NFL Hall of Famer Jim Brown reportedly called the NCAA “probably the most reprehensible organization God ever created” during a roundtable discussion with Barry Sanders and Harry Carson on Saturday at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
According to an ESPN.com report, the Manhasset native was asked why a college player who suffers a career-ending injury could not receive compensation for income he would have made playing in the National Football League.
“The NCAA is probably the most reprehensible organization God ever created,” Brown reportedly said. “Total exploitation. The kind of money they make, the kind of life they live, it’s embarrassing.”
Brown, 78, is widely regarded as one of the best athletes in Long Island history for his time at Manhasset High School, in which he won the 1952 Thorpe Award as the best football player in Nassau County. That winter, he averaged 39.6 points per game on the Indians basketball team and starred as a baseball and lacrosse player in the spring of 1953.
Though Brown was offered a contract with the New York Yankees, he went on to a multi-sport career while a student at Syracuse University, excelling in basketball, track and field and lacrosse in addition to football.
He is a member of the Pigskin Club of Washington, D.C.’s National Intercollegiate All-American Pro Football Players Honor Roll, the College Football Hall of Fame and the Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
But Brown said on Saturday that it is time to revamp the governing body behind college athletics, calling the NCAA pretentious for its officials saying they are “doing things for the young people.”
“I’m totally for change and total change,” he reportedly said. “And I think that body needs to be torn apart and put back together with everybody’s best interests in mind.”
Brown is one of several sports figures who have recently challenged the way the NCAA treats its athletes.
In late March, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Northwestern University football players had a right to unionize, sparking a national conversation about whether NCAA athletes should be paid. A House committee will reportedly hold a hearing on May 8 about the decision.
In late April, Connecticut basketball player Shabazz Napier told reporters that “Sometimes there’s hungry nights where I’m not able to eat, but I still got to play up to my capabilities.”
In response to Napier, who won the 2014 NCAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player award for a Huskies team that won the national championship, the NCAA approved unlimited meals for Division 1 athletes.
According to the ESPN.com report, Brown said he made his comments with definite purpose.
“I wanted to say it as harsh as I could, because I want them to come at me in any way they want to,” he said. “Because it’s a shame the way that it happens.”
Brown in April 2013 was honored at the Manhasset Secondary School as part of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s “Hometown Hall of Famers” program in conjunction with Allstate Insurance.
At the event, the school was presented with a plaque similar to the one that bears his name and likeness at the Hall of Fame museum in Canton, Ohio.
