Dartmouth men’s basketball team votes to unionize
HANOVER, N.H — "The Dartmouth men’s basketball team voted to unionize Tuesday in an unprecedented step toward forming the first labor union for college athletes and another blow to the NCAA’s deteriorating amateur business model," The Associated Press reported.
According to a report by Jimmy Golen (https://apnews.com/article/dartmouth-union-ncaa-basketball-players-2fd9…), "In an election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board in the school’s human resources offices, the players voted 13-2 to join Service Employees International Union Local 560, which already represents some Dartmouth workers. Every player on the roster voted."
“Today is a big day for our team,” said Dartmouth juniors Cade Haskins and Romeo Myrthil, who have led the effort. “We stuck together all season and won this election. It is self-evident that we, as students, can also be both campus workers and union members. Dartmouth seems to be stuck in the past. It’s time for the age of amateurism to end.”
Harvard made an early second-half surge to take a 56-46 lead Tuesday, March 5, but Dartmouth immediately responded with a 9-0 run and outscored the Crimson 30-13 the rest of the way to pick up a 76-69 win in the season finale for both sides on Tuesday evening inside Leede Arena. Senior Dusan Neskovic scored a team-high 21 points in his final game for the Big Green, marking the fifth time in his last eight games eclipsing 20 points. Dartmouth is now 4-1 over its last five games against Harvard, its best five-game stretch against the Crimson since winning five straight from 1988-90.
"We didn't have the season that we wanted, so this win means everything to us," said Neskovic. "We had the mindset of winning this game together, being together on the court, and I think we showed that. Extremely extremely proud of my guys and this win tonight. It means a lot."
The Big Green have now beaten Harvard in their season finale for a third straight season, and have now won four of the last five meetings against the Crimson.
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