College athletics are as American as apple pie. The culture of college football and basketball are ingrained in our national fabric.
This has naturally led to the NCAA bringing in millions upon millions of dollars, none of which goes to the players themselves. The coaches and university presidents, yes.
These athletes do receive scholarships if they’re valued enough, which is a sort of compensation, but it’s clear the NCAA, the governing body of college sports, does not want their players starting a business or making money.
Donald De La Haye was the most recent example made of this as he’s a YouTube influencer as well as a kicker for the University of Central Florida football team.
De La Haye loves football but also has a passion for videography. He saw it as a career after his playing days were over and the kicker wanted to chase his dreams but was forced to choose either one or the other.
After monetizing his videos to generate some side money, the NCAA ordered him to stop as they felt he was using his image and school to promote his channel.
He was faced with the decision to either honor his football scholarship or continue his YouTube channel to support himself as a young student athlete. Donald posted this emotional video when he decided the latter.
In another video update, he explains he used some of his extra UCF merch to do a giveaway to promote himself.
What he thought was giving back to the community the NCAA saw as a form of De La Haye profiting off supplies given to him for free.
The school did very little for him besides submitting a waver to the NCAA that would allow him to continue to make videos with some conditions.
In an interview with Forbes De La Haye explains the conditions as this saying,
“I can’t mention football, can’t talk about quarterbacks, can’t go on the beach and throw around a football with friends. I couldn’t do anything connected to football.”
Of course he could’ve chosen to not monetize the videos but he also needed the money as an average broke college student looking to make some funds.
It’s not all bad for him as the recent publicity has brought him many more views on YouTube and thousands of followers on his social media.
De La Haye clearly isn’t letting this situation get to him just take a look at his Instagram.
He’s enjoying life right now and following his passion so we can only hope for the best.
If you want to help De La Haye, check out his GoFundme here which he started in order to continue his education at UCF.