Pitt's upperclassmen only can dream of video game glory

Saleem Brightwell’s timing is a bit off, so he never will know the joy of playing himself in the NCAA Football video game.

“I’m so mad,” Pitt’s senior linebacker said. “I wanted to go to college just to be in the game.”

But athletes who follow him at Pitt and elsewhere eventually will have an opportunity to earn profits off their names, images and likenesses. The NCAA Board of Governors voted unanimously Tuesday to let that happen, although no timetable is set and details specific to the NCAA’s three divisions must be resolved.

But Brightwell likes where the NCAA is headed, even if it does him no good. Can a world full of Nick Patti bobbleheads and Shocky Jacques-Louis digital touchdowns be far off?

“That’s a great step forward,” Brightwell said. “Athletes should get paid off their jersey sales, signing autographs because the schools make so much money off us as athletes.”

Me waiting for NCAA Football 20 to come out pic.twitter.com/tkCjH3sRmu

— Cameron Magruder (@ScooterMagruder) October 29, 2019

But would Brightwell have preferred to see it happen while he was in school, not as he is entering his last month as a college football player.

“They took the game away the year I got into college and put it back the year I leave,” Brightwell said.

When reminded he could find himself in Madden NFL sometime in the next decade, he smiled and said, “That’s the goal.”

The NCAA reluctantly is allowing athletes to profit off their images after California lawmakers last month passed a bill, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, allowing college athletes to make endorsement deals and hire agents. It is scheduled to take effect in 2023.

Explaining his support for the bill, Newsom told The New York Times, “Every single student in the university can market their name, image and likeness. They can go and get a YouTube channel, and they can monetize that. The only group that can’t are athletes. Why is that?”

He called it “a big move to expose the farce.”

Pitt junior quarterback Kenny Pickett said he’s not surprised the NCAA is getting in step with the California law.

“I think it’s good,” he said. “Sooner or later, I knew something was going to happen just with that California law being passed. That’s an unfair advantage if you’re in recruiting. (California schools) are, obviously, going to have a lot of kids go there. They are going to have to balance it out.”

Pickett acknowledges, like Brightwell, he might have been born too soon.

“Maybe, I’ll get one year of it (in 2020),” he said. “Maybe it will be my last year. Who knows? I hope so.”

When he was younger, he said friends would meet at his house in Oakhurst, N.J., after Little League Baseball, set up multiple TVs and stage video game tournaments.

He said he would like to see the return of NCAA Football, which hasn’t had a new release since 2013, especially if it means Pitt’s No. 8 will be one of the game’s digital quarterbacks.

“I don’t even have to get paid off that,” he said. “I’ll just take the game.

“Playing yourself in a video game is like a dream come true.”

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