Former UCF kicker Donald De La Haye has been ruled ineligible to continue playing college Football, the school announced Monday. De La Haye refused to demonetize his YouTube channel, Deestroying, which has over 100,000 subscribers.
What went down
"Basically I'm ruled ineligible because I refused to demonetize my videos; something I've worked so hard for," De La Haye stated in a YouTube video he posted Monday. "Just a young man in his free time making little videos to help motivate, inspire others, and I get deemed ineligible to play college sports because of it," he added.
While De La Haye was alerted he was risking his eligibility by receiving revenue off of the videos back in June, according to the Orlando Sentinel, the rising sophomore decided to continue making videos and earning advertising money from them.
"[The NCAA] proposed me some rules and some conditions that they wanted me to follow, and I refused to. I just didn't feel like they were fair," De La Haye said. "They were willing to compromise with me, but in the end, I don't feel like there was really any compromising happening... it was just very unfair in my opinion, and now I've got to deal with the consequences."
The NCAA's 12.4.4 bylaw states that a student-athlete may establish his/her own business, but cannot use his/her name, photo, appearance, or athletics reputation to promote the business.
Reaction
De La Haye posted a video on YouTube explaining the situation yesterday, which has already totaled over 140,000 views.
UCF, which recently dealt with another issue regarding a student's posting of an apology letter from an ex-girlfirend, released a statement on Monday regarding De La Haye's ineligibility, saying he was granted a waiver that allowed him to maintain eligibility and monetize videos if the videos didn't reference "his status as a student-athlete or depict his football skill or ability." While he could post videos referencing him as a student-athlete on a non-monetized account, De La Haye decided to decline the conditions of the waiver, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
De La Haye criticized the NCAA's ruling in a Sports Illustrated interview, saying, "I feel like it's about time for things to be changed. It's 2017. [With] the era of social media, a lot of things are changing." He later stated that the rules aren't fair to the student-athlete, as "[The NCAA] is allowed to profit off my name and my likeness, and when I try to promote my own brand and spread positivity...
I'm in the wrongdoing."
De La Haye created a GoFundMe page to help him continue his pursuit of a marketing degree. He noted that he is no longer on scholarship as a student-athlete and his YouTube channel alone isn't sufficient to pay for a college education. So far, he has collected over $4,400 in just 19 hours. His goal is $30,000.
