A Central Florida student athlete who spent the past two seasons as a kicker for the football team, has lost his NCAA eligibility because of he made money from his YouTube videos.
According to reports, upon learning of the athlete’s status on YouTube, the school gave Donald De La Haye a few conditions to follow in order to keep his presence on the website and remain a student athlete. However, De La Haye refused to, prompting the university to take matters into their own hands.
“I really never thought it would come down to this,” De La Haye said in a video on Monday. “They 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.”
“They wanted me to give my money up that I made, which is crazy,” De La Haye added, referencing one of the conditions, which required him to refrain from selling ads for the videos that pertain to college athletics. “I worked so hard for it, you want me to just throw my money away? Want me to take down my videos, which again I worked so hard for and wasn’t comfortable doing? So I told them no.”
The former student athlete’s YouTube channel has nearly 100,000 subscribers and videos which are monetized for profit. However, the NCAA has strict rules and regulations against student-athletes making money off of their images. So, the school decided to look into De La Haye’s case to determine whether or not the former kicker’s videos violated those rules.
Upon further investigation, the school determined that De La Haye could continue to play for the team and monetize his videos if he did not reveal that he was a student-athlete or show his skill or ability on video. But if he wanted to disclose his state as a student-athlete or show his skill or ability, he would have to demonetize his account.
“De La Haye chose not to accept the conditions of the waiver and has therefore been ruled ineligible to compete in NCAA sanctioned competition. UCF Athletics wishes him the best in his future endeavors,” UCF said in a statement.
As a result, De La Haye will post on YouTube fulltime.
“I really did nothing wrong,” De La Haye said in Monday’s YouTube video. “I was just motivating kids, helping them out. A lot of people that watch my videos say I inspire them, say they love what I do, say I brought smiles to them, light up their day. I was just having innocent fun. But you know the NCAA monsters, man – if it don’t benefit them, then they don’t want it.”
However, UCF deemed De La Haye ineligible, not the NCAA.
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