Receiving recruit Deion Colzie signed with Notre Dame on Dec. 16. Now, Colzie, an Athens, Georgia, native who was recruited by Tommy Rees and DelVaughn Alexander, is taking a step towards what could be the future of NCAA student-athletes. Taking a cue from the possible new rule that student-athletes can get paid for their likeness and image, Colzie’s family has announced the launch of a website dedicated to him. The rule could be made official soon.
Yolanda Jackson, Colzie’s mother, explained the reasoning behind the website:
“There are so many people out there that like to take advantage of kids by using their names and their likeness, and the kids aren’t aware of it. We thought that we should do what we needed to do to protect his name and his brand. Even if it were possible to be able to profit for their name and likeness, we have always thought about making sure that his name and brand were protected.”
It’s a fair point by Jackson. Others profiting off young athletes when those athletes can’t even see a dime of that money at the risk of losing their eligibility is despicable. Heck, when his parents began this process, not only was Colzie’s domain name already purchased, but so were those of other young athletes. Jackson sees this as a cautionary tale more than anything else:
“If you don’t do your due diligence and find out things, just think about if we didn’t know that up front and we would have tried to figure out how to get the domain name from there. Who knows what would have happened? You could end up being out of thousands of dollars just because you don’t know. Fortunately, for us, we found out that the dot-com was gone, but there are others we can use.”
Even if this tweak to the NCAA rules ends up passing, others always will find ways to profit off these kids. What Colzie’s family has done may not prevent it completely, but it would take a big piece of that pie that complete strangers shouldn’t be eating in the first place. It’s a scary world for athletes trying to make the big time. They need more and more protection as amateur athletics continue to evolve.