Shane Beamer writes letter to Congress: what did he say?
South Carolina head football coach Shane Beamer is scheduled to appear on Capitol Hill on Tuesday as a witness for a NIL-related discussion by the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade.
In advance of that, Beamer’s written testimony was sent to the Subcommittee.
Here’s a copy of his comments, transcribed from the letter by GamecockCentral.com.
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Good morning. My name is Shane Beamer, and I am the Head Football Coach at the University of South Carolina. It is privilege to speak to you today about the future of college sports. I have spent the last twenty-six years coaching college football. Outside of my family, developing college football student-athletes has been my life’s work.
As some of you may know, my father was the head football coach at Virginia Tech. I, myself, played high school football and baseball and went on to play football at the college level, competing for a football national championship alongside my father. The experiences that I’ve had as both a student-athlete and as a coach have fundamentally shaped me into the man I am today.
We are at a critical crossroads in college athletics, and quite simply, we need your help. The system is long overdue change; the current situation is unsustainable. A national, bi-partisan federal law will provide equal opportunity for all student-athletes to benefit from NIL and create a uniform standard to ensure we’re all playing by the same rules.
I believe we can all agree that the college student-athlete experience is worth preserving. A college education is invaluable, especially given the reality that less than 2% percent of college student-athletes advance to professional sports careers. A federal law codifying the settlement will maintain an education-based model for college sports while ensuring the opportunity for student-athletes to earn a degree and the tools necessary to be successful in life after sports.
Action by this Congress wil also provide much needed stability essential to college sports and expand current benefits enjoyed by many student-athletes: free tuition, room & board, educational grants, academic support and tutoring, medical and mental health support, nutrition support, life skills development, superior coaching and training, and extended medical
coverage.
If you do not act, college sports will be destroyed by never-ending litigation and conflicting state laws. And designating student-athletes as employees is not the right path because an employment model will drastically reduce the number of sports a school is able to offer. In contrast, a federal law will guarantee the future of Olympic sports that help develop future Olympians.
In sum, college sport is at an impasse, and we need your help. The stakes are high, and the future of our nation’s student-athletes will be decided in the near future. Thank you for your
time and consideration of a topic that is personally so important to me and hundreds of thousands of student-athletes.
