Sunday, February 16, 2020 || By Shannon Brown and Sterling Brown || OPINION || @maywoodnews 

For the first time in over 30 years, our hometown of Chicago is hosting the NBA All-Star Game. As basketball players and Illinois natives, we are honored to be a part of this historic moment in our state.

But All-Star Weekend isn’t the most exciting development for basketball fans and players in the state.

While the city has been consumed by the festivities celebrating the sport and athletic excellence, the Illinois legislature debates the Student Athlete Endorsement Act — a landmark bill that would reduce the exploitation of college athletes and create more equity and opportunity in the sport for up-and-coming players.

The bill would allow college athletes to make money from the use of their own name, likeness, and image. This is currently forbidden by NCAA bylaws, and students who break these rules by reaching endorsement deals risk being stripped of scholarships or their eligibility to play.

This would completely change the game for student athletes. We should know, because we lived it.

In a meeting the man who introduced the bill, State Representative Emanuel “Chris” Welch, we shared our own experiences as lifelong athletes– from our days as Pirates at Proviso East High School in Maywood, to playing college ball at Michigan State University and Southern Methodist University, through finally going pro with teams including the Los Angeles Lakers and Milwaukee Bucks.

While we have both been incredibly lucky enough to launch successful careers as professional basketball players, not one day has gone by that we didn’t experience fear and anxiety about the very real possibility of losing everything in the bat of an eye due to a devastating injury. That distress meant that one of us never finished college, deciding instead to go pro earlier so as to provide for our family while still healthy and able.

And while we were putting our bodies and minds through hell as young student athletes, our universities were making millions by selling jerseys with our names on them, putting our faces on their advertisements, and mobilizing our fan bases. We never saw a penny of that money.

College athletics is a $14 billion a year business that the players have no share in. If we had been able to earn money from our own identities, it would have relieved the fear of losing everything from one injury. It would have allowed both of us to complete our degrees. It would have helped us take care of our families. It would have given us some peace of mind that we deserved.

This isn’t just about the money.

This is about allowing individuals to make decisions for themselves based on what is best for them, not on the greed of others who have no real stake in their well-being.

And this is about equity and justice– specifically for young Black men.

Football and basketball generate some of the largest streams of revenue for universities, and also have the highest risks of injury to players. These are also the two sports with the largest concentrations of Black male athletes.

While Black athletes are pushing their bodies to the limit, frequently with catastrophic outcomes to our health, the NCAA, universities, and others are making millions.

California has already passed legislation that will go into effect in 2023. Florida is also hearing a similar bill that would make the changes effective as soon as this summer. The issue has even reached Congress this week and both Republican and Democrats in the Senate have urged the NCAA to do away with these antiquated rules quickly.

Under this mounting pressure, the NCAA is asking us to wait and trust them to modernize their rules through working groups and committees.

How can we trust the NCAA to do right by student athletes when it is the group that implemented, upheld, and fought for this unjust policy in the first place?

Thanks to the unwavering commitment of Representative Welch, Illinois is not waiting. The bill has already passed through the state’s House of Representatives with support from both parties. It now needs to pass through the Senate to get to the desk of the Governor, who has already expressed support for the legislation.

This All-Star Weekend, we remind the Illinois Senate that there is no value in celebrating basketball if we are not investing in the young players who are the future of the sport. We ask them to stand with us in saying that student athletes are not just a paycheck for the rich and powerful.

Illinois has the opportunity to make history and be a national leader in the fight for equity and justice. Don’t waste it.