Fifteen members of Dartmouth College’s men’s basketball team are in the process of upgrading their status from student-athletes to student-workers. For the first time in history, a college sports team may have the opportunity to unionize for financial compensation, power over travel and improved working conditions. One benefit is less tangible than the rest, though — a boost in the athlete’s mental health. 

Let’s backtrack, and please be reminded that this is a column about mental health and not about legal jargon that I frankly don’t get paid well enough to understand. Maybe I should form a union … I’m getting ahead of myself. 

On Feb. 5, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Dartmouth basketball players would be considered school employees. An official election to determine if these workers can unionize or not will take place March 5. 

This would be the first labor union since the inception of the NCAA for athletes under the association, marking a huge shift in the space of college sports that is arguably even more advanced than Name, Image and Likeness. 

With the way NIL deals have been structured since June 2021, college athletes are legally allowed to earn their own money, separate from the school they play for. This has changed the game by stepping closer and closer to a professional model of sport. Earning money at the collegiate level is only fair to the athlete, and as prominent figures in the university’s sphere, the power to unionize for better treatment seems perfectly reasonable. 

Except, Dartmouth is arguing that the team does not make a profit — meaning, the university is putting more money into the program than they are getting back in revenue. Dartmouth’s argument, from my limited legal and finance bro perspective, is that its athletes should not be playing for financial gain as members of the Ivy League, a cluster of schools known more for their academic rigor than physical domination. 

To put it simply: Dartmouth claims that its athletes aren’t making enough money for the college to consider them employees. 

Dartmouth is standing by the NCAA’s long-standing agreement that student-athletes are amateurs, and therefore should not be granted the same powers as professionals. This is just one reason why the college is expected to file an appeal. Dartmouth has until the same day of the union vote to file this appeal, because it was granted an extension to do so past the original Feb. 20 deadline. 

The original 15 players who signed a petition to unionize back in September will vote next month on whether the union, Service Employees International Union Local 560, will represent them. 

However, this column was not founded to fill the Daily Trojan’s coverage of legal ongoings in the sports world. It was made to dissect the issues of mental health in college sports — something the Dartmouth men’s basketball team is arguing is in jeopardy without the power to unionize. 

Dartmouth’s men’s basketball team is aiming to unionize for rights that go beyond simply being a student. The decision to unionize would enable the team to have increased power in deciding practice times and compensation as employees of the university. These increased powers would ideally create more of a balance between Dartmouth players’ sports and their mental health. 

Now, I hate to sound like a Boomer, but this sort of thing has never been done before. Incorporating NIL into collegiate sports was a huge step in the right direction, but for some, the idea of student-athletes becoming student-workers goes too far over the line between collegiate and professional athletics. 

This fight is one for equitable athlete compensation, and it beckons questions about specific payouts. 

Will starting players make more money from the university than their bench-warming counterparts? That doesn’t seem fair, but neither does a player who gets more minutes receiving the same check as one who has played in only a few games their entire collegiate career. In terms of bonuses, maybe a player would get a few extra cents for every 3-point shot they earn, or even a dollar for a replay-worthy dunk. 

I’m partially joking, but if the model used for professional athletes trickles down to collegiate athletes, it is guaranteed to bring about more controversy. In the old-school and sometimes tone-deaf voice of the NCAA, making collegiate sports more professional through payment could remove the reason kids start playing sports in the first place. 

In youth soccer or swimming at your local community pool as kids, you should be thinking about who you’ll carpool with to your first game, not how early you’ll get your first check. 

The union vote March 5 will hopefully answer some of these questions, but I predict that the waters will only get muddier in the years to come. Until then, we can only speculate how drastic the evolution of college sports will be. 

Dana Hammerstrom is a junior writing about the mental health of collegiate athletes, as well as the emotional pressures they face, in her column “Heart to Heart,” which runs every other Friday.