CLEMSON – Though the start of the college football season is approaching, matters off the field are still making headlines.

The latest comes from Washington, D.C., where President Donald Trump is considering an executive order that would require federal authorities to clarify whether college athletes can be considered employees of their schools, according to a story on ESPN.com Thursday afternoon.

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney has always been against the professionalization of college athletics, as many coaches and administrators have over the years.

“The best thing for coaches, in the kind of world we are in right now, is for them to be employees. The worst thing? Is for them to be employees,” Swinney said in March of 2024. “That is not a world we want for eighteen-year-olds.

“I think we lost our way.”

Swinney has said recently he is fine with the current structure, which now pays athletes through revenue sharing, thanks to the House settlement and Name, Image and Likeness (NIL), but still incentivizes education through scholarships.

“I think the NIL is awesome. I really am (for it),” Swinney said at the time. “I am all for enhancing the scholarship, however you want, but I also understand the reality that ninety-eight percent of these kids are not going to play in the NFL. We need to educate our young people in this society. Nobody talks about the value of an education anymore.”

The draft, obtained by ESPN, calls on the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to “determine and implement the appropriate measures with respect to clarifying the status of collegiate athletes.”

It also states the employment status of college athletes should “maximize the educational benefits and opportunities” schools can provide through their athletic departments.

Trumps potential order echoes concern of college athletes obtaining employee rights, something college leaders have been trying to block due to most athletic departments being unable to afford the added cost of employment.

The order asks the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to clarify employee status for college athletes. Trump, however, does not have the authority to make that decision himself in an executive order.

According to ESPN, “Trump might not go through with the executive order, which appears to be more supportive of college athletics rather than prescribing any specific transformational changes.”

If the order is signed in its current draft, it would also establish a commission to determine ways in which Trump’s administration could support “the preservation of collegiate athletic opportunities.”

“The draft also calls on other federal authorities — such as the Federal Trade Commission, Attorney General and Secretary of Education — to take steps toward creating policies that would support the future of college sports and the training those programs provide for future U.S. Olympians,” according to ESPN.

Over the last several years, college administrators have tried to get Congress to create a new federal law that could help them regain some of the power lost by antitrust lawsuits in the last 10 years or so.

“Those leaders have asked for a law that prevents athletes from becoming employees and provides the NCAA with an antitrust exemption that would allow them to make its own rules — many of which would limit players’ earning potential.”