There is no U in team. Unions are bad for student athletes

Former sports anchor Sage Steele joins ‘One Nation’ to discuss the ‘name, image and likeness’ for student athletes.

The Dartmouth College basketball team has made history. It didn't qualify for March Madness, but after a March 5 vote, the players are set to form the first union in college sports. While some people are heralding a new era for student athletes, my own experience in collegiate track and field leads me to believe that unionization will create far more losers than winners. 

On the surface, I was the ideal athlete for unionization. I walked on to the Boston College cross-country/track and field team in 2008, competing in the 5000-meter and 10,000-meter runs for the next four years. I didn’t have a scholarship; Boston College was the only school in the Atlantic Coast Conference that fielded a fully non-scholarship men’s track and field program.  

Unionization, as the argument goes, would have created a more professional environment, protecting athletes like me from exploitation. Even if I had received a scholarship, unions would have argued that I needed a defense from coaches and administrators who wanted to profit from my hard work. 

DARTMOUTH PLAYERS UNIONIZING COULD RESULT IN 'DOMINO EFFECT' FOR COLLEGE SPORTS, EXPERT SAYS

But unions ignore the intangibles of being a student athlete. The best teams at the best schools — think the University of Alabama football team — operate similarly to professionals in many ways. But most college teams don’t, even if the athletes take their sport seriously, like I did.  

Most colleges aren't as reliably competitive as the University of Alabama, so unions might mean certain sports get shut down entirely. FILE: Alabama wide receiver Kendrick Law (19) signals a first down