It’s not news to the nation that Division I athletic programs are taking advantage of student-athletes.

Nobody has done anything about this tragedy.

Governor Jerry Brown signed California State Senator Alex Padilla’s “Student-Athlete Bill of Rights” into law on Sept. 27. The law, affective Jan. 1, 2013, requires collegiate programs that generate more than $10 million a year in media revenues to provide specific safeguards to student-athletes in the case of injury. UCLA, UC Berkeley, University of Southern California and Stanford will all have to adhere to this law.

“The universities impacted by this bill benefit from their share of a $3 billion media contract.  A small percentage of these revenues will allow these colleges to meet the basic standards established in this bill,” Senator Padilla said.

The least these schools can do for student-athletes is give them healthcare. They grind their bodies every day so that the university can profit from their performance.

Student-athletes put their bodies on the line and are dismissed if they get injured. They lose their scholarships and everything that comes with being apart of a program.

Some people may think that the perks of being a student-athlete compensate for risking major injury.

A 16-year study conducted by the NCAA and the Journal of Athletic Training showed that in football alone, there were 84,095 injuries from games and practice sessions. Many of these injuries are career ending.

How do programs take advantage of students? They neglect them when they get injured. Sure a major player might not be neglected if injured but a majority of student-athletes aren’t on the track to play professionally.

I am a former Division I football player that suffered from a career ending injury.

In Oct. 2007, I was in practice doing a pass-blocking drill. One of my teammates tripped and fell, landing with his shoulder on the inside ball of my ankle.

After months of trainers assuring me my ankle would be fine a simple MRI revealed that I had two torn ligaments, two torn tendons, torn cartilage, eight bone fractures which healed incorrectly and 6 ounces of scar tissue in my ankle joint.

Two reconstructive surgeries, 12 weeks on crutches with a wound vacuum and 16 weeks of physical therapy later and I still couldn’t get clearance to play again.

I am fortunate to have a family that is able to help financially, but the majority of scholarship athletes come from low-income families that would be burdened with all of the above. These situations are the reason the Bill is absolutely necessary.

Padilla is leading this state in the right direction. He hit the nail on the head with the following statement.

“Despite the NCAA’s stated mission, it currently does not require that schools pay for medical coverage or provide continued academic support for injured student-athletes. This, while many universities are receiving tens of millions of dollars in media revenue each year.”

Universities should be able to pay for the healthcare of their student-athletes.

The trend of big business in college athletics isn’t going away anytime soon. So there should be something that protects the student-athletes who are injured.

Padilla’s bill goes beyond just paying medical bills. It requires these universities to offer equal academic scholarships when an athletic scholarship is lost because of injury so injured athletes can stay in school.

This should be the mission of every college athletic program.