NFL Star Arian Foster: Fight to Pay College Athletes Like Women's Suffrage Movement

Houston Texans running back Aryan Foster compared the battle to pay college athletes to the women’s suffrage movement at a discussion at Harvard on Wednesday about “The Modern Black Male Athlete.”

According to the Associated Press, “someday, he said, the issue of paying college athletes will be looked at refusing to allow women to vote before the 19th Amendment.”

“We’re going to be like, ‘What were we thinking?” Foster said.

Foster has previously admitted to having accepted some money while he was a star at Tennessee, as Breitbart News has previously noted: 

Foster said, “there were plenty of times where throughout the month I didn’t have enough for food,” and mentioned that, “Our stadium had like 107,000 seats; 107,000 people buying a ticket to come watch us play. It’s tough just like knowing that, being aware of that. We had just won and I had a good game, 100 yards or whatever You go outside and there’s hundreds of kids waiting for you. You’re signing autographs, taking pictures, whatever”:

“Then I walk back, and reality sets in. I go to my dorm room, open my fridge, and there’s nothing in my fridge. Hold up, man. What just happened? Why don’t I have anything to show for what I just did? There was a point where we had no food, no money, so I called my coach and I said, ‘Coach, we don’t have no food. We don’t have no money. We’re hungry. Either you give us some food, or I’m gonna go do something stupid.’ He came down and he brought like 50 tacos for like four or five of us. Which is an NCAA violation. [laughs] But then, the next day I walk up to the facility and I see my coach pull up in a brand new Lexus. Beautiful.”

“I’m a firm believer that an employee should get paid for his work,” Foster added. “And, 100 percent, I see student athletes as employees. Hiding from it is just cowardly.”

Foster spoke at the event along with Seattle’s Richard Sherman, former NFL Players Association President Domonique Foxworth, and Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald.