It hard not to. He a husband and a father. His time spent preparing for football as the starting kicker on the University of Utah football team and working in the classroom as a double major makes it practically impossible to find spare time for a job to help with funds around the house. Megan, his wife, teaches dance but also spends plenty of her time caring for Max, who is nearing his first birthday.
It means Phillips is essentially making ends meet on the $1,100 per month stipend already allotted from his scholarship. The upcoming cost of attendance (COA) stipend will help, but as he calculates his cost of living, he knows it not enough.
lucky because I in the business school and understand finances a little bit better than maybe your average football player, he says, chuckling. and knowing where you are each month has been really important. Cheap Jerseys from china My wife and I are on the same level in knowing where we can spend and where we can spend. But a lot of things come up like car repairs and property taxes. It hard, just really, really hard.
(Las Vegas Bowl) was awesome to us, he adds, referencing the perks players received for reaching a bowl game. received some gifts, and the gift from the school was some cash, so that helped. But $1,100 there no way that can cover the cost of living, especially for someone in my situation.
Phillips said he fortunate to have saved up as much as possible before Max was born, but other unexpected costs can and have popped up along the way. He has a budget specifically set aside for diapers, of course. Then, in true Murphy Law fashion, Megan car was totaled early in the semester. Phillips is thankful Megan and young Max were OK after the crash. As for the cost: drained the savings, he sheepishly laughs.
Given his state, he handled it well.
that just the competitive side of me, but if I can get through this, if I can handle this, then nothing can really phase me out on the football field or in the classroom, he says.
The former walk on attests he grateful for the opportunity he been given as a scholarship athlete. He made the most of it, too. Last season, his first as a scholarship athlete, Phillips became a first team Pac 12 member on the field and an academic honorable mention in the classroom.
However, he also reflects on his past. Ski Team until 2011. The world of competitive skiing is much different from college athletics. There he could use his likeness and promote himself as a brand for any extra profit. He cites those around him as an influence to changes he like to see in college athletics one day.
The debate isn new, but Phillips is determined to influence some sort of change, if not during his career then sometime down the road. He frustrated because while the battle has been brewing, nothing has been done about it. COA stipends are a welcomed beginning, but he hopes reform of college athletics doesn end there.
Phillips also has unlikely allies within the state as the fight for reform continues.
At BYU, there are plenty of student athletes who share a similar story. For example, BYU quarterback Taysom Hill is married and would like the opportunity to make extra money on the side but can due to the busy life of a student athlete. He points out that even if he could find time for a part time job, there are NCAA regulations in place that cap the amount he could make even in the summer.
Interestingly enough, in an independent study on college athletics conducted for the Pac 12, athletes were interested in making it easier to find part time jobs among other improvements. That desire trickles down to athletes outside the conference.
is a lot of demands on our time. Where a lot of students can take the spring and summer off and go work and build enough money to make it through that next year, we can do that, Hill says. stuck working out, and there are not a lot of opportunities.
Hill isn worried as much because his collegiate career will end after the fall semester. He also is pleased with the steps that have occurred since he began his college career, but he sees the need for additional changes.
think (the COA stipend) is a step in the right direction, he says.
That where the current debate lies and likely where the Power 5 schism becomes noticeable. So far, the answer is nothing, but that could change soon. Schools across the country are waiting patiently while several court cases play out before dealing with the million dollar question.
The largest one is the Ed O case, which began in 2009. In 2014, a federal judge ruled that the NCAA broke antitrust laws by not covering COAs and other costs. While the NCAA immediately appealed, a settlement was reached in early July of this year that would pay student athletes for their likeness being used in NCAA video games from 2003 to 2014, according to a USA Today report. More than 16,000 student athletes had filed claims to receive a portion of the settlement. Those claims could reach upward of $6,000 or more.
Though NCAA video games are no longer produced, there is still plenty of name, image and likeness usage around college athletics. A recent national example focused around former Texas A star Johnny Manziel. Fans could type his name into an NCAA store search and find his No. 2 jersey for sale. Though the jersey didn bear the name of a student athlete on the back, it clear it was promoted the same.
In Utah, BYU offers a No. 4 jersey, Hill number, on its bookstore website. In early February, Fanzz, a sports apparel store, tweeted out a photo of a No.
How do players feel about having their jerseys for sale? Hill concedes he honored to see fans dish out money to buy No. 4 BYU football jerseys. cool to be a role model. It cool that someone would be willing to pay to wear your jersey around, he said.
At the same time he adds student athletes should receive at least a portion of the sales, if their number is being sold.
think that would probably be appropriate, Hill says.
It worth noting that athletic departments typically aren in charge of any form of merchandising, such as jersey sales. That handled by another department on campus. Eden said jersey sales aren a significant source of revenue and fill in than half of 1 percent of Utah total sales.
In terms of using jersey numbers, Utah is now backing off from using current players numbers as it heads into the future. In an email from Utah trademarks and licensing department to retailers obtained by the Deseret News, the school now asks retailers to use generic numbers relating to significant events in the school past.
For example, No. 4 and No. 8 are acceptable in football because it honors Utah football undefeated seasons in 2004 and 2008. The No. 50 will be allowed in reference to the year Utah was founded in 1850, as will No. 96, mascot Swoop number, No. 11, which is Utah first year in the Pac 12 and the year the current calendar year, which is No. 15 this season. In basketball, retailers may use No. 44, No. 61, No. 68 and No. 98, which honors the school championship season and three Final Four runs.
The University of Arizona, another Pac 12 institution, already institutes a similar policy. However, starting as early as August, schools could start paying student athletes as much as an extra $5,000 for use of NILs (name, image and likeness). It all depends on if or when the NCAA gives the green light or if the courts force the NCAA to do so.
While the schools outside of the Power 5 scamper looking for ways to provide COAs, those universities in the Power 5 are playing out scenarios in preparation of NILs. If these stipends spread as quickly as COAs did, the top schools have to be ready.
this time, we exploring that, says Steve Smith, Utah Athletics chief financial officer. want to make sure our student athletes are well taken care of, so we probably certainly look at doing that. We want to make sure we remain competitive, and certainly a good part of recruiting is to build off of that. At this point, we haven made any final decisions because we still kind of waiting for the courts to make their final decisions on what going on there. But certainly it something that we are looking at implementing if the decision is given that it something we can offer.