"How can the NCAA blithely wreck careers without regard to due process
or common fairness? How can it act so ruthlessly to enforce rules that
are so petty? Why won't anybody stand up to these outrageous violations
of American values and American justice?"
In the four years since Joe Nocera asked those questions in a
controversial New York Times column, the National Collegiate Athletic
Association has come under fire. Fans have begun to realize that the
athletes involved in the two biggest college sports, men's basketball
and football, are little more than indentured servants. Millions of
teenagers accept scholarships to chase their dreams of fame and
fortune--at the price of absolute submission to the whims of an
organization that puts their interests dead last.
For about 5 percent of top-division players, college ends with a golden
ticket to the NFL or the NBA. But what about the overwhelming majority
who never turn pro? They don't earn a dime from the estimated $13
billion generated annually by college sports--an ocean of cash that
enriches schools, conferences, coaches, TV networks, and apparel
companies . . . everyone except those who give their blood and sweat to
entertain the fans.
Indentured tells the dramatic story of a loose-knit group of rebels
who decided to fight the hypocrisy of the NCAA, which blathers endlessly
about the purity of its "student-athletes" while exploiting many of
them: The ones who get injured and drop out because their scholarships
have been revoked. The ones who will neither graduate nor go pro. The
ones who live in terror of accidentally violating some obscure rule in
the four-hundred-page NCAA rulebook.
Joe Nocera and Ben Strauss take us into the inner circle of the NCAA's
fiercest enemies. You'll meet, among others . . .
-Sonny Vaccaro, the charismatic sports marketer who convinced Nike to
sign Michael Jordan. Disgusted by how the NCAA treated athletes, Vaccaro
used his intimate knowledge of its secrets to blow the whistle in a
major legal case.
-Ed O'Bannon, the former UCLA basketball star who realized, years after
leaving college, that the NCAA was profiting from a video game using his
image. His lawsuit led to an unprecedented antitrust ruling.
-Ramogi Huma, the founder of the National College Players Association,
who dared to think that college players should have the same collective
bargaining rights as other Americans.
-Andy Schwarz, the controversial economist who looked behind the façade
of the NCAA and saw it for what it is: a cartel that violates our core
values of free enterprise.
Indentured reveals how these and other renegades, working sometimes in
concert and sometimes alone, are fighting for justice in the
bare-knuckles world of college sports.
