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| Steve Bence and Ake Svensson 1974, Vastervicks, Sweden |
"In a summer 1974 race Oregon's Steve Bence beats Ake Svensson, Sweden's 800-meter record-holder, in Vastervicks, Sweden, while competing for money against AAU & NCAA rules. Bence was in Europe in part to show solidarity with Steve Prefontaine, the Oregon runner who rebelled against the Amateur Athletic Union."
Several current stories bothered me about the relationship between today's college football athletes and the NCAA governing body. I suggested to the Oregonian that they could wirte a story to compare football today with Prefontaine and the AAU governing body from the 1970's.
Oregonian sports writer Rachel Bachman contacted to me and by the end of the process I wrote the article with Rachel's expert coaching and guidance.
Below is the article as printed in the Oregonian:
In spring 1974, after Steve Prefontaine graduated from Oregon, he invited many of his teammates on the track team to join him in Europe for the summer. He assured us that we could show up, enter meets just as he had done the year before, and get paid.
After expenses, I made $133. Then I ran for Oregon my senior year.
I broke the rules, both of the NCAA and the Amateur Athletic Union, which I'm acknowledging publicly for the first time. But I had reasons to do it that I think are all the more relevant today.
I've been a Ducks football season-ticket holder for 20 years. Similar tensions that roiled track and field during the 1970s -- sports officials making money on the backs of amateurs, athletes forbidden from capitalizing on their skill -- exist in major-college football, the highest-profit sport in the NCAA. But I don't see anyone leading the way to change.
College football needs an athlete who will speak up and say that helping their team earn ever-increasing millions of dollars deserves more than the same tuition, room and board they've always gotten. It needs someone to insist that they deserve compensation, even if it's held in escrow until graduation.
In short, college football needs its own Prefontaine.
Challenging the system
Pre did OK financially when he was in school. But things got tough after his scholarship ended upon graduation.
In the 1970s, the AAU prohibited track athletes from competing internationally during certain weeks of the summer in an effort to force them to compete in its own meets. It wanted the biggest American stars all to itself.
Not only did Pre plan to skip the 1974 AAU championships, he told the world he was skipping them.
"I'm going to compete all through their moratorium and if they want to take me to court, that's fine with me," Prefontaine said in a 1974 issue of Track and Field News. "I can take them for all they're worth. What does it prove running the AAU meet? The AAU doesn't care about the athletes; why should I care about them?"
Pre was offered $200,000 to turn pro but said no. Had he taken the money, he would have lost his amateur status and his eligibility to compete in the 1976 Olympics. Yet the AAU offered no help with the costs of training, competition and living. He was internationally famous -- a reputation he solidified in college -- but frustrated, all but forced to take race money under the table.
I returned to the U.S. on Aug. 7, exhilarated from my results but also from joining Pre in his fight. Even though it was technically wrong, I felt that I did the right thing.
The price of sacrifice
Some will argue that full-scholarship athletes should be grateful to leave college with a degree and no student debt, which I'm sure they are. Like Pre, however, they have earned more.
Generations ago, the Oregon football team looked like a group of college kids who happened to play football. Today, with the lure of multi-million-dollar NFL contracts, it seems more like a group of football players who happen to go to college.
In 2005 my daughter lived in a dorm at Oregon and got to know a few freshmen football players. They had their sights on making the NFL and several of them did. Those who didn't found themselves less prepared for the transition from college to a work life than non-athlete students.
NCAA and college officials ask big-name football players to make large sacrifices without enough in return. Most athletes have devoted thousands of hours to their sport, exposed themselves to life-altering injuries such as concussions and in some cases given up more challenging or useful majors because intense study could take time away from football.
The effects of those sacrifices can be far-reaching. I know one business recruiter who doesn't look at athletes because, he said, they usually don't know how to turn what they've learned through sports into marketable work skills.
It shouldn't be that way, but today's major football programs require the sport to be a player's top priority. In return those programs should make funds available -- for job training, placement and counseling -- to assist athletes with the stark reality they face when football ends.
Just as track and field went through a transformational change in the 1970s, college football is in the midst of one today. The signs are everywhere: former athletes suing the NCAA for a piece of the revenue from use of their likenesses, a governing body that invokes fear to instill compliance, coaches punished for buying meals for players and a system that diverts millions from universities and into bowl organizers' pockets.
The first step should be to abandon the Bowl Championship Series. A portion of the extra revenue generated by a football playoff should go toward helping the athletes we fans pay to watch. Men's college basketball proved that a playoff is right for that sport. The NCAA next should earmark some of the billions generated from the Tournament with those players, whose low graduation rates suggest that they need support, too, for the transition to life after collegiate basketball.
Pre never saw the results of his rebellion. He died in a car crash in 1975. Three years later Congress passed the Amateur Sports Act, vindicating Pre and those of us who supported him. He'd be happy that professional athletes can now compete in the Olympics.
It's time for the NCAA to change college football. It just might need a push from a courageous athlete.
(Steve Bence was a walk-on turned four-year letterman at Oregon. He works in transition management for Nike, but his viewpoints as expressed here are his own.)
Oregonian sports writer Rachel Bachman contacted to me and by the end of the process I wrote the article with Rachel's expert coaching and guidance.
Below is the article as printed in the Oregonian:
In spring 1974, after Steve Prefontaine graduated from Oregon, he invited many of his teammates on the track team to join him in Europe for the summer. He assured us that we could show up, enter meets just as he had done the year before, and get paid.
Steve Prefontaine and Steve Bence in the 1973 Oregon track team photoI was intrigued by the idea of extending my junior 800-meter season and having a summer adventure. So I, along with seven or eight others, took Pre up on the offer. I spent nearly two months hopping through Finland and Sweden, negotiating payment with meet directors, running 16 races and pocketing the money.
After expenses, I made $133. Then I ran for Oregon my senior year.
I broke the rules, both of the NCAA and the Amateur Athletic Union, which I'm acknowledging publicly for the first time. But I had reasons to do it that I think are all the more relevant today.
I've been a Ducks football season-ticket holder for 20 years. Similar tensions that roiled track and field during the 1970s -- sports officials making money on the backs of amateurs, athletes forbidden from capitalizing on their skill -- exist in major-college football, the highest-profit sport in the NCAA. But I don't see anyone leading the way to change.
College football needs an athlete who will speak up and say that helping their team earn ever-increasing millions of dollars deserves more than the same tuition, room and board they've always gotten. It needs someone to insist that they deserve compensation, even if it's held in escrow until graduation.
In short, college football needs its own Prefontaine.
Challenging the system
Pre did OK financially when he was in school. But things got tough after his scholarship ended upon graduation.
In the 1970s, the AAU prohibited track athletes from competing internationally during certain weeks of the summer in an effort to force them to compete in its own meets. It wanted the biggest American stars all to itself.
Not only did Pre plan to skip the 1974 AAU championships, he told the world he was skipping them.
"I'm going to compete all through their moratorium and if they want to take me to court, that's fine with me," Prefontaine said in a 1974 issue of Track and Field News. "I can take them for all they're worth. What does it prove running the AAU meet? The AAU doesn't care about the athletes; why should I care about them?"
Pre was offered $200,000 to turn pro but said no. Had he taken the money, he would have lost his amateur status and his eligibility to compete in the 1976 Olympics. Yet the AAU offered no help with the costs of training, competition and living. He was internationally famous -- a reputation he solidified in college -- but frustrated, all but forced to take race money under the table.
I returned to the U.S. on Aug. 7, exhilarated from my results but also from joining Pre in his fight. Even though it was technically wrong, I felt that I did the right thing.
The price of sacrifice
Some will argue that full-scholarship athletes should be grateful to leave college with a degree and no student debt, which I'm sure they are. Like Pre, however, they have earned more.
Generations ago, the Oregon football team looked like a group of college kids who happened to play football. Today, with the lure of multi-million-dollar NFL contracts, it seems more like a group of football players who happen to go to college.
In 2005 my daughter lived in a dorm at Oregon and got to know a few freshmen football players. They had their sights on making the NFL and several of them did. Those who didn't found themselves less prepared for the transition from college to a work life than non-athlete students.
NCAA and college officials ask big-name football players to make large sacrifices without enough in return. Most athletes have devoted thousands of hours to their sport, exposed themselves to life-altering injuries such as concussions and in some cases given up more challenging or useful majors because intense study could take time away from football.
The effects of those sacrifices can be far-reaching. I know one business recruiter who doesn't look at athletes because, he said, they usually don't know how to turn what they've learned through sports into marketable work skills.
It shouldn't be that way, but today's major football programs require the sport to be a player's top priority. In return those programs should make funds available -- for job training, placement and counseling -- to assist athletes with the stark reality they face when football ends.
Just as track and field went through a transformational change in the 1970s, college football is in the midst of one today. The signs are everywhere: former athletes suing the NCAA for a piece of the revenue from use of their likenesses, a governing body that invokes fear to instill compliance, coaches punished for buying meals for players and a system that diverts millions from universities and into bowl organizers' pockets.
The first step should be to abandon the Bowl Championship Series. A portion of the extra revenue generated by a football playoff should go toward helping the athletes we fans pay to watch. Men's college basketball proved that a playoff is right for that sport. The NCAA next should earmark some of the billions generated from the Tournament with those players, whose low graduation rates suggest that they need support, too, for the transition to life after collegiate basketball.
Pre never saw the results of his rebellion. He died in a car crash in 1975. Three years later Congress passed the Amateur Sports Act, vindicating Pre and those of us who supported him. He'd be happy that professional athletes can now compete in the Olympics.
It's time for the NCAA to change college football. It just might need a push from a courageous athlete.
(Steve Bence was a walk-on turned four-year letterman at Oregon. He works in transition management for Nike, but his viewpoints as expressed here are his own.)
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