A former star on the University of Connecticut basketball team looked back on the pre-NIL era of his career, saying the system was unfair.
A Different Time
Shabazz Napier, a two-time NCAA title-winning point guard who earned Most Outstanding Player honors, said he was “starving” while UConn and other schools profited off athletes like him.
During his time at UConn in the early 2010s, Napier was as one of the top guards in the country. While he played a supporting role in the Huskies’ 2011 championship run, he became the focal point in 2014, leading the team to another title.
A first-round pick in the 2014 NBA draft, Napier went on to play a decade in the league with the Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, Brooklyn Nets, and Washington Wizards before continuing his career overseas. He now serves as a coaching apprentice with the Wizards.
His earlier comments about how college athletes were financially underserved, even as high performers, still resonate in today’s NIL era.
Basketball Network recently requoted an old article from the Daily Free Press from 2014, with Napier saying the following: “There are hungry nights that we don’t have enough money to get food and sometimes, you know, money is needed.”
He added at the time, “I don’t think you should stretch it out to hundreds of thousands of dollars for players, because guys don’t know how to handle themselves with money. I don’t feel student-athletes should get hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are hungry nights that I go to bed and I’m starving. When you see your jersey getting sold and things like that, you feel like you want something in return… Something can change, something should change.”
But at the time of Napier’s comments, the NCAA faced increasing criticism from advocacy groups and players over restrictions that prevented athletes from earning income tied to their name, image, and likeness. Napier also pointed to the sale of jerseys and other merchandise as an example of how players contributed to revenue streams without direct compensation.
“I don’t see myself as so much of an employee, but when you see a jersey getting sold… to some credit, you feel like you want something in return,” he said.
Napier’s past remarks have resurfaced amid ongoing discussions about the evolving NIL landscape as monetary compensation opportunities for college athletes have expanded.