I don't think we're breaking any news by saying the NCAA is one of the most archaic, out-of-touch organizations you could possibly imagine. The governing body of college athletics lords over a system in which universities make millions upon millions of dollars by exploiting free labor, using the talents of gifted athletes to build their brands.
But over the last two decades, the tide has turned against the NCAA, with players and fans alike finally deciding they're fed up with the whole operation. One student-athlete in particular, University of Central Florida kicker Donald De La Haye, rebelled against the idea that he couldn't profit off his own likeness, and he has become a bit of a YouTube star over the last year or so. Hovering around 53,000 followers on YouTube in June, the NCAA tried to stop De La Haye in his tracks, offering him the ability to continue creating content for his channel if he dropped all sports-related content in the process. They were seemingly upset with him for using his stature as a college athlete to turn a profit.
He refused to comply with their request, though, and his subsequent fight with the NCAA turned into quite a public spectacle. They eventually ruled him ineligible to play football moving forward and revoked his scholarship after he refused to sign a waiver. They also offered up a horseshit explanation for the decision.
NCAA statement regarding Donald De La Haye. pic.twitter.com/0W2YCbEBrF
In the process, they boosted De La Haye's fame far beyond previous levels, with the kicker currently sitting on around 175,000 subscribers on the very same YouTube page. And now, after mulling over the subject, De La Haye decided to drop a diss track on the matter. And to answer your question, yes, a diss track aimed exclusively at the NCAA is just as ridiculous as you'd think.
These are nobody's idea of "bars," but De La Haye does make a lot of serious allegations in his half-serious song. "I couldn't even pay for food, now I can go cop me a chain," he says at the beginning of the song, mocking the allocated resources available for college athletes. This is a fairly common complaint among critics of the NCAA system, as Shabazz Napier led UConn to an NCAA basketball title in 2014 but later revealed there were many nights when he went to bed starving during his time in college.
"We do have hungry nights that we don't have enough money to get food in," Napier said at the time. "Sometimes, there's hungry nights where I'm not able to eat, but I still gotta play up to my capabilities."
College scholarships are not a substitute for proper compensation, just like unpaid internships and "good experience" are not a substitute for paying an employee fair wages. So regardless of his skills on the mic, I'll be rooting for De La Haye and players like him to shake up a broken system.
In the meantime, you can listen to his diss track for yourself up top.
