Bruce Pearl reflects on Washington D.C. trip, meeting with Congress

Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl marched on Washington in June with hopes of helping lobby lawmakers pass legislation that would create NIL uniformity. While Pearl didn’t necessarily walk away successfully, he gained a valuable lesson.

“The trip to Washington, D.C., with the SEC was terrific,” Pearl said this past week. “The Congress, senators, Congress, men and women that we met were phenomenal. They all understand the problem, and they all understand the urgency.”

Pearl continued.

“But we did not do a great job in coming there with a solution to the problem. And that’s what the leadership needs to do. Whether it be [NCAA commissioner Charlie Baker], the NCAA, the commissioners of all the five Power Five conferences, the coaches association, people way smarter than me, and better lawyers maybe need to get their heads together and come to Congress with a plan and see if we can get some sort of a national program,” Pearl said.

The “problem” Pearl referred to is the lack of uniform rules regarding NIL on a national level. For example, Arkansas recently proposed a bill allowing high school athletes who have enrolled at or signed a letter of intent to attend an Arkansas college “to enter into a contract and receive compensation for the commercial use of the student-athlete’s publicity rights” immediately.

Pearl believes laws like these would give programs in advantageous states an unfair upper hand. Thus, Pearl along with Auburn football head coach Hugh Freeze and head women’s basketball coach Johnnie Harris traveled to D.C. with hopes to encourage change.

Although the Auburn trio were fresh faces on Capitol Hill, NIL isn’t a new issue to regulars. Congress has already held at least eight hearings on the issue in an effort to pass a federal NIL law. Nonetheless, they have not yet succeeded.

Pearl has to focus on playing the game more than changing the rules, or else he’ll end up a loser. The 63-year-old head coach discussed the conundrum during a recent Auburn alumni event in Alabama.

“It’s a dogfight. Everybody is investing, everybody is playing in the NIL space which has made things more competitive,” Pearl said. “Everybody is committed. Who isn’t all in in the SEC? There’s not a single school not completely committed. Facilities, coaches being hired, it makes finishing in the upper part of the league and making the NCAA Tournament a bit of a prize.”

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