Court Rejects NCAA Eligibility Challenge

The Supreme Court refused Monday to revive a former Notre Dame football player’s challenge to an NCAA rule barring college eligibility for athletes who declare for the NFL draft.

The court, without comment, rejected Braxton Lee Banks’ argument that the NCAA rule is an illegal restraint of trade.

Banks was a part-time starter as a fullback on Notre Dame’s 1988 national championship team. He sat out the 1989 season because of a knee injury.

He was on the verge of earning bachelor’s degrees in English and business when he said in March of 1990 that he would forgo his final year of college eligibility and make himself eligible for the draft.

He retained an agent but when he wasn’t drafted and was unsuccessful in his only free-agent tryout, with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Banks sought to regain his eligibility at Notre Dame.

NCAA rules bar students from playing a college sport after hiring an agent and declaring eligibility for the pro draft in the same sport that they played in college.