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MORGANTOWN -- For just a moment on Wednesday afternoon, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin's mind seemed to wander in the midst of a press conference, drifting out of his Washington, D.C., window and into the oppressive heat of the afternoon.
He was a kid again, it looked like, 17, maybe 18 years old, an innocent high school football prospect with his heart set on attending West Virginia University to play the game he loved. The trance grew out of the subject matter of the press conference, a piece of legislation being proposed by Sen. Manchin and his across-the-aisle partner, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, entitled the PASS ACT, an attempt to bring sanity back within NIL and the transfer portal in the college game that America loves.
Now one might expect that in a world so embroiled in turmoil as is today's, a pair of U.S. senators might have other more pressing legislation to address, but that ignores the love affair their constituents in West Virginia and Alabama have with sports and the peril they perceive the recent changes have put the game in.
They saw this as a threat to the moral fiber of the country and to the kids who are dreaming the same dreams Sen. Manchin dreamed and how they are being warped by the introduction of professionalism and free agency to the game, a seismic change in the power structure of college athletics from the schools and the coaches to the players and their agents, to wealthy, powerful boosters willing to pay whatever it takes to win.
Wasn't always that way, Sen. Manchin knew.
"I can tell you this and remember it so vividly," he said. "In 1965 you got a full scholarship at WVU and I got 30 dollars a month and they called that 'laundry money.' That was great. It paid for a lot of things in 1965.'
True, a dollar was worth a dollar then, but now there are almost insane deals going on behind closed doors of collectives where it's not unheard of for a high school kid to get a million dollars to play football or basketball at this college or that, without much thought of his growth or her education, whatever the case may be.
It is a system with no guidelines and, knowing the frailties of the human being, with no morality, either.
He remembered his recruitment, which was really an open-and-shut case in his mind.
"I got a scholarship many, many years ago and it's a much different game today than it was then," he began. "The bottom line is that the opportunities I received by getting a Division 1 scholarship and the people I met gave me a special edge that other people don't always have. The value in that is something I have always cherished.
"Now, it's just basically 'How much will you pay me?'"
Sen. Manchin was a good prospect, at the time the best athlete to come out of Farmington High since Sam Huff.
"I remember one time I had an offer from another school and I was so naive about it that I didn't want to mislead anybody," he said. "I always wanted to go to WVU and when I got a scholarship offer from WVU I told the other schools I really appreciate it but I don't want to mislead and have you waste your time. I thought it was so insincere to take advantage and have them pay for me to come check this out or that out when I knew where I was going. "
He wasn't going to play one against another then, even though it was an era where a handshake with a booster around the country often would end with the player finding a $100 bill in his hands.
Now, it's different and the money has surpassed all else in most recruitments.
"This is a completely different profession now. They make a profession out of it, start with these kids in junior high, deciding how they are going to get them marketed in a certain area," Sen. Manchin said. "Now, with the money involved, with the schools, with the collectives and with some very, very wealthy donors and alumni of the school, they jump in there and make the difference in when they are going to get something and who they were going to get."
It's become, in many ways, a football or basketball, trade school, on-the-job training for pay.
"There weren't going to be amateurs anymore. When you are being paid for services and selling your service to the highest bidder, that puts you into the professional ranks very quickly," Sen. Manchin said.
He and Tuberville, the former Auburn coach, are pushing to get federal government control over the process with enforcement in the hands of the Federal Trade Commission to:
≤ Maintain a competitive balance between schools and states
≤ Bring total transparency on who is doing what, when, and where
≤ Protect players' health and safety
≤ Maintain equality so that all student-athletes in all sports benefit from these activities
There are those who will argue the federal government's right to step in here, but that is to be argued on the op-ed pages, not here.
Here we speak to the fact that something needs to be done as there are currently no rules or guidelines of NIL at all and the transfer rules are completely out of whack.
Don't believe that, ask WVU basketball player Jose Perez, who missed last season on a technicality.
This bill attempts to put in place a rule that when a student-athlete accepts a four-year scholarship to a school one commits to staying three years before transferring, with certain waivers such as a coaching change, a death in the family, a move closer to home.
"We're not preventing a kid [from earning money], if he's that good and has those types of talents he can go right into professional ball; go right for the dollar from the get-go. This doesn't prevent that from happening," Sen. Manchin stressed.
"But you are bringing in a scholar-athlete for four years, there has to be a commitment back. You have to have a chance to develop that player into all the potential they possibly have."
The bill also would take the collectives, who collect and pay out the money with a quid pro quo attached to it, to no longer be separate entities protected from public scrutiny to being part of the school and athletic department so that the books are open and deals laid out publicly.
"We have the collectives that have jumped up and they're out there trying to attract athletes to the school even if the coach or athletic department wasn't after him …. or vice-versa," Sen. Manchin said.
Part of the premise behind the PASS Act is that student-athletes are not yet ready to make many of these decisions and are easily swayed by recruiters and agents.
"First of all, student-athletes are that, student-athletes. These are young, young men and women coming into collegiate sports. There has to be nurturing and building of their talents and you can't do that by tail-wagging the dog from the first day they come on campus," Sen. Manchin said.
"They are recruited for a certain position, but if they don't like that the coach thinks they can be a better player or play more by going to this position or that position, they might say the heck with you, I'm leaving. That means the coach has no chance to develop these kids.
"Also, we know transfers have very low graduation rates. If you transferring out willy-nilly here and there, that was a great concern many of us had that we weren't seeing any educational attainment and that's what this whole experience is about."
The bill also aims at protecting the student-athletes' health and safety, again something out of Sen. Manchin's own experience as his college athletic career ended before it began with a knee injury in practice.
The bill guarantees health insurance for the uninsured student-athlete for sports-related accidents for eight years, the four years in school and four years after graduation should be complications.
As noted, the goals are to improve matters for the school, the athlete and the sport, protecting the moral values that are being eroded away by professionalism.
"As a former student-athlete, I was recruited to WVU, I know how important sports are to gaining the valuable life skills you gain through these opportunities. It opens doors that you don't see when you are 17, 18 or 19 years of age but that you come to see in your 30s and 40s," Sen. Manchin said.
"We face the rapidly evolving landscape of NIL without the guidelines. We never anticipated this to happen, but it did, and it jeopardizes the health of the players and the mission of the colleges and universities so they can fulfill their responsibilities.
"I believe this [bill] balances the rights of the student-athletes while maintaining the integrity of college sports."