PHILADELPHIA – A former Villanova University football player alleges that the NCAA misclassifies student-athletes and does not properly compensate them for all hours they work, in accordance with federal law.
Ralph Johnson filed a class action complaint Nov. 6 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against The National Collegiate Athletic Association, also known as the NCAA; Bucknell University; Drexel University; Pennsylvania State University; the University of Pennsylvania; the University of Pittsburgh; and other Division I member schools, alleging violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and unjust enrichment.
The suit states Johnson played football at Villanova and later for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Denver Broncos.
The plaintiff alleges the NCAA requires Division I schools' student-athletes to have adult supervisors maintain timesheets for them. He alleges student ticket-takers and concession workers are paid on a minimum wage scale while student-athletes are paid nothing.
"This complaint merely recognizes that the NCAA athletic experience, by comparison to work study, constitutes work for which student athletes deserve to be paid under federal and state laws that overrule the NCAA's self-defined amateurism," the suit states.
Johnson seeks economic damages, a trial by jury and all other just relief. He is represented by Paul McDonald of The P L McDonald Law Firm LLC in Philadelphia and Douglas Wigdor, Michael Willemin and Renan Varghese in New York.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case number 2:19-CV-05230-JP