COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State football was the last unifying force in this state, and Name, Image and Likeness reform for college athletes was the last bipartisan issue in American politics.
Yet the Ohio House of Representatives still managed on Thursday to muck this up.
Craven, divisive, last-minute political maneuvering may be typical, but messing with the Ohio State Buckeyes is not.
So when state Rep. Jena Powell, a Republican from Darke County, attached an amendment that would ban transgender athletes from competing in high school sports to a hugely popular NIL bill, which would allow college athletes to make money from endorsements, maybe that was normal for politics.
But for those of us who don’t follow the ins-and-outs of Ohio politics, because we’d rather bang our heads against walls, this looked like political freeloading on the backs of college athletes.
Have a cause? Take a ride on everyone’s favorite team. It’s not that Ohio State football is more important than other issues. It’s that Ohio State football is something almost everyone loves. And if legislators can’t cooperatively pass a bill that agrees on that, nothing is left that can’t be sacrificed in the attempt to win a political point.
This was dragging down the Buckeyes. This was placing one controversial issue ahead of something on which everyone can agree. This was either grandstanding, or admitting you can’t pass your bill on its own — either way, it was using college athletes. And they’ve already been used for too long.
The issue doesn’t matter. It could be about climate change or guns or taxes. The issue isn’t the point. It’s the idea that an issue that divides people — like most things in Ohio politics — was strapped to something Ohio college athletes have been waiting on for years. They want the right to make some money from endorsements, not just male football players and basketball players, but female basketball players and swimmers and track athletes. Powell called her amendment the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” but she stepped on female college athletes across the state to do it.
The Ohio NIL bill breezed through the Ohio Senate 33-0 last week. It passed out of its House committee 13-1 on Wednesday. I had wondered what Ohio politician might actually vote against it — who would say no to the Buckeyes, with football coach Ryan Day, athletic director Gene Smith and former quarterback Cardale Jones among those speaking to legislators about the need for the bill.
Powell and those who supported her amendment didn’t vote against it — they did something worse: They attached an amendment to make others vote against the bill and then look like they were voting against Ohio State football.
I don’t know anything about any legislators involved here, and I’d call out this kind of self-serving last-minute move no matter who proposed it. Amendments like these are sometimes attached to popular bills. But this is football, and here, Powell messed with the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Why? Is it because she’s so passionate about keeping transgender athletes out of high school sports? Then propose that separate bill, which she has tried before. Similar bills have passed in other states. But that hasn’t worked in Ohio so far. So the solution was to use college athletes. It’s an especially cynical move in an increasingly cynical political world.
I wonder how messing with the Buckeyes will be received by her constituents.
Because the end game could mess with the Buckeyes. The House bill still did pass, but 57-36 instead of nearly unanimously. As a result of the amendment, the bill lost its chance to take effect by July 1, which is happening in a lot of other states. The Ohio Senate attached the NIL bill to a different bill about military IDs on Thursday night, in an attempt to work around what the House messed up … and if the Ohio State football team operated like Ohio politicians, the Buckeyes would go 2-10 every season.
This could have been easy, and now it’s nonsensical. I don’t know who the offensive and defensive coordinators are in the Ohio General Assembly, but when I find out, I’m going to suggest they be fired. What people won’t stand for in their favorite coaches or players, they’ll apparently accept from their politicians. The standard for Ohio State football is high. If you can’t do the job, then you shouldn’t be associated with the program.
Don’t excuse it by saying this is what we should expect from politics. The NCAA should have handled this with its own national legislation, but the NCAA is like politics for people who failed at politics. The NCAA over the years had trouble policing the amount of cream cheese recruits can put on bagels, so of course they have screwed this up.
Actually governing bodies should aspire to do better. And many have. The federal government is working on something, but actual debate about the bill itself means that probably won’t pass for another few months at least. The state acts are patches until that happens.
According to the Business of College Sports website, which is tracking NIL legislation across the country, 19 states have signed NIL bills into law, and another four have passed them and are only awaiting governor signatures.
Ohio right now should be one of those states. It is not. This is not typically incompetent politics. This is exceptionally incompetent politics.
Eventually this will get sorted out. But a delay could be used against Ohio State in recruiting — schools in states with NIL taking effect on July 1 will tell recruits, “Look, players make money with us now, and players can’t yet do that in Ohio.” Will it have a devastating effect on the OSU football program? Doubtful. But football coaches prefer to leave nothing to chance.
Ohio State on Thursday was making the point that it supports the original NIL bill, not the one with the amendment. That should be obvious, because the original bill is the one that makes sense.
Ohio State football binds this state together. Ideally, sports at all levels should do that. I know someone is reading this eager to make a point about the politicization of sports and about Colin Kaepernick and other athletes kneeling for the National Anthem. That was an individual choice by a non-politician that didn’t directly affect others in the same way. When the Big Ten restarted its football season last fall, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden tried to take credit for it. Again, that was just posturing. Political mumbo jumbo. Perception.
This was governing. This was taking a good, easy, needed, agreed-upon bill and complicating it. There’s always time to fight about another issue in politics. This was a rare time to agree. Partisan politics could have taken a breather to let football have its day.
The Ohio State Buckeyes and Ohio deserve better. I don’t know if there will be any political fallout from messing with the Buckeyes. But in sports, this isn’t the kind of thing we stand for.
Because sports as usual is more reasonable than politics as usual.
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