Kansas State's Jerome Tang Talks About Added Pressures of NIL

On July 1, 2021, NIL officially went into effect changing the college sports landscape as we knew it. Now the topic dominates much of the debate around college sports. While athletes have benefitted from being able to profit from their name, image and likeness, it has also added more pressure on the athletes competing at universities across America.

Jerome Tang coaches his team during the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. | Jacob Kupferman/Getty Images

Last June Kansas State was thrust into the NIL conversation as Coleman Hawkins announced he withdrew from the NBA Draft before transferring to the Wildcats program.

It was reported in an article Hawkins' NIL deal was "in the ballpark of $2,000,000." With that information public, there was more pressure on Hawkins to play at a high level.

"Whoever advised him to put his salary out there didn't realize the pressure they were putting on that young fella," said Kansas State basketball head coach Jerome Tang in a Field of 68 YouTube video. "He had a career year... he was a super facilitator, connector... when we went on that six game winning streak he facilitated all of that... but people expected the expectations of what they wanted him to be, was not the reality of who he was and all that did was add pressure. "

With the new era of NIL and public salary it is easy to compare college athletes to professionals. Tang said that there is a difference between how NIL deals and professional contracts are looked at.

"When was the last time that an NBA guy went to the podium and a media person said, 'Man, we're paying you $46 million this year and you're really not delivering what we thought you would,' and those guys (NBA players) don't go to the podium and apologize for how they played because they have a maturity about them that it's moving onto the next," Tang said. "Where as these guys (college athletes) are experiencing this for the first time, and like you read into every question 'Well is he asking me this because of the NIL?' and so the maturity of kids learning how to deal with this, that's one thing and this was new for Coleman."

NIL will continue to be apart of the college sports landscape, and athletes and coaches alike will have to adapt to the added pressures and difficulties.

Seth Kunz is a contributor to Kansas State Wildcats On SI. He can be reached at sethkunz988@gmail.com

Follow our coverage on Facebook.

X: @KStateOnSI