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TCU Football
Cody Campbell is using his bully pulpit as a successful Fort Worth businessman and former college athlete to advocate for positive change in intercollegiate athletics, which in recent years, through federal, state, and Supreme Court rulings, have become quasi-professional.
Moreover, the changes have degraded the NCAA’s power to enforce or regulate rules, and, in some cases, the power of the organization designed to administer college athletics has been “completely stripped.”
In a compelling thought piece he wrote for The Federalist, Campbell, draws a parallel between the near-collapse of American college athletics in 1905 and the existential crisis the system faces today.
“The great institution of American college athletics almost perished in its infancy,” he reminds.
In 1905, college football faced a wave of criticism after 45 deaths occurred from in-game injuries over five years. Harvard President Charles William Eliot led a campaign to abolish the sport, but President Theodore Roosevelt stepped in, calling for reforms to save it. His leadership led to the creation of the NCAA, a governing body that standardized and enforced rules, ultimately shaping the intercollegiate athletics system as we know it today.
That type of bold federal leadership, Campbell writes, is what is again necessary to ensure the survival of college sports in this pivotal moment of transformation.
Campbell, a former football player for Texas Tech, is the co-CEO and co-founder of Fort Worth-based Double Eagle Energy Holdings. Double Eagle is an upstream E&P company and has been one of the most active participants in the Permian Basin over the last decade, assembling hundreds of thousands of acres and completing billions of dollars in transactions. He is a board member of Texas Public Policy Foundation and is a member of the Board of Regents of the Texas Tech University System.
“The problems today are much more complex than those Roosevelt faced,” Campbell writes, pointing to issues such as name, image, and likeness (NIL) agreements, the transfer portal, and labor-related litigation. He also critiques recent actions by the Biden administration, which he argues accelerated the decline of the institution.
"We are one court ruling away from complete chaos," he says.
Campbell says federal legislation is the only viable solution to the current crisis. He outlines the need for a framework that:
- Pre-empts state laws to create a unified system.
- Addresses antitrust issues in labor and media.
- Resolves employment-related disputes to ensure operational stability.
- Protects Title IX compliance while addressing concerns raised by recent Department of Education actions.
- Supports athletes against predatory behavior while ensuring fair compensation.
Campbell stresses that these reforms must benefit not only high-profile programs but all 134 Football Bowl Subdivision schools, along with the communities and nonrevenue sports they support.
“We can save college sports. But to do so, we must approach the issue, in Teddy Roosevelt’s words, ‘with courage, in a spirit of fair dealing, with sanity and common sense.’”
Read his entire commentary here.
