Charlie Baker has had a busy first year as National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) president. The issue of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) has exploded in 2023, with colleges and universities pleading to Congress to help regulate how athletes make money on the use of their name and image. Many star athletes are profiting healthily from the NIL program, but colleges claim it undermines and may destroy college sports. (We know – we’re all weeping for the university administrators, some of them from schools with endowments in the billions of dollars.)
Recently, the NCAA has indicated that it will consider placing restrictions on the NIL program and how much athletes can earn from it.
Against this backdrop, Baker appeared before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Innovation, Data, and Commerce on Thursday to testify about the issue, the second time he has testified before Congress on NIL.
But he wasn’t prepared for the questions that Florida Representative Kat Cammack asked him.
Cammack Brings The Heat On Title IX and “Trans Women” In Sports
Veering away from the NIL issue altogether, Rep. Cammack turned her questions of Baker to the issue of Title IX and “trans women” (a.k.a., men) competing against women in college sports.
Citing Title IX as the basis of her question, she directly and bluntly demands that Baker commit to reversing the NCAA policy (enacted under the previous president Mark Emmert) allowing men to compete in women’s sports. Baker’s stammering response – not to mention the flustered look on his face – tells you everything you need to know.
“I understand the reason this issue is such a complicated one for people…and such a challenging one” he stuttered.
Cammack was having NONE of that.
“President Baker, respectfully … it is not difficult, it is not complicated. It’s DNA,” she fired back. “There are physiological differences and let’s follow the science. That should be the position. Men are men, women are women, and that is that.”
(Personally, we loved her use of the favorite saying of the left: “Follow the science.”)
Cammack Gets Kudos For Her Blunt Honesty
It will come as no surprise that “Problematic Woman of the Year” Riley Gaines was one of the first to congratulate Cammack for stating the issue so clearly and forcefully. Just a few days prior, Gaines had ripped Baker for ducking her and ignoring female athletes.
Other, smaller accounts made their voices of support heard as well.
Baker was the governor of Massachusetts from 2015-2023 but is widely considered a liberal Republican. He also supported the impeachment inquiries into former President Donald Trump.
Following this exchange, Kat Cammack did return her questioning of Baker and of Missouri Valley Conference Commissioner Jeff Jackson to the topic of NIL, which is a very complicated issue, granted.
The issue of allowing men to compete against women, however, as Rep. Cammack said herself, is NOT complicated.
