ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Across the country, hundreds, if not thousands, of college athletes are in limbo. For months, coaches have been telling players that they'll no longer have a spot on their teams because a major legal settlement involving the NCAA would place new limits on the size of college sports teams. That settlement is in jeopardy after a federal judge pressed pause over the issue, and now these athletes are hoping to get their spots back before it's too late. NPR's Becky Sullivan has their story.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Last fall, the Liberty University women's cross country team met at a coach's house for a bonfire night. It should have been a celebration of a great season. Instead, the coaches had bad news to share. About half the runners on the team were going to lose their roster spots.
SOPHIA PARK: It was just, like, very much an emotional night, and, like, I was crying. A lot of people were crying.
SULLIVAN: Sophia Park is a sophomore at Liberty and one of more than 30 runners on the cross country team. This proposed legal settlement would limit the size of teams in every sport, her coach explained. For cross country, the limit would be just 17 runners.
PARK: And I was, like, doing the math in my head, and I just, like - my heart dropped, and I was just, like, oh, like, this is me, too, and, like, this could be the end of my time on the team, too.
SULLIVAN: Traditionally, the NCAA never limited how big teams could be. Instead, the only limit was on how many athletic scholarships a school could allot to each squad. But the goal of this huge class-action settlement is to remove traditional limits on how schools can compensate athletes. If it's approved by a federal judge, then schools would be allowed to give out as many scholarships as they want. But lawyers negotiating the settlement have argued that to maintain competitive balance, roster limits are needed instead. If they go into effect, thousands of current athletes would have to be cut.
TATE CUTLER: The lawyers are making the case of, we are representing the NCAA athletes. And the fact that I'm represented in this case, I'm a plaintiff in this case, and I'm getting cut, like, how is that benefiting me?
SULLIVAN: This is Tate Cutler. He's a swimmer at Auburn. No sport is immune from the roster limit issue, but men's swimming and diving is one of the big ones. There were reports that the Southeastern Conference, which includes Auburn, was considering a roster limit of just 22. In March, his coaches called Cutler and all his teammates in for meetings one by one. Around 20 swimmers and divers were kicked off the team, including him.
CUTLER: It was heartbreaking. I had given my heart and soul to this program, and I love it so much here. And it's just to have, like, your dream crushed, like, it's brutal.
SULLIVAN: All of these cuts were premature, federal judge Claudia Wilken has said, because the settlement hadn't been approved, and the judge has taken issue with the roster limits. She says they would harm some college athletes when the settlement is supposed to help them. So last month, Wilken sent the lawyers back to the negotiating table. But for some athletes, it's too late. They already transferred to new schools or stopped training altogether. Cutler, who's a junior, is stuck at Auburn if he wants to graduate on time, he told me. And he couldn't bring himself to jump back into the pool for weeks.
CUTLER: It made me, like, hate the sport that I loved. Swimming's been something I've done since I was 5 years old, and it's really weird not doing it.
SULLIVAN: The NCAA says schools can't revoke the athletic scholarships of players who are cut as a result of the settlement, but that's not the only way athletes get help paying for college, said Alec Miller, a sophomore track athlete at the University of Florida.
ALEC MILLER: Things like our dining hall, which technically isn't scholarship, so they don't have to provide that to us anymore. But that would also be, like, thousands of dollars a year extra that I would now be having to spend.
SULLIVAN: Miller was dropped from the team in March. He could lose his access to physical trainers and medical care and thousands of dollars worth of equipment, clothes and shoes, he said. That, plus other financial aid going away, could up the cost of college by $10,000 or more each year for athletes like Miller, and you can't put a dollar amount on giving up a lifelong pursuit.
MILLER: There's a part of me that's, like, I know I have so much more to give in the sport. But the other part of me is, like, you know, is this my sign to maybe try other things?
SULLIVAN: It's still unclear how all this will resolve. This week, lawyers negotiating the settlement are supposed to bring a new solution to Judge Wilken, like a grandfather clause or some other way to ease in the roster limits, but it's no guarantee their solution will earn her approval.
Becky Sullivan, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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