College Sports

Baumgartner aims to transform college sports with bill that would dissolve NCAA

WASHINGTON – The morning after the Florida Gators took down the University of Houston to claim the men’s college basketball championship, Rep. Michael Baumgartner on Tuesday introduced a bill that would replace the National Collegiate Athletic Association and dramatically reshape the nation’s college sports landscape. Speaking on the House floor on Monday, the Spokane Republican […]

Published

3 months ago

April 9, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Baumgartner aims to transform college sports with bill that would dissolve NCAA

Speaking on the House floor on Monday, the Spokane Republican lamented that every No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament made the Final Four in this year’s tournament – a reflection, he suggested, of recent changes that have made inspiring upstarts like the Gonzaga team of 1999 increasingly rare.

“Tonight is the NCAA championship, but the magic of March Madness is gone,” Baumgartner said. “There’s no upsets, no Cinderellas. Just bigger brands with bigger budgets. Why? Because college sports is on a downward trajectory, and the magic of what used to make it special is gone.”

The Restore College Sports Act would wrest power from the NCAA – a powerful nonprofit led by a board drawn mainly from universities – in favor of a new commission whose leader would be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. It would also require that conferences include only schools located in a single time zone, a clear rebuke of the realignment that saw nearly all of the Pac-12’s dozen members flee the conference in 2024, leaving behind Oregon State University and Baumgartner’s alma mater, WSU.

The bill would limit coaches’ salaries and require all money earned by athletes through so-called “name, image and likeness” or “NIL” deals to be evenly distributed among all collegiate athletes. That would represent a dramatic reversal after a Supreme Court decision in 2021 opened the floodgates for star athletes to earn millions in NIL deals, a move that advocates celebrated as an overdue recognition of how lucrative college athletics have become.

In an interview on Tuesday, Baumgartner said his bill reflected not only good policy, but good politics. He attributed his focus on reforming college sports during the 2024 campaign to winning the votes of independents and even some Democrats in his Eastern Washington district.

“The NCAA is a defunct and broken institution that nobody likes,” he said. “You need to make elected officials accountable for these things, because it is in the public interest.”

Sam Ehrlich, an assistant professor of legal studies at Boise State University who focuses on the sports industry, said Baumgartner’s legislation stands out from the numerous other NIL-related bills introduced in Congress in recent years because it envisions a wholesale remaking of the college sports landscape, rather than simply putting guardrails on the existing system.

“The NCAA will be furious about it, and I think a lot of the schools would be furious about it, too, just because it really does take a lot of power out of their hands,” Ehrlich said. “It would essentially tear down the system and start from the beginning.”

Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate have held numerous hearings and introduced several bills to address the NIL issue and changes in college sports since 2021, but so far Congress hasn’t come close to enacting nationwide regulations. Invoking the 18th-century poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Baumgartner summed up the situation by saying, “Hearings, hearings everywhere, but where’s the legislation?”

Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat whose alma mater’s Connecticut Huskies won the NCAA women’s tournament on Sunday, has introduced his own legislation to codify NIL rights in federal law. In a brief interview at the Capitol on Tuesday, he estimated the chances of Congress passing NIL-related legislation before the end of 2026 are “close to zero.”

Baumgartner said he thinks the lack of progress on legislation is partly because although plenty of lawmakers are interested in college athletics, few have made it a top priority, as he intends to do. Despite his lack of seniority, the freshman lawmaker has secured positions on two of the three House panels with jurisdiction over college athletics: the Judiciary Committee and the Committee on Education and the Workforce, where he serves as vice chair of the Higher Education Subcommittee.

Ehrlich said the various bills proposed in Congress represent a sort of public negotiation. In that context, he said, Baumgartner’s legislation can be understood as an expression of frustration and an effort to shake up the seemingly stagnant talks.

“This is kind of saying, ‘Hey, let’s just federalize the whole thing,” he said. “It is really strange to see a Republican propose a bill like this.”

In the interview, Baumgartner rejected the idea that government shouldn’t have a role in regulating college sports, pointing out that universities receive huge sums of federal funding. The congressman said that while he hasn’t spoken directly with President Donald Trump about his bill, he has been encouraging White House officials to back it, pitching the legislation as an opportunity akin to former President Theodore Roosevelt’s role in saving college football and creating the NCAA more than a century ago.

In addition to the NCAA, Baumgartner’s legislation is likely to meet resistance from athletes who have found success in NIL deals and the nascent NIL industry. Darren Heitner, an attorney who represents student athletes, wrote in an email that forcing all NIL revenue to be divided equally isn’t fair and “undermines the very concept of name, image and likeness rights.”

“Should a star quarterback who generates millions in jersey sales now subsidize every athlete at every institution? That’s not equity,” said Heitner, founder of Heitner Legal and an adjunct professor of law at the University of Florida and the University of Miami. He also objected to the creation of a federally appointed commissioner with sweeping authority over college athletics.

“We’re moving from NCAA overreach to federal government overreach,” Heitner wrote. “The equal revenue sharing across all institutions and coaching salary caps aren’t just impractical – they fundamentally misunderstand the market forces that drive college athletics. This reads like it was written by someone who wants to return to an imagined golden era of college sports that never actually existed.”

Brennan Berg, director of the sport and recreation administration program at the University of Mississippi, said Baumgartner is right to highlight the skyrocketing salaries of college football and basketball coaches. The recent chaos in collegiate athletics is often attributed narrowly to the explosion of NIL spending, he said, when in reality it is the result of several factors.

“Even before NIL was implemented in 2021, college athletics was already on an unsustainable path,” Berg said, pointing out that some schools have long had far more money than others. “There’s definitely been a facade that it’s always been an even playing field.”

While Berg credited Baumgartner for taking a wider view of the challenges facing college sports, he said the idea of requiring conferences to have only schools from a single time zone is unrealistic. The Southeastern Conference, for instance, has long included schools in both the central and eastern time zones.

“The premise of what Congressman Baumgartner is using, that college athletics is quite a mess right now, that’s correct,” Berg said.

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College Sports

Head Athletic Trainer in Milwaukee, WI for Alverno College

Details Posted: 07-Jul-25 Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin Type: Full-time Categories: Sports Medicine Sports Medicine – Athletic Training Sector: Collegiate Sports Alverno College is seeking dynamic leader to serve as the head athletic trainer. The head athletic trainer is a full-time position responsible for overseeing the prevention, evaluation, treatment, and rehabilitation of injuries and related illnesses for […]

Published

2 hours ago

July 8, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Details

Posted: 07-Jul-25

Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Type: Full-time

Categories:

Sports Medicine

Sports Medicine – Athletic Training

Sector:

Collegiate Sports

Alverno College is seeking dynamic leader to serve as the head athletic trainer. The head athletic trainer is a full-time position responsible for overseeing the prevention, evaluation, treatment, and rehabilitation of injuries and related illnesses for all student-athletes on 7 intercollegiate athletic teams. AC is a growing, competitive athletic program and is a member of NCAA DIII, the NACC.

Principal Responsibilities include but not limited to

Provide and manage athletic training services for the Alverno College Department of Athletics, including scheduling and coordinating sports medicine staff coverage for all team-related events, sports medicine budget oversight, emergency care, patient education, and all administrative duties as Head Athletic Trainer.
Schedule coverage for practices, home contests, and selected away contests, ensuring adequate medical support for student-athletes at all times.
Supervise and manage all athletic training staff, including any contracted or outside athletic training personnel.
Approve the strength and conditioning plan for intercollegiate athletics in collaboration with the strength and conditioning department, focusing on the development and implementation of flexibility, strength, and conditioning programs, and proper exercise techniques.
Educate coaches and student-athletes on student-athlete health and well-being, including injury prevention, concussion protocols, nutrition, hydration, and the philosophy of athletic training services.
Oversee the compilation, organization, input, and maintenance of all medical records for College student-athletes, and ensure the security of student-athlete insurance policies and medical records in adherence to College, HIPAA, and FERPA guidelines.
Arrange and maintain working relationships with appropriate medical personnel, including local physicians, specialists, and team medical consultants, for the evaluation, treatment, and care of injured student-athletes.
Serve as the primary liaison to all medical consultants, specialists, medical service providers, and the Alverno College Wellness Center.
Coordinate and schedule medical referrals and mental health evaluations for student-athletes, determining return-to-play status in collaboration with medical professionals.
Coordinate and facilitate any Department of Athletics drug testing programs in accordance with College, conference, and NCAA policies.
Serve as the designated NCAA Health Care Administrator for the College.
Oversee the organization and administration of the College’s Exposure Control Plan for Bloodborne Pathogens in compliance with OSHA medical safeguard regulations.
Update and maintain the Emergency Action Plan for the Department of Athletics on an annual basis.
Ensure full compliance with NCAA, conference, Title IX, Department of Athletics, and Alverno College rules and regulations related to athletic training, student-athlete health care, and sports medicine services.
Oversee inventory management and tracking of all sports medicine equipment and supplies.
Develop plans for program enhancement and professional development for the sports medicine team.
Maintain the athletic trainer’s yearly calendar of coverage and ensure appropriate staffing levels.
Participate in department meetings, committees, and official College functions, as appropriate.
Support and model Alverno College’s commitment to a balanced and healthy lifestyle, including the Seven Dimensions of Wellness: Career, Emotional, Environmental, Intellectual, Physical, Social, and Spiritual.
Perform other tasks as necessary to support the mission of the College.

Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree with significant experience organizing and supervising an Athletic Training program
Preferred Master’s
National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) certification
Licensed and/or eligible for licensure in the state of Wisconsin
Requires current certification in CPR / First Aid or the willingness and ability to become certified
Knowledge of NCAA and NACC regulations
Knowledge of the skills, techniques, and rules of athletic training
Ability to work in a team setting and work effectively with a variety of audiences and departments.
Ability to balance student needs and take on an institutional perspective
Requires the ability to work with and maintain confidential information
Requires strong communication skills including the ability to communicate and respond to both internal and external customers professionally and in a timely manner. Must have the ability to read, interpret, write and complete documents.
Requires strong problem-solving skills including the ability to calmly respond to emergency situations
Requires the ability to work in a variety of weather conditions for extended period of times.
Must be flexible with scheduling and be willing and able to work evenings and weekends
Requires current Wisconsin driver’s license, meeting the requirements of Alverno for driving an Alverno vehicle.
Must be able to freely move throughout the facility. Requires the ability to frequently stoop, bend, sit and stand. Must have the ability to occasionally lift and/or move up to 50 pounds. Requires good manual dexterity.

Working Conditions

General office environment
Athletic Training Room Facility
Courtside during indoor events
Sidelines during outdoor events

In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Alverno College will provide reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities. If you require accommodations during the application or interview process, please contact HR@alverno.edu.

Alverno College is an Equal Opportunity Employer and committed to workplace diversity

About Alverno College

Based in Milwaukee, Wis., Alverno College is a four-year independent, Catholic, liberal arts college for women. Founded in 1887 by the School Sisters of St. Francis, Alverno promotes the academic, personal, and professional development of its students in a collaborative and inclusive environment. Certificate programs, digital badges, degree completion programs and graduate programs are open to all genders. A leader in higher education innovation, Alverno has earned international accolades for its highly effective ability-based, assessment-as-learning approach to education, which emphasizes hands-on experience and develops in-demand skills. The College is a Minority-Serving Institution and is Wisconsin’s first designated Hispanic-Serving Institution. The College ranks among the top schools in the Midwest for its commitment to undergraduate teaching and innovation by U.S. News & World Report.