Buddy Carter Asks College Athletes How NIL Money Has Changed The ‘Chemistry Between Teammates’

2 days ago

During a House Commerce Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) questioned college athletes, Emily Cole and Anthony Egbo Jr., about changes in athlete dynamics with money being in the mix.

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Transcript

00:00Representative Carter for his five minutes of questioning. Welcome, sir.

00:05Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate all you being here. I know you're tired and you're

00:09ready to go, so we'll try to be succinct and get to the point. Thank you, Mr. Chairman,

00:15for allowing me to wave on as well. You know, NIL, as we all know, has certainly changed sports,

00:23but it's really a great opportunity, and I hope we'll recognize the opportunity that it

00:30brings for student athletes as well as for fans like myself. I'm a graduate of the University

00:36of Georgia Go Dawgs, so just want to get that out there real quick, but nevertheless,

00:43it is something that we in the state of Georgia have tried to address, and the state has actually

00:51has actually come up with some state laws. The governor and the state legislature have already

00:55passed executive orders and bills to make the state of Georgia one of the country's most

01:01competitive NIL participating states, and that's one thing that concerns me, and I suspect it

01:08concerns all of y'all, is that consistency throughout the country, because that is very

01:13important, and I think that's the role, I hope that's the role anyway, that the federal government

01:18can play is making sure we're consistent. Another thing that I'm concerned about, and I would

01:23suspect that Ms. Cole, you're concerned about this too, and you've mentioned it, is how the

01:30proceeds are distributed throughout the sports. As a student at the University of Georgia,

01:36I will tell you that, you know, I thoroughly enjoyed all the sports that were offered.

01:44Obviously, I'm a big football fan, but I'll never forget, I got to see John McEnroe play tennis at

01:50the University of Georgia when he went one year at Stanford, and what a great

01:55experience that was, but even the gymnastics, all the other sports are so very important.

02:01Coach, would you agree with that? Would you elaborate just a little bit on how important

02:05it is for us to make sure we keep those, I'm not going to refer to them as minority sports, but

02:12those less popular sports, if you will. Yes, sir, and your Georgia Bulldogs come to Columbia tonight

02:19for basketball, so go Gamecocks. They do that. In Columbia as well. No, to me it's, and I tell people this

02:25all the time, Mr. Carter, it's what I love about my job is being in the middle of a college campus where

02:31I'm able to be a part of the entire athletic fabric and support all sports and go and watch

02:39our men and women compete. My wife is here with me today, and our three children, they love being in a

02:45part of a college campus where we're able to go see the different sporting events, and I have two

02:49young daughters that are teenagers that certainly enjoy going to watch sports and being able to

02:54take them and support all of our student athletes, not just a football program. It's something that's

02:58very special and important to me. What about South Carolina? Do they have a plan on the sharing

03:03among the sports, on the different sports? How's that handled? Yeah, I believe it's obviously in

03:09the works, and our athletic director, Jeremiah Donati, has done a great job of spearheading that

03:15and communicating to all of us coaches at the University of South Carolina

03:20some of his initial plans as we get ready to finalize it. Mr. Whitman, what about at Illinois?

03:25How do y'all handle that? As at South Carolina, across the country, all of our schools are

03:32working to identify what those plans will be, how we'll handle the new opportunities that are

03:37made available to us through the house settlement, but I just reiterate a point Coach Beamer made,

03:42which is it's become very popular in today's world to take shots at college athletics. There's

03:49been a lot of cynics who have developed around the industry of the college athletics ecosystem,

03:54and we just encourage people to spend a day on our campus to really interact with our student

04:01athletes. We have great representatives here on the panel today, but to understand that the core

04:05of college athletics remains as true as it has ever been. It's about education. It's about personal

04:10growth and development. It's about how a program like ours at Illinois can bring people together

04:15from all walks of life. It's just an incredibly important part of the American tradition, and

04:22there's nothing that has changed from that as college athletics has continued to evolve over

04:27time. Ms. Cole, let me ask you again. Has NIL changed the environment of the team sports and

04:34the chemistry between teammates, and now that money's a factor there?

04:40It's a great question. I think we all know that the majority of that change is not happening in

04:47cross country and track, the sports that I did participate in, so I didn't witness those types

04:52of changes yet, but I can see how it would be a factor in other sports. Mr. Egba? I mean, yeah, I mean, I

04:58think it's different for every team, you know, different cultures and different teams, but I think

05:02at the end of the day, I said earlier, no student athlete's anti-getting paid, so it's a matter of,

05:07you know, just another factor of team culture and chemistry, but it's not a negative factor.

05:13Great. I'm glad to hear that. I hope that remains the same as well. Again, I want to thank all of you

05:18for being here. Look, you know, we're all big sports fans, especially college football. I mean,

05:23if you live in the South, you're a big college football fan, and we want to see this.

05:29We want to get this right. We want to help you. We don't want to hurt you, but we do want

05:34to help you, so please know that we're on your side, and we really appreciate you coming

05:39today and really appreciate your participation in this. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Never thought I'd

05:44get...

Buddy Carter Asks College Athletes How NIL Money Has Changed The ‘Chemistry Between Teammates’

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