Rules Trip Up An Augsburg College Runner’s Tuition Efforts

Can we all admit that college athletes already have a full-time job?

It’s foolish to think that on top of the academic schedule, athletes should be able to balance a training schedule with a part-time job. To be honest, do college students ONLY work part-time anymore? If a college athlete is good at what they do, they should be able to use any lever available to them to capitalize on that ability and make the money necessary to cover tuition without taking time and energy away from their schoolwork and training regimen.

Enter Mohammed Bati, current Augsburg College student and four-time MIAC cross-country running champion.

Published reports indicate a GoFundMe page raised about $9,000 toward Bati’s tuition. As a result, he’s been ruled ineligible for this year’s indoor and outdoor running season. Using that money to pay tuition violates D-III scholarship rules.

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The rules behind what college athletes can and cannot accept have gotten ridiculous. For example, if Bati had generated $9,000 in a name-image-likeness agreement, he could have pocketed the money, and the NCAA would have been fine with it. Bati only found trouble when he paid HIS TUITION with the money. That’s a violation.

The NCAA claims it has dealt with over 100 instances of athletes using crowdfunding. Locally, $54,000 was raised recently for Carleton College football quarterback Jack Curtis. The money was spent on fighting a cancer diagnosis. There was no problem in that case – it wasn’t spent on tuition.

Is there ANY money in a name-image-likeness contract for a college cross-country runner? Do they train any less, or are they any less talented than a college athlete in hockey or football?

College athletics make incalculable money for their university. I know several friends who made the decision to attend college based on their football or hockey team, not the quality of the program they were interested in attending. Student recruiting is made easier, not to mention the actual cash generated on game days and in merchandise touting the school’s mascot and logo.

Every school, regardless of its size and division, works to put a quality product on the field for its fans, students, and alumni. I think it’s time those same fans and alumni start to stress ways to help the students who create that product pay their bills as they work towards graduation.