The transfer portal has changed college basketball drastically, but for one LSU guard, the players shouldn’t apologize for playing the game that system has created. If anything, one of Kim Mulkey’s biggest additions seems ready to challenge those who believe that athletes should have fewer ways to control their own careers.
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That player is former Iowa State star Jada Williams, who recently spoke about the Protect College Sports Act, arguing that athletes should have the freedom and revealing that she had been forced through circumstances where she was not fit to play.
“I’m a portal bandit – that’s what they call us nowadays,” she said, per USA Today reporter Mitchell Northam on X.
“Coaches lie, coaches don’t always treat us with respect… I’ve been forced to play through injury… We’re the ones putting on a show. This is a job.”
The perspective carries weight because Williams has switched programs several times. After starting her career at Arizona, the guard went to Iowa State through the transfer portal, playing there for two years before finally committing to Kim Mulkey’s LSU for the upcoming season. At Iowa State, she averaged 15.3 points and 7.7 assists per game.
Her history of transfers is what makes her perspective on the Protect College Sports Act important. The proposed legislation is attempting to establish a national framework for college athletes, including several provisions. One of the most significant provisions has to do with the transfer portal, making it so that athletes are allowed one free transfer, with the second one carrying a one-year penalty to their eligibility.
This isn’t the first time Williams has spoken out against the Act. Back in June, in a report from Front Office Sports, Williams was one of three interviewed athletes who spoke out against the bill, with the guard adding a personal layer to her points while also arguing that the same transfer penalties should apply to coaches as well, whose movement is not impeded by the act.
“I am so grateful that I was able to get out of those situations. Because if I wasn’t, I probably would’ve quit basketball,” Williams said.
“It just doesn’t make sense at the end of the day why athletic directors… can leave. Coaches don’t have a salary cap.”
However, that’s not where this ends for Williams.
Jada Williams Is Putting Her Support Behind a Bigger Fight for Athlete Power
Jada Williams sees the issue of the Protect College Sports Act from a different perspective. With the transfer portal and its flexibility in flux due to the Act, her comments raise the question of how much control athletes can have over their own careers in the ever-changing world of college sports.
That is already being tested in Oregon. Members of the Oregon State women’s basketball program are trying to unionize, with 10 of the 13 members of the program trying to get themselves officially recognized as employees of the public university, which would allow them to form a collective bargaining unit. The university has opposed their efforts, which means that the Oregon Employee Relations Board is left to make a final decision on the matter.
Williams made it clear where she stands on the issue. In a comment given to Northam, she highlighted that she is completely behind the effort from the Oregon State women’s basketball team.
“We think that’s the first step in collective bargaining on a national level,” she said.
“So, we are very confident, and we are 10 toes down with them.”
Though the efforts by Oregon State’s team to form a players’ union are not the first such effort, there is an important distinction. As USA Today pointed out in a report on the matter, similar efforts were previously made by football players at Northwestern and Stanford, as well as the men’s basketball team at Dartmouth, but none of them were public universities. This means that ruling on the matter of Oregon State will be determined by state law, not federal law.
Only time will tell what comes of these efforts, but for Williams, the message is straightforward. The players are the ones who take the court, absorb the physical toll, and put on a show, and if college sports is becoming a job, the people doing that work should have a say in how it operates.