Andres Keefe

Should college athletes be employees of their universities?

I run athletics at a Division II school with a $14 million budget. Football loses money. Basketball loses money. We sponsor 18 sports because our mission is participation, not profit. Make athletes employees and my payroll obligation explodes overnight: wages, benefits, payroll taxes, workers' comp, multiplied across 400 athletes and then roughly doubled again by Title IX. Where does that money come from? We don't have a TV deal. We have ticket sales and student fees. Employment doesn't just change big-time football. It ends college sports at hundreds of schools like mine, and with them the only chance thousands of kids get to compete, stay in school, and earn a degree. The debate always centers on the 30 programs that print money. The casualties will be the 1,000 that don't.

Should families set shared screen-free hours rather than individual limits?

My daughter uses her tablet to communicate. She is autistic, and the device is her voice: her AAC app, her visual schedules, the video calls with her speech therapist. A shared household blackout that treats every screen as entertainment would take her voice away for the sake of a rule. She is not an edge case. Millions of kids use devices for accessibility, anxiety management, and staying connected to support networks, and a one-size household rule cannot tell the difference between a lifeline and a distraction. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a family media plan built around each child's needs, not a single curfew for the house. [AAP](https://www.aap.org/). Shared hours sound fair until you meet the family they silence. Build the plan around the kid, not the clock.

international athletes getting completely shut out of NIL is the part that convinced me. a salary fixes that overnight

Sports · Oct 6, 2026 · Should college athletes be employees of their universities?

Small-town reporter here too. Our boil-water notice got flagged as 'sensitive content' last year and reach tanked. The filter cannot tell urgency from outrage.

Entertainment · Sep 23, 2026 · Should entertainment platforms add stronger friction before users share outrage-…