With O’Bannon ruling, Kennesaw State is only watching from the stands

Mike Foster (Opinion Editor)

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At the time that the Ed O’Bannon vs. NCAA case began in 2009, EA Sports was still producing the all-too-popular NCAA Football video game series. For those who have had their height, weight, home town and jersey number represented in a top-selling video game, their pleas for compensation have finally been heard. For those who compete at Kennesaw State University, there’s little reason to join in on the conversation.

Kennesaw State was featured in a video game once: NCAA 06 March Madness. You could use the Owls, playing in a generic arena that looked nothing like the Convocation Center, and with a roster that, unlike the others, had little to no likeness at all. That was the year they began their Division I transition period, though, curiously, EA Sports did not include the Owls in any games past that year.

Less than 24 hours after the NCAA board of directors granted autonomy in the wake of the bluff–run with me here; hindsight is 20-20– from the Power 5 conferences, federal court judge Claudia Wilken issued her long-awaited ruling in the O’Bannon case on Friday, stating that college athletes should be compensated for the use of their name, image and likeness.

For student athletes who play in conferences tied to hefty television contracts, this means a pay day in their future from their respective athletic departments. However, for Kennesaw State, a rising Division I program with a football team on the horizon, little has changed. You begin to wonder if the title of Division I, which is still proudly boasted on a sign that hangs on the wall at nearby Highlands Grill where students frequent, will lose its luster.

As Kennesaw State director of athletics Vaughn Williams told The Sentinel last month, we are different–very different, than the biggest Division I schools. We may be Division I, but try holding up a poster with the Atlantic Sun Conference logo on it on a street corner in Marietta and see if anyone recognizes it and doesn’t think you’re trying to sell toothpaste (you may need to take a gander yourself to get that joke).

RELATED: AD Williams sees Power 5 autonomy as fair game

Further, Williams and head football coach Brian Bohannon do not have a vision that includes trying to join in with the big boys. Rather, they’ve verbally committed many a time to becoming the best FCS program they can be. This means sticking in the second tier of major college football, where television contracts are pipe dreams, opponent’s stadiums are sometimes just fields with bleachers, and season previews are crammed into a single special section page in the back of preseason publications.

You may be thinking, “of course, KSU can only go so far so fast.” That’s where Georgia State would have a retort, though whether they’d be proud to offer it would need to be decided in time. The Panthers began playing football in 2010, and in just four years have played as a transitional independent, a member of the Colonial Athletic Association and, as of last year, the Sun Belt. Georgia Southern has joined the Panthers in the conference in what appeared like a quick-twitch effort in a game of conference musical chairs, where Kennesaw State was sipping soda from the other side of the rope.

With the recent autonomy granted to the Power 5 and the Wilken ruling, there will be more incentive for programs to conglomerate into the conferences that show games on television. Only the schools with the funds to pay their student athletes–specifically, just their FBS football players and men’s hoops players (queue inevitable Title IX lawsuit)–will offer the stipends.

Kennesaw State, and other smaller programs in the weeds will have to sit on their hands, but the Owls administration was already content with doing that. I like that.

At a pivotal turning point in the history of college sports, the difference between the power teams and true amateurs will shine bright. We’ve not had to even wonder if our athletic department is tampering with NCAA rules, or if a booster was buying our players Bentleys.

Kennesaw State is, and might always will be a true amateur, student-athlete driven entity. The business of big time college sports will evade the northwest Atlanta campus off I-75. With this ruling, we are reminded of how humble we are.

And that’s okay.