This is a free online newsletter for Jason Stahl, Executive Director of the College Football Players Association (CFBPA). If you’d like to sign up for the newsletter, you can do so here.
We’re roughly three months into the launch of the CFBPA and, as with any new institution, we are learning quite a bit about what works and what doesn’t when organizing college football players nationwide. As we said from the outset of our launch, we want the CFBPA to be an authentically member-driven organization. We want the institution to not just be a players association in name only but rather a players association that is used by its members to express the collective will of football players and their families nationwide. This is why from the beginning our focus has been on building our membership one person at a time. This is why we also decided to have four membership categories which individuals can sign up for at our website. Those categories — high school player, current college player, alumni college player and our parent of player category — were designed so all of those who have a stake in the way college football is run have a voice in the CFBPA. All give the member the option of being a public or a private member. The more we build this membership base, the more likely it will be that members can work to enact the CFBPA vision and also use the institution to express their collective will.
I think all of us affiliated with the CFBPA assumed that our initial growth would be in the “current player” category as we made inroads to currently active players nationwide. While we’ve had mild success in this regard, the barriers to building membership in this category during the college football season have been formidable. First and foremost, players simply have a lot going on right now. During the season, between football activities and school, 60-hour-plus work weeks are likely the norm. So, reaching players in the small windows of free time that they have can be challenging. Secondly, current player members, particularly those who are public members, might fear retaliation from coaches and administrators who don’t like the idea of a players association. Retaliation particularly in the form of lost playing time can be extraordinarily hard to prove.
These barriers are partially the reason that we are making a transition in November to building our alumni membership base. Reaching former college football players who are eligible for our alumni category should prove far easier than reaching those who are playing the game right now. However, the other reason we are doing an alumni membership drive during November is that after my appearance on the podcast Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, I had several former college football players reach out to learn more about the CFBPA. Through conversations with these former players, we ended up adding several new alumni members and feel confident we will continue to add more throughout the month.
So, in the month of November, the CFBPA is seeking to add as many new alumni members as possible. An individual is eligible for an alumni membership if they have played college football at any level at any time in the past. If you are a former college football player, sign up to be an alumni member at this link. As you sign up be sure to note if you want to be a public or a private member and if you want to take on a leadership role in the CFBPA.
At the end of November, we will use our entire membership pool to develop our first leadership committee. Any member (alumni and otherwise) who have indicated that they want their membership to be public, and who have indicated that they want to take on a leadership role in the organization, will be hearing from us to see if they wish to participate on our first public leadership committee. Members of this committee will guide the direction of the organization; work at developing our first CFBPA platform; and become the collective face of the organization for upcoming media appearances and other forms of public outreach.
This November alumni membership drive doesn’t mean that we won’t continue to work at adding current college football players to our membership ranks. In particular, we see ongoing and future head coaching transitions as a unique opportunity to add current player members and parent members to our ranks. I was interviewed recently regarding this subject and you can read my full thoughts on the subject at this link.
The short of the article is this: most often when a college football team goes through a head coaching transition, current players and the parents of those players are pretty much left out of the hiring process. We think this is wrong given that these are the individuals who will be most affected by a new set of coaches coming into their program. So, if you are a college football player or parent of a player who is going through a head coaching transition, or if you believe you will be in the near future, I urge you to reach out to the CFBPA using this link. We will be in touch to talk about next steps whereby we could assist current players and parents in gaining a collective voice in the hiring process.
As always, our network of supporters and and volunteers will be integral in the success of our November efforts. If you or someone you know can help build our alumni membership base or help us talk to players and parents on current college football teams, I urge you to reach out to us at the link above or to become a volunteer today using this link.