Players' Association Impacting Agents' Discipline

While sports have been around for over a century, the concept of sports agents is relatively new. Decades ago, sports agents became an occupation but not a very glamorous or financially rewarding career. The industry has evolved to be more lucrative for agents and has attracted some very greedy individuals. The industry has recently been overcome with scandals, infractions and agents taking advantage of their athlete clients. Professional sports leagues and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) have been passing new rules at an increasing rate to rein in the unwanted behavior of agents.  The federal government has become involved as well as each individual state. It has now become expensive for agents to become registered in numerous states since agents have to register in every state they wish to do business in. It has become even more difficult for agents to learn and abide by the rules and laws of every state. Most states have recently adopted the Uniform Athlete Agents Act (UAAA) making it easier and cheaper for agents. Professional sports leagues and government will continue to pass more uniform laws to help prevent more intentional and unintentional missteps by sports agents but also to make it easier for agents to understand and abide by these laws.

In the last couple of years, it has also become necessary for players’ unions to step in and try to control the epidemic. The NationalFootball League Players’ Association (NFLPA) has even been busy this season discipliningagents for trivial offenses because they are unwilling to truthfully fill out their applications for certification as contract advisers. Agents Ethan Lock, Eric Metz and Vance Malinovic all agreed to pay $5,000 fines before an their appeal hearings due to their alleged offenses. Contract advisor John Rickert was also fined $5,000 and suspended for three months after failing to provide documentation he promised the NFLPA regarding a settlement with another contract advisor in a dispute about fees. As far back as November of 2010, the NFLPA pursued action against contract advisor Ian Greengross for numerous reasons including the actions of his recruiter Kenny Rogers. The NFLPA has been becoming stringent on their actions against agents who do not abide by their rules. This seems to be the new tone of leagues, state and federal legislatures, players’ unions and the NCAA. Dishonest and inappropriate behavior will no longer be accepted from agents and will be attacked from multiple sources and in a variety of ways such as fines, suspensions, and even jail time. 

The Difference Between Winning and Succeeding

As a young agent entering the business, I am still deciding who and what I am going to become. I am constantly looking for athletes, coaches and other agents to inspire me which led me to the website TED.com. The TED.com speaker that really inspired me was former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden who is affectionately known as Coach. Although I am 26 and living my adult life, I still seek ways to become inspired and to become a better me. Coach has always been an inspiration and his TED.com video titled "The Difference Between Winning and Succeeding" shares an even deeper understanding of how and when he developed his coaching and teaching philosophy. He shared with the audience about how his father raised him and the significant stories/events that caused him to grow/change his philosophies, which also garnered trust with the audience. He shared childhood stories and stories of when he first began teaching in grade school to show why his philosophy was so important.

His speech definitely helped me develop a deeper understanding of how I should measure my own success. One of his quotes that really stuck with me was, "Success is a peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best that you are capable of becoming." To me, this means that life is not about winning or outscoring anyone. It’s not about acquiring more material things or getting more rewards for my accomplishments than someone else. Life is simply about becoming the best man I can with what I have been given. Life is about recognizing my best effort as a degree of success as opposed to my desired outcome.

Coach is well known for a model he created called the “The Pyramid of Success”. This pyramid can be found at his website and shows different traits of success as measurements of faith and patience. The pyramid consists of 15 building blocks and each block has a trait along with what he thinks what a person is to do to accomplish the given trait. By following this pyramid, it was his intention and my belief that a person will become successful. After a journey to grow each block and build my own pyramid of success, I believe I will become the best man and agent I am able of becoming.