Who should profit from my kids' Denard Robinson jerseys?

On the last nine Saturdays in a row (including our team's bye week) my three children have all worn versions of the same outfit, purchased, in each case, at a thrift store: a tot-sized Michigan football jersey emblazoned with the number 16. Two of them are already old enough to know what my wife and I and everyone else who has ever seen them in their gameday attire understand — they are wearing Denard Robinson jerseys.

Shoelace was, not to put too fine a point on it, a major bust in the NFL. Drafted in the fifth round by a Jacksonville Jaguars team that did not know how to make use of his speed and other less tangible abilities, and plagued by injuries (ones that were almost certainly exacerbated by both his signature idiosyncratic footwear choices and bad coaches who did not force him to develop as a pocket passer), Robinson finished his professional career with a combined 1,341 yards rushing and receiving in 13 starts over four seasons. But during his time at Michigan, Robinson was, on a good day, the most exhilarating athlete in college football — "like the horses of Erichthonius in Homer, which galloped on the tops of the cornstalks and did not break them, and trod upon the spray of the sea." I have not been able to locate any figures on the sale of number 16 jerseys during his time there, but they must have run into the millions — millions for which he would never receive a single penny.

I mention Robinson because he is a player beloved in my household. Fans of any college team could point to similar examples of young men who gave their hearts and their bodies to teams and now have nothing to show for it after competing for a painfully limited number of positions in a professional league in which further success is anything but guaranteed. At least Robinson has been lucky enough to find a coaching position with the FCS-level Jacksonville Dolphins. Many equally great football and basketball players have been far less fortunate.

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Which is why I welcome the news that the governing board of the National Collegiate Athletics Association has voted unanimously to begin the process of allowing college athletes to "benefit from the use of their name, image and likeness." No matter what eventually becomes of the Robinsons of the future, it is good to know that in their time those of us who appreciate them will be able to express our gratitude, however meagerly.

It is important to point out that the NCAA's decision stops well short of actually paying players, which is the subject of another, related debate. (Indeed, it actually clarifies the distinction between the rights of players to earn income like any other undergraduate and their status as non-professionals.) I for one continue to oppose such efforts, for both practical and, I suppose, spiritual reasons. It is not clear to me that obligations imposed on Alabama and Southern Cal can or should be met by the University of Toledo, nor do I see any means by which athletes could be formally compensated for playing certain sports and not others. More important still, I do believe that the amateur spirit of the college game should continue to be honored. I do not think that allowing a player to receive money from having his likeness in a video game muddies that distinction in college football any more than it does in the Olympics, where endorsement deals have existed alongside amateur competition for decades.

What does this news mean going forward? Not much in the immediate future. The recent California legislation that ultimately forced the NCAA's hand does not take effect until 2023. A number of things remain to be hashed out — there is a huge difference between allowing an Oklahoma State running back to appear in a commercial for a Stillwater-area car dealer and the estate of the late T. Boone Pickens paying him $500,000 for doing a half day's work at a ranch somewhere. But sooner or later it will likely be possible to purchase licensed jerseys with player names alongside their numbers and to see them in regional and national advertising campaigns and even to manipulate digital versions of them in a revived version of the EA Sports NCAA Football franchise of blessed memory.

For now I think we can expect to hear a lot of grumbling from the usual suspects — old-school coaches like Lou Holtz who have apparently never met a student who was forced to earn an income while attending university. They will be surprised — pleasantly, I hope — to discover a few years hence that the fundamental nature of their game has survived yet another significant change in the course of its long history.

Most revolutions are undoubtedly nasty, which is why it is not a bad thing to be generally suspicious of them. Not so ones born of gratitude.

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