Football <\/p>\n
Luke Kalarickal will never run again.<\/p>\n
Well, at least not competitively for a college cross country program like he did as a freshman at Georgia last season.<\/p>\n
Last August, just before the semester of his sophomore year began, the team cut him and five other runners as the university began the process of reducing its rosters to adhere to new limits related to the landmark settlement of the House antitrust case<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cCoach said we will all have a special waiver to get into the transfer portal,\u201d Kalarickal told Yahoo Sports. \u201cHe cut us two weeks before school started. How are we supposed to transfer?\u201d<\/p>\n Jack Tan, a North Carolina high school pole vaulter, saw his recruiting last fall suddenly slow to a crawl as schools began pulling scholarship offers to prepare for the new roster structure, with coaches flatly telling him, \u201cWe just don\u2019t have room for a male pole vaulter.\u201d<\/p>\n At Liberty, an assistant track coach, Mark Fairley, sat around a campfire with his women distance runners earlier this January to deliver the news that 16 of them would be cut by the end of the spring. \u201cAll of us were crying,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n And at Auburn, Heather Rice fears that her son, Keaton, will see his five-year SEC grant-in-aid agreement \u2014 which she thought was guaranteed \u2014 evaporate if he doesn\u2019t make the cut from the current 42-man swimming roster to the new SEC roster limit of 22, something that could cost the family an unexpected $45,000 annually in out-of-state tuition, board and meals.<\/p>\n \u201cFor my son, this was a lock deal,\u201d she said, \u201cand now they are saying because they want to pay a bunch of football and basketball players, we are the ones screwed.\u201d<\/p>\n The new roster limits, imposed on schools that opt into the House settlement\u2019s revenue-sharing concept, are expected to lead to the elimination of thousands of Division I roster spots, most notably impacting walk-ons and partial scholarship earners in swimming, football, track and cross country, as detailed in this October story at Yahoo Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n The roster limits make up most of the formal objections that athletes are filing with the court as part of the settlement\u2019s objection process. The deadline for objections is Friday. Already, dozens have been filed and several more dozens \u2014 perhaps more than 100 \u2014 are expected to drop on Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a very robust objection,\u201d said Steve Molo, an attorney with MoloLamken, a national litigation boutique firm. \u201cThe standard of a settlement is that it needs to be fair, adequate and reasonable. This is not.\u201d<\/p>\n The firm is working with more than 100 current college athletes and plans to file with the court Friday perhaps the biggest bulk of affidavits from players who oppose the settlement.<\/p>\n But the question looms: Will the objections matter?<\/p>\n Jeffrey Kessler, one of the lead plaintiff attorneys in the House case who struck the settlement deal with the NCAA and power conferences, does not believe so. California Judge Claudia Wilken, presiding over the case, preliminary approved the settlement in October. A final approval hearing is scheduled for April 7.<\/p>\n \u201cNone of these objections change the fact that this settlement is overwhelmingly in the best interest of the class,\u201d he told Yahoo Sports this week. \u201cThat\u2019s the only question for the judge.\u201d<\/p>\n The House settlement features two primary parts: (1) the $2.77 billion in back-damage pay that will be distributed over the next decade to athletes in the \u201cdamage class\u201d who played from 2016-2024; and (2) the revenue-sharing concept going forward that permits schools to spend, to start, about $20.5 million on their athletes annually under an escalating capped system<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kessler says more than 40,000 damage class athletes have submitted claims for the backpay. As of a few days ago, fewer than 100 athletes have opted out of the settlement.<\/p>\n \u201cThe vast majority of class members support the settlement and want to get paid,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will have, at best, objections from a tiny percentage.\u201d<\/p>\n The formula used to distribute the backpay \u2014 determined by an athlete\u2019s media value, school, conference \u2014 will send as much as 85% to football and men\u2019s basketball players.<\/p>\n Even at the highest level \u2014 major college football players \u2014 the amounts of backpay are not as significant as some football players currently earn. Many former power conference football players are receiving $50,000 to $150,000 in backpay over 10 years, according to estimates they\u2019ve shown Yahoo Sports. Some of those participating in Olympic sports are receiving backpay in the three and four figures.<\/p>\n The objection Molo\u2019s firm plans to file centers on four key points, he says: (1) the settlement is unfair to women athletes as it distributes to them as little as 5% of backpay; (2) the cap on the future revenue-share is anticompetitive; (3) the $2.77 billion is not enough; and (4) the new roster limits create unfairness.<\/p>\n \u201cThe roster limits are creating havoc everywhere,\u201d Molo said.<\/p>\n While the NCAA and power conferences agreed to expand upon scholarships as part of the settlement \u2014 schools are now permitted, not required, to scholarship every player on a roster \u2014 they also imposed roster limits for sports<\/a>. Many of those did not previously exist.<\/p>\n Such a change will result in at least 4,000 roster cuts at the power conference level and, perhaps, more than 15,000 in all of Division I, a number dependent on the amount of schools that opt into the settlement.<\/p>\n At Texas, coach Bob Bowman says he\u2019ll need to cut about 19 swimmers and divers to reach the SEC\u2019s conference-wide limit of 22. Gone are the days of having a developmental or practice squad. \u201cThat\u2019s going to be an agonizing process,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to eliminate what I love most about coaching \u2014 developing a diamond in the rough.\u201d<\/p>\n At Georgia Mason, Jay Hosack, the men\u2019s volleyball coach, needs to cut about seven players to adhere to the new roster limit of 18. \u201cWhy can\u2019t we figure out a way to let these kids on rosters be able to go to complete their collegiate career and graduate in the normal timeframe,\u201d he said. \u201cGive us some time to manage that instead of cutting us off at the knees.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of the objections over roster limits request that leaders phase in the new rules and\/or grandfather those players currently on a roster. But Kessler argues that the roster limits are not actually part of the settlement. Instead, they are being imposed by the NCAA and power leagues as an addendum to the agreement, he suggests.<\/p>\nThe money<\/strong><\/h2>\n