GOV. BROWN SIGNS BILL PROTECTING INJURED STUDENT ATHLETES


Governor Jerry Brown has certainly been busy lately.  In the stack of bills the Governor signed before the Sunday deadline, there was one in there that should make student athletes and their parents rest a little easier.  SB1525 was designed to protect injured athletes at the 4 universities receiving over $10 million in sports revenues.  This includes: USC, UCLA, Berkeley, and Stanford.  These 4 athletic powerhouses are being targeted because their sports programs are world class, but the risk of injury is also great enough that a career ending injury on the field could also potentially mean the end to a student’s academic career as well.

Student athletes playing in big sports schools and tough conferences seem to have one eye on the prize- a career in the NFL, NBA, etc… There are Heisman trophies to be won, multi- million dollar contracts, and cushy lives from 6-9 years of professional playing time to be obtained.  But it all can be lost in a moment.  One tear to the knee, fracture, severe concussion, or worse, could end a player’s career in both college sports and end the dream of the big leagues.

HOW SB1525 WILL PROTECT INJURED STUDENT ATHLETES

SB1525 protects student athletes in a number of important ways, including:

·         Providing academic scholarships for injuredathletes who lose their academic scholarships. This preserves a student’s right to obtain a quality education at a school they might not have otherwise been able to afford.

·         Requiring universities to pay insurance deductibles and health care premiums for low- income students

·         Guaranteeing future medical costs for students who received on- the- field injuries

 

Said bill sponsor, Senator Alex Padilla (D- Los Angeles), “Neither personal injury nor poverty should dim the dreams of a student-athlete pursuing a college degree, particularly when their performance has enriched their college.”

 

CA Established as Friendly to Injured Athletes

 

This bill makes California the first state to mandate financial and educational protections for injured student athletes.  But did you also know that California is already widely known in professional sports as a friendly state to collect Worker’s Compensation benefits for career ending injuries as well?  This bill completes California’s image as a friendly place for injured athletes.

 

If you are a student athlete who is injured during the course of a game, you have rights.  And if you want to understand those rights better, you and your parents may want to consult a skilledpersonal injury attorney.