A couple of Vanderbilt soccer players are among the 10 athletes that demand NCAA in an effort to force the association to allow university athletes to compete for five seasons instead of four.
The Langston Patterson supporter and the Issa Ouattara defensive line filed a collective claim in the Federal Court on Tuesday, stating that the NCAA eligibility rules violate the antimonopoly law. The current NCAA rules allow athletes to compete for four seasons for a time of five years that begin when they enroll in the university.
The lawyer Ryan Downton said in a press release that the players were not able to completely eliminate eligibility restrictions, but believe they should be able to compete in the games during the five years that they are allowed to be in the team.
“We are not challenging the five years [limit]”Downton told ESPN on Tuesday night.” The question is why do the players have to spend one of those five years sitting at the bank? How does that objective of the NCAA continue to move players towards graduation? “
Patterson and Ouattara are older people who played in each of their previous three seasons on the campus and will be out of eligibility at the end of 2025 under the current NCAA rules.
“The NCAA defends its eligibility rules, including the five -year rule, which allows students to access the opportunity that changes the life of being an athlete student,” said an NCAA spokesman in a statement provided to ESPN on Tuesday night. “The NCAA is making changes to modernize university sports, but attempts to dismantle the widely supported academic requirements can only be addressed by associating with Congress.”
The association has faced more than two dozen demands that challenge their eligibility rules in the last two years. In their initial decisions in those cases, judges have put themselves on the side of the NCAA, which argues that limited time athletes can play is an important distinction that separates university sports from professional leagues. However, especially in cases involving athletes who previously used part of their eligibility while playing at the Junior university level, some judges have issued mandates that allow the athlete to continue playing.
Vanderbilt's field marshal, Diego Pavia, successfully requested a court order that allows him to start for commoders this season despite having played four seasons combined at the Junior College and Division I. Downton levels also represented Pavia in his case.
The leaders of the NCAA and their lawyers have expressed concern in other cases that any change in the eligibility rules that are forced by the court will establish a legal precedent that would threaten the ability of the association to impose any limit on how long a player can compete in the university, which leads to some athletes who play long careers in the university and remove opportunities for future students.
Pavia's demand, together with the other more than 20 cases previously filed throughout the country, only sought to reverse the restrictions imposed on a specific athlete. When presenting a collective claim, athletes in this case try to force the NCAA to change their rules for all university athletes of division I.
Patterson, a team captain, made two tacle last weekend in the Vanderbilt season opening victory against Charleston Southern. Ouattara did not play due to an injury, but coach Clark Lea told journalists on Tuesday that he was expected to return to the field this Saturday against Virginia Tech.
