Rudy Ruettiger is arguably the most famous nonscholarship athlete of all time. In the 1970s, Rudy poured his time, sweat and blood into making the University of Notre Dame football roster as a walk-on, with the hopes of one day donning those famous gold helmets and running through the tunnel at South Bend, Ind. But would Rudy’s underdog story be as intriguing if Notre Dame broke the law by failing to compensate its “five-foot-nothin’, one-hundred-and-nothin’” athlete who “hardly had a speck of athletic ability?”

While Rudy’s claims are certainly time-barred, the Chicago office of the National Labor Relations Board entertained a similar issue with respect to the unionization of student-athletes earlier this year. On March 26, the Chicago NLRB determined that Northwestern University football players were “employees” within the meaning of federal labor laws and could pursue their collective bargaining rights accordingly, in NLRB Region 13, Case Number: 13-RC-121359, Decision and Direction of Election (March 26, 2014). While that ruling is pending appeal to the National Labor Relations Board, it may have significant ramifications with respect to other federal laws, like the Fair Labor Standards Act. Players can easily exceed a 40-hour work week considering the mandatory conditioning, weightlifting, practice, film study and travel. While scholarship athletes receive compensation in the form of full or partial scholarships, nonscholarship athletes, like Rudy, are working without compensation. So, are universities breaking the law by not paying athletes a minimum wage?

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