College/University Athletes Should Be Able to Form Unions to Address Working Conditions

I remember a few years ago when an abusive University of Iowa athletic trainer subjected the Hawkeye football players to such a rigorous workout while Coach Kirk Ferentz was out of town that most of the team ended up in the hospital with a muscle-damaging disease called rhabdomyelosis. Some could barely walk after the workout.

Forget pay for a 50-hour work week of practice, travel, playing games with other teams, and watching tapes of games. It would be nice to have a union if only to address working conditions. 

Did the athletic trainer who went so far as to require a workout that broke down the muscles of players to the point where they had to be hospitalized get disciplined or fired? I don't think he was, and I'd like to know why not.

Such cruelty and negligence couldn't possibly be good for morale, and I don't think much of a coach who would allow such a trainer to continue in his athletic training program.

Not every player survives the pounding he receives on the field of college play. The National Football League doesn't draft every good player. So maybe it's time for college athletes to share the profits that go to the athletic departments of big-time, profitable college and university athletic programs. The money definitely goes somewhere. Coaches like Kirk Ferentz make millions of dollars. It seems like his student athletes should make something and have some control over working conditions, especially when they become abusive.