogi Huma, president of
the National College Players Association, a group of 14,000 current and former Division I athletes
that advocates for many of the
same issues as Mr. Vaccaro, says
the aggressive rhetoric strikes exactly the right tone. The NCAA
“doesn’t respond to people asking nicely,” he says. “It responds
to force: lawsuits, new laws, public criticism through the media. I
think he’s doing exactly what he
needs to do if he’s going to inspire
change.
“Look who he’s talking to. He’s
talking to the future lawyers. He
knows where the power lies.”
es on sports law and has written
about the O’Bannon case, says Mr.
Vaccaro’s willingness to push the
issue of whether athletes should
receive compensation, even retro-
actively, forces people inside and
outside intercollegiate athletics to
confront a concept many feel is
threatening.
To Mr. Vaccaro, however, the
quandary is almost purely one of
labor and compensation—with the
wrong people bene;ting from a distorted market.
“He really is trying to get at the
questions of what’s the appropriate
interaction of education, athletic
competition, and kids—particu-
larly kids who come from fairly
tough backgrounds,” says Mr. Haa-
gen, the law professor at Duke. “I
think Sonny had this kind of intui-
tive sense that a lot of the amateur-
ism talk was not correct. … What
he really understands is the begin-
nings of an effort to try to get dol-
lars to people who are producing
value.”
Mr. Vaccaro is more blunt: “I
think we’ll have a revolution in four
or ;ve years. And if O’Bannon wins,
it’ll come a lot quicker.”
It’s not clear exactly what Mr.
Vaccaro’s new world would look
like if he were to win this battle. He
does know that, for now, he’s on his
own.
Even the college coaches—the
people he once spoke with on
a daily basis, the men who sent
handwritten letters thanking him
for the free gear—keep their dis-
tance. These days, on the rare oc-
casions that Mr. Vaccaro talks
with a coach, he often hears this:
‘What are you doing now, Son-
ny?’
“‘What am I doing now?’” he
repeats. “I laugh. I say, ‘I can’t
even tell you. I’m still causing
chaos.’”
A; ;;;;;; ;;; ‘R;;;;;;;;;’
If Sonny Vaccaro’s basketball ventures have met with criticism or outright resentment from
some, one thing they’ve never been
called is unsuccessful. The man
who keeps ;les on opponents and
friends alike has not thrown his
weight behind doomed causes. He
sees this as his moment, and he’s
in it to win.
The O’Bannon case has already
proceeded further in court than
most federal claims against the
NCAA typically do. In March the
judge denied the NCAA’s motion
to dismiss the lawsuit, and both
sides are now preparing for the discovery process. Mr. Vaccaro, who
served as a matchmaker between
Mr. O’Bannon and the high-powered law ;rm of Hausfeld LLP, is
involved in most of the meetings of
the legal team and attends all of the
court proceedings.
He believes that the case will
show a sports-loving public how the
proverbial sausage is made in col-
lege athletics. “If the public is ex-
plained the gross injustices,” he says,
“they’ll be on your side.”
The case, which seeks class-ac-
tion status, now has a dozen or so
named plaintiffs. All were star ath-
letes in their day, and many won
national championships on their
respective basketball and football
teams. Among them are four play-
ers from the NCAA’s 1966 national
basketball title game, in which an
all-black team from Texas West-
ern College (now the University of
Texas at El Paso) upset an all-white
team from the University of Ken-
tucky.
The debate over whether col-
lege athletes should pro;t from
their playing time has dogged col-
lege sports for years. The question
has grown particularly charged
as football and basketball gener-
ate ever more revenue for colleges,
and as technology has opened up
an array of commercial opportuni-
ties using athletes’ likenesses. Mr.
O’Bannon’s case in particular has
brought more attention to a waiver
that athletes sign when accepting
a scholarship, which authorizes
the NCAA to use their names and
pictures to promote NCAA events,
giving up all future rights in the
association’s licensing of those
“images and likenesses.”
Michael McCann, a professor at
Vermont Law School who focus-
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