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The Pac-12 has become the first major athletic conference to explicitly include athletes in administrative decisions including TV contracts and the addition of new sports. The decision to do so was made in 2014 and is now in place with UCLA water polo player Patrick Woepse an inaugural member. The change comes as major conferences and the NCAA are under pressure on a variety of fronts, including the recently-rejected case made by Northwestern football players to unionize.
It was a century ago when the Pacific Coast Conference came into existence. The name has changed, schools have come and gone, but one thing remained constant for the long history of the league: Administrative decisions went largely without the input of the hundreds of thousands of student-athletes who have competed in the conference.
Until last week.
The Pac-12 broke history with its introduction of a new governance structure that weighs the vote of a student-athlete representative equal to that of an athletic director.
“For the first time in literally 100 years we have a voice in what directly impacts our everyday lives,” said sophomore women’s golfer Aliea Clark.
Clark and Patrick Woepse, a junior center on the men’s water polo team, are UCLA’s two representatives on the new Student-Athlete Leadership Team, and they join a trio of high-level administrators on the Pac-12 Council. UCLA’s three other members are Dan Guerrero, athletic director, Petrina Long, senior women’s administrator and Dr. Michael Teitell, faculty athletic representative.
These issues include everything from sponsoring a new sport – like the recent decision to include beach volleyball for the upcoming 2016 season – or negotiating the broadcasting deal with the Pac-12 Network…
Source: Pac-12 first to include student-athletes in official governing capacity
