Many collegiate athletes enjoy the rich rewards they’ve received thanks to changes in name, image, and likeness (NIL) rules that allow them to profit while competing in college.
However, if it were up to Duke basketball legend Christian Laettner, they wouldn’t have those profits.
On Thursday, the 32nd anniversary of when Laettner, the man who made the #32 famous at Duke, hit his game-winning shot against Kentucky to advance out of the Elite Eight. The former Blue Devil legend told ESPN’s Mike Greenberg to discuss that shot and give his take on the monumental shifts in the college basketball landscape in the decades since.
“They’ve got to take out the NIL. They’ve got to wipe that out,” Laettner asserted. “They’ve got to change the transfer portal. I know everyone’s saying the horse is out of the barn, and you can’t take stuff back, but how can you establish any type of culture at a school when you’re getting new kids every year?
Duke Christian Laettner (32) is in action vs. Georgetown Alonzo Mourning (33) at Meadowlands Arena. East Rutherford, NJ, 3/26/1989 (Manny Millan /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
“That would mean every year was like my freshman year at Duke; and you’re so much better your third, your fourth year when you’re under one system, one program, one coach, one specifically defined culture. … I don’t know how the coaches do it in today’s game, and that’s why some of the better ones are starting to quit.”
The last line of Laettner’s quote appears to reference the recently retired Nick Saban, who cited the unchecked and unequal power dynamic created by NIL as one of the reasons that prompted him to retire.
“All the things I believed in for all these years. 50 years of coaching, no longer exist in college athletics.”
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) March 12, 2024
Nick Saban knows NIL changed everything. pic.twitter.com/IEW4QCYNnu
Though Saban is not opposed to NIL, he wants to see rules enforced to ensure that the system doesn’t only empower the already powered.
“I think it needs to be equal across the board so that a school that can afford more can’t create an advantage for themselves just because they have more money to spend,” Saban told Fox News. “But I’m all for student-athletes. I want student-athletes to have the best quality of life.”
Saban, 72, cited his age as the primary reason for his retirement.
