Monday, July 5, 2021
Lawyer specializing in name and image rights advises caution as college athletes pursue endorsements Tribune News Service
CHICAGO — Hours after the NCAA announced that college athletes can finally start making money off their names and images, deals arrived in a flurry. Famous and obscure jocks alike announced partnerships with cellphone companies, trash haulers and apparel makers, among many others. In Illinois, which passed a law allowing the deals just before the NCAA’s declaration, University of Illinois shooting guard Trent Frazier made himself available for $45 video chats on the Vidsig app, while Northwestern quarterback Ryan Hilinski offered to do Cameo messages for $50 a pop. It is, with mind-spinning abruptness, a new day in college sports. But it’s one Dustin Maguire has prepared for since seeing his avatar in a college basketball video game and realizing he wasn’t getting paid. The former St. Louis University and Northern Kentucky guard became a lawyer, and several years ago, anticipating that college athletes would soon get a chance to do endorsements, made that a specialty of his Edwardsville, Ill., practice. He even made sure to buy the web domain nameimagelikeness. com. Maguire said Thursday he’s getting calls from athletes around the country seeking counsel as schools scramble to write their own rules with little guidance from the NCAA. He’s a legal adviser, not a deal-maker, and said athletes must be careful about the details, from tax considerations to the long-term implications of an endorsement. “A lot of people are trying to take advantage of this chaos for their own benefit and I think athletes certainly are at risk with that,” he said. “… It’s very important that athletes know, before they sign anything, what they’re committing themselves to. Are they going to give exclusive rights to a parRaymond Carlin III
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What’s next? Seniors navigate post-COVID-19 job market Jennifer Maupin O’Colly contributor
Forty job applications and two interviews later, Emerson Williams is unsure what he will do after graduation. COVID-19 upended the job market, specifically impacting the travel industry, entertainment and
any field that requires face-to-face interaction. Record-level unemployment has college students struggling more than usual to find a job. “[The job search] has not been very fruitful,” Williams said. “I’ve been applying a lot. I went to the career fair and met people and contacts. I went through everything and got a couple interviews, and they didn’t really go anywhere.” Williams will graduate with a 3.6 GPA in aerospace and mechani-
cal engineering from Oklahoma State on May 8. After his graduation, graduate school is Williams’ worst-case scenario. “There’s a group of nine of us who had a semester project last year,” Williams said. “We all keep in touch and the only person with a job has a dad who works [at the company]… Of the nine of us, more than half are going back to OSU for graduate school.” The move to apply for gradu-
ate school is increasingly common among seniors. From the April 17, 2020 to April 16, of 2021, OSU saw a 16% increase in students applying to graduate programs, according to Office of Institutional and Analytics. The number of students admitted to OSU’s graduate school rose from 1,321 to 1,599, a 21% increase. Breanna Gallagher, a career consultant for the university, no See Next on pg.3