As Congress debates college sports, athletes-turned-senators have a seat at the table

Tommy Tuberville led Auburn to an undefeated season in 2004, and now the Alabama Republican senator is championing the Protect College Sports Act in Congress. He's one of a number of former collegiate athletes who are now Senators helping to shape the legislation. Doug Benc/Getty Images hide caption

WASHINGTON — With a major college sports reform bill on the brink of a milestone in Congress, some former athletes have a special place in the debate: the handful of U.S. Senators who played college sports themselves.

Supporters of the Protect College Sports Act , which is poised to pass the Senate on Monday, say the bill is needed to fix what they call an era of chaos in Division I athletics, characterized by ballooning pay for athletes, unlimited transfers between schools, constant lawsuits over eligibility rules and runaway athletic department budgets.

At least half a dozen sitting senators were NCAA Division I athletes, and a handful of others played in Division II or in sports governed by other organizations. As the debate over the bill has unfolded over the past year, their experiences have informed their approach to the legislation.

No one in the Senate spent as many years in college sports as Tommy Tuberville, the football coach turned Alabama senator (who is stepping down after this term as he runs for governor in this fall's election in the state).

Tuberville played football at the Division II school Southern State, then went on to be a head coach at Ole Miss, Auburn, Texas Tech and Cincinnati. Tuberville retired in 2016, soon after a federal lawsuit filed by former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon over the use of his name and likeness in a video game began to chip away at the NCAA's longstanding tradition of amateurism.

A decade later, name-image-likeness payments, known as NIL, have transformed college sports, as high-level athletes — especially in the revenue-generating sports of football and basketball — now regularly sign deals worth thousands, or even millions, of dollars per season.

Pay for athletes is here to stay, Tuberville, a conservative Republican, said during a speech on the Senate floor in June.