A group of Ohio State football players known as the “Tattoo 5” are speaking out. Terrelle Pryor, DeVier Posey, Solomon Thomas, Mike Adams and Daniel “Boom” Herron released a joint statement Tuesday requesting the NCAA reinstate all statistics and records from their 2010 season, which saw the Buckeyes go 12-1, winning their conference championship as well as the Sugar Bowl over eighth-ranked Arkansas. In addition to having their records vacated, each member of the Tattoo 5 was suspended five games after an NCAA investigation found Pryor, Posey, Thomas, Adams and Herron guilty of accepting free tattoos in exchange for memorabilia. The scandal effectively ended Pryor’s NCAA career (the Raiders later selected him in the Supplemental Draft) while also prompting Jim Tressel to resign from his position as head coach.
After decades of resistance, the NCAA finally caved on July 1st, allowing student-athletes to profit off their name, image and likeness (NIL) for the first time with players able to seek endorsement opportunities, promote their own merchandise through apparel and NFT sales and also earn income from autograph signings, appearance fees and paid speaking engagements. Naturally, Pryor and other blacklisted college athletes including USC’s Reggie Bush, who had his Heisman Trophy rescinded in 2005 for receiving improper benefits, are seeking restitution.
“Now that [student-athletes] finally have the freedom to share in some of the millions of dollars in revenue they generate for their coaches, their institutions, their conferences and the NCAA as a whole, we would like to see our hard-won accomplishments reinstated,” the Tattoo 5 expressed in a Twitter statement shared by Pryor. “Although this could never undo what we and our families endured for breaking rules that shouldn’t have existed in the first place, we believe reinstating and acknowledging the accomplishments of ourselves and our teammates would be a huge step in the right direction.”
“Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate,” Supreme Court Justice Brett Cavanaugh ruled last month, paving the way for the NCAA’s new “NIL” Era. “And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different."
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