NEWS: Senator Blunt Rochester Discusses the Future of College Sports

"As the daughter of a former student athlete, as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, the former CEO of the Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League, and a lifelong member of the NAACP, I'm taking all of these concerns very seriously."

Click here to watch Senator Blunt Rochester's Remarks

Washington, DC - U.S. Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, today participated in a hearing entitled, "Protecting College Sports: Supporting Student Athletes, Restoring Fair Competition, And Saving the Games Fans Love." The hearing included discussions on the recently introduced Protect College Sports Act. Senator Blunt Rochester addressed the urgency of congressional engagement on the issue. Her questions focused on the resources available to student athletes and the impact of antitrust exemptions.

Witnesses included:

• Nick Saban, former head football coach at the University of Alabama
• Pete Bevacque, Director of Athletics at the University of Notre Dame
• Gordon Gee, President Emeritus of West Virginia University
• Teresa Gould, Commissioner of the Pac-12
• Lance Holtzclaw, a student athlete at the University of Utah

Senator Blunt Rochester's full remarks and exchange can be found here. A key excerpt is below:

Senator Blunt Rochester: "I think as a student athlete, there are already responsibilities like classes, as well as other obligations, and that takes up time and attention, and you know, one of the questions really is, Do you feel confident that most student athletes, like yourself or your teammates, have the experience or time or resources to protect themselves from these violations? You mentioned that it's necessary to have that education, and I know even speaking to some of the parents who reached out to me, one parent shared that they were able to take their child to different schools, but they had to do it on their own dime, and a lot of folks don't have that kind of support. Do you think the majority of student athletes that you talk to have the expertise or the time to protect themselves?"

Mr. Holtzclaw: "The expertise part definitely not, and that's what I speak into a lot when I say we need to educate our student athletes on again their rights and their resources that they have. Again, when you talk about families not having the means to be able to travel and get to all these different places on their own, it's definitely a very difficult situation to be into, and I've experienced that on my own. We were limited to only a certain amount of visits that could be paid for by a university, and then any other school that you wanted to see, you had to carry out on your own dime, and in order to do that, your vision on all these different schools and your perspective on these different universities gets limited to a very small window. Again, that's going to be solely on yourself and your team and your family to have to coordinate where you want to go to and what details, and on research, and again, educating yourself on these different universities, so you can work within these limitations. It's hard to have to get there on your own dime, but again, you have to be able to work within the standards and rules and regulations and be able to figure out where you want to go to through your previous and personal research."