PHILADELPHIA, PA – The tectonic plates of college sports have shifted, and the landscape will never be the same.
For decades, the world of college athletics operated as a coherent, predictable universe. It was a system where the term “student-athlete” was sacrosanct, amateurism was the guiding creed, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was the unquestioned governing authority. This model, however, has not merely evolved. It has been violently upended. The past five years have witnessed what the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn would term a “paradigm shift”—a revolutionary, non-cumulative break from the old order, driven by legal challenges that shattered the NCAA’s foundational principles.
The emergence of name, image, and likeness (NIL) compensation and unlimited transfers with immediate eligibility has not reformed the system; it has created a new one, fundamentally altering the nature of college sports, especially football and men’s and women’s basketball.
The Kuhn Framework: How Revolutions Unfold
To understand what is happening in college sports, one must first understand Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions. In his seminal 1962 work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn argued that scientific progress is not a linear, cumulative process. Instead, it occurs through violent ruptures he called “paradigm shifts”.
A paradigm is a framework of beliefs, values, and techniques shared by a community. For a time, it provides model problems and solutions in a process Kuhn labeled “normal science.”
But eventually, anomalies—observations the prevailing paradigm cannot explain—accumulate, leading to a period of crisis. This crisis deepens until the old paradigm is overthrown and replaced by a new, incompatible one. The new paradigm is “incommensurable” with the old; they are so different that proponents of each see the world differently, use different definitions, and fundamentally talk past one another. This is not a change in degree, but in kind. It is a gestalt switch, where a drawing that was once seen as a duck is now seen as a rabbit, and it is impossible to see both at once.
The Age of ‘Normal Science’ in College Athletics
For the better part of a century, college athletics existed in a prolonged state of Kuhn’s “normal science.” The dominant paradigm was the “amateur ideal.” Its core tenets were simple and universally accepted within the industry:
No Pay-for-Play: Athletes were “amateurs” who could not be compensated for their athletic performance beyond the cost of attendance
Limited Mobility: Transfers were heavily restricted, often requiring athletes to sit out a year of competition, thereby discouraging movement
Institutional Control: The NCAA and its member institutions held absolute power to set and enforce the rules
This paradigm was not merely a set of rules; it was a worldview. It defined the very product. As Kuhn might have observed, it told everyone in the system—administrators, coaches, athletes, and fans—how to think and behave. It provided a stable, predictable environment where seasons unfolded with rosters fans could recognize from year to year, and where the NCAA’s authority was as assumed as the rules of gravity.
Accumulating Anomalies and the Onset of Crisis
The facade of this stable world began to crack under the weight of mounting anomalies. The commercial reality of college sports—the billion-dollar television contracts, massive coaching salaries, and lavish facilities—increasingly clashed with the amateur ideology.
The sight of athletes, particularly in revenue-generating football and basketball, generating immense wealth without sharing in it became an undeniable contradiction.
This set the stage for a crisis, triggered by a series of legal challenges that acted as Kuhn’s “extraordinary research”. The courts became the laboratory where the old paradigm was tested and found wanting.
The Alston Decision: The pivotal blow came in 2021 from the U.S. Supreme Court in NCAA v. Alston. While the case specifically dealt with education-related benefits, Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion unequivocally declined to grant the NCAA “immunity from the normal operation of the antitrust laws”.
Justice Kavanaugh’s Concurrence: The true harbinger of revolution was Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s blistering concurrence. He called the ruling a necessary “course correction” and laid bare the anomaly at the system’s core: “Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate,” he wrote. “The NCAA is not above the law”.
This judicial dismantling of the NCAA’s legal shield created a state of deep crisis. The old paradigm was no longer tenable, and the search for a new one began.
The Revolution Unleashed: A New World Order
The collapse of the old model under legal pressure has rapidly given way to a new paradigm, characterized by two revolutionary changes:
Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL): Since 2021, athletes have been allowed to profit from their fame through endorsements, appearances, and social media promotions. This was the death knell for pure amateurism.
Unlimited Transfers with Immediate Eligibility: Following relentless antitrust lawsuits from state attorneys general and the U.S. Department of Justice, the NCAA’s transfer restrictions have been eviscerated.
Athletes can now enter the transfer portal multiple times and play immediately at their new school, creating a system of year-round free agency.
The following table contrasts the core elements of the old and new paradigms in college athletics:
This new system is not merely an adjustment. It is a fundamental redefinition of what college sports are.
Living in Incommensurable Worlds
The chasm between the old and new paradigms is so vast that they are, in Kuhn’s terms, incommensurable. Stakeholders are effectively living in different realities.
Different Standards: Concepts like “loyalty” and “team-building” now have entirely different meanings. A coach bemoaning a player’s lack of loyalty, based on the old standard of a four-year commitment, cannot communicate with a player operating in a new world where loyalty must be re-earned by the program year after year through NIL offers and playing time
Different Worlds: Coaches now navigate a “transactional culture”. As one soccer coach lamented regarding new roster limits, the focus is on “hit[ting] on virtually all of the 5-6 commits each year,” turning recruiting from an art of potential into a science of immediate ROI . Meanwhile, athletes see themselves not just as students, but as entrepreneurs managing their own brands.
Communication Breakdown: The same words mean different things. An “offer” from a school once meant an athletic scholarship. Now, it is a complex package of scholarship, NIL money from a collective, and potential branding opportunities. When administrators, coaches, athletes, and fans use the term “college sports,” they are, quite literally, talking about different things.
The View from the Palestra: A Case Study in Revolution
The human cost of this revolution is etched into the history of Philadelphia’s Big 5. For more than six decades, the rivalry between LaSalle, Pennsylvania, St. Joseph’s, Temple, and Villanova was a unique institution in college basketball, a frenetic and beloved intracity competition housed in the musty, hallowed halls of the Palestra.
Big 5 basketball as it existed for generations is dead.
The paradigm shift has turned its teams into annual collections of mercenaries. This year’s rosters at Temple, Villanova, and La Salle are not built through years of patient development and freshman recruiting classes. They are assembled through the transfer portal, featuring 12 to 15 new players who are, in effect, paid free agents. The continuity that allowed for deep, city-wide narratives and enduring player legacies has been shattered. The old-timers who cherish the traditions of the Palestra and the new-age fans who track transfer portal rankings now inhabit incommensurable worlds, looking at the same court but seeing entirely different games.
The Uncharted Future
Where this new paradigm will ultimately lead is still uncertain. The revolution has created winners and losers, bestowing newfound wealth and freedom on some athletes while creating instability and uncertainty for others. The core challenge of this nascent paradigm is its sheer chaos—a lack of uniform regulation, concerns over the exploitation of young athletes, and the erosion of any semblance of a level playing field.
Thomas Kuhn taught us that paradigm shifts are not about progress in a moral sense, but about the replacement of one worldview with another. The old paradigm of amateurism is gone, discredited by the courts and abandoned by the culture. The new paradigm of athlete empowerment and free agency is still crystallizing, its final shape unknown. The revolution is complete. The incommensurable has arrived. The games will continue, but they will never be the same.
I miss Micheal Brooks, John Pinone, Mo Martin, Rodney Blake, Howie Evans, Lionel Simmons, Mark Macon, Tim Perry, Mike Vreeswyk, Jameer Nelson, Rap Curry, Bernard Bunt, Jerome Allen, Matt Maloney and Rashid Bey on the court.
I miss John Chaney, Fran Dunphy, Bruiser Flint, Phil Martelli, John Giannini and Rollie Massimino on the sidelines.
Naaaaah… I can’t lie… I don’t miss Rollie.
The Black Cager 