Former Seminoles Players Seek $1.5 million
Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton is being sued by six former players. The suit alleges he owes the players significant money that he guaranteed to them but never paid. Darin Green Jr., De’Ante Green, Cam’Ron Fletcher, Josh Nickelberry, Primo Spears, and Jalen Warley were each promised $250,000 in name, image and likeness compensation by Coach Hamilton personally. That promise was again made before a game last year against Duke on February 17th, when the players threatened to boycott the game after leaving practice.
The total amount the plaintiffs are seeking is $1.5 million, equaling a quarter of a million to each player. While the details of the case are still developing, an interesting thing to note is that Hamilton said that the funds were coming from his “business partners.” Those partners do not include the school or the NCAA, so those unnamed partners remain a mystery. That explains also why the suit is again Hamilton specifically and does not list Florida State as complicit.
While it is still unclear what Hamilton means, it could explain why the former players are suing Hamilton himself, and not the university directly. It also explains why the university remains adamant about not knowing what took place last season between the players and coach, because to them they were following all the set rules and regulations. The question of where that money was supposedly going to come from in the coming weeks as the story continues to unfold.
Florida State Players Highlight Growing Problem
Despite what some feel about how the NIL deals have swept through the NCAA and have changed the landscape of college sports, they’re here to stay. While the addition of contracts and money have created a different environment in the world of college sports, the issues of this new system are highlighted by the ever-present constant denominator: the NCAA itself. The players from Florida State, while suing their head coach personally, are yet another case of funds being promised to athletes and then withheld.
Earlier this season, 16 former players have also sued the NCAA as well as multiple conferences for name, image, and likeness usage. Players such as former Kansas star Mario Chalmers, Arizona guard Jason Terry accused the NCAA of benefitting off of their unauthorized continuous use of name, image, and likeness for years, especially when promoting NCAA March Madness. The suit says that the NCAA has monopolized the way in which is promotes and benefits off of thousands of players and has paid nothing in return which violates the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Chalmers and Terry are joined by many other players, including more members of the 2008 National Champion Kansas squad as well as players from over 40 years ago. Earlier in the summer, 10 players from the 1983 men’s basketball squad filed a suit against the NCAA citing similar issues, further showing the grip the NCAA has, and has had on its athletes and the revenue they generate. The suites specifically site the “systematic and intentional misappropriation,” issues that will hopefully be resolved in the coming years through the terms laid out in the House vs. NCAA antitrust cases.
Living in a world where college athletes are millionaires before getting professional contracts and sue coaches and schools for millions is certainly interesting. While it is true that some cases do not cast some college athletes in a positive light, they do however illuminate the continuous issues that players face, which is being fairly compensated by an organization that promised to do so.
Numerous attempts have been made throughout the years to loosen the grip the NCAA has on the benefits it receives from promoting young athletes and their accomplishments. Whether or not the lawsuits and complaints will ever amount to real change remains to be seen. What can be certain is that efforts to improve on the monopolized system are being made by not just current athletes, but also from those who have seen their likeness used on commercials and promotion campaigns for decades.
