On Monday, February 9, 2016, the NCAA responded to a former college football player’s bid to intervene as a proposed class representative in an antitrust lawsuit against the association, stating such intervention is unjustified in the pending Indiana federal court action. The response comes nearly two weeks after ex-Weber State University cornerback Devin Pugh filed a motion to replace former Gardner-Webb University quarterback John Rock in the event Rock was found to be an inadequate class member. Rock had filed suit to challenge the number of scholarships Division I football programs could give out.
The NCAA, in its response, argues that Pugh should not be allowed to intervene because he is the named plaintiff in a similar case filed in the same court, further claiming that Pugh’s proposed intervention is nothing more than his lawyers, who also represent Rock in his suit, attempting to salvage their improper class certification in Rock’s case. Because Pugh’s case would continue forward without intervention in the Rock action, the NCAA argues, the intervention motion is not intended to protect the interests of Pugh, but rather of Rock/their lawyers, and as such, this is an improper basis for involvement. It also argues that allowing intervention will cause disruption in the case and that the NCAA has yet to have a chance to take discovery on whether or not Pugh would make a suitable class representative to the claims, which would delay the proceedings moving forward.
Rock had originally filed suit in 2012 on allegations that the NCAA’s previous ban on multiyear scholarships and limits to the number of scholarships that could be given out per year thwarted competition amongst the NCAA’s member schools and caused some players to receive scholarship money while other qualified candidates could not. Pugh sough intervention in the case on the grounds that the court might not believe Rock to be a suitable class representative, assuming that Rock’s supposed deficiencies — the NCAA claims Rock cannot prove he was recruited by any Division I schools, for example — would be overcome in his own representation.