In July, Master P and his son, Hercy Miller, announced a $2 million NIL deal for Hercy, an incoming freshman basketball player for HBCU university, Tennessee State (TSU).
The deal was head-scratching but the Millers were adding to the revived popularity of HBCU athletics and institutions, so the situation came and went.
“This is going to change the way college athletes want to stay in school,” said Master P to TMZ at the time.
“I’m proud of my son going to an HBCU,” added the hip-hop mogul.
Then last week, that good feeling soured when Master P pulled Hercy out of school over a dispute about the treatment of his son’s hip injury.
“We’ve got a great program at Tennessee State, we’ve got great people, we loved the culture, we just don’t have enough trainers,” said Master P. “We don’t have enough medical people to take care of what needs to be taken care of. We don’t have the technology that the Dukes and all these major universities have. An injury like this could have been prevented.”
Hercy was injured on November 9th in the Tigers’ first game of the season against Alabama A&M.
Four days after his injury, TSU’s medical staff cleared Hercy to play in games against Norfolk State and Fisk.
Afterwards, the school sent Hercy to see a doctor who recommended the freshman take six months off.
That effectively ended his season on November 30th.
But Master P wasn’t content so he consulted a specialist.
“The specialist said if we would have waited any longer he probably wouldn’t have been able to play basketball anymore because next his ACL was going to go out and all other kinds of injuries,” Master P said.
That’s when he made the decision to pull his son from TSU.
Yet he didn’t blame the school. Instead, he blamed the lack of medical resources HBCU institutions have compared to bigger programs.
Tennessee St. school disagreed.
“The issue is not that we’re underfunded at all,” said TSU director of sports medicine Trevor Searcy. “It’s actually the opposite. The issue is that since (athletics director Mikki Allen) has been here we’ve been growing and when you grow your facilities have to grow as well and that’s what we’re in the process of doing now.”
Searcy’s comments come after the Office of Legislative Budget Analysis’s report that said TSU had been underfunded by an estimated $544 million in land-grant funding over the years.
Regardless, TSU’s director stood by his staff and department, which has seven full-time medical employees.
But Master P would not budge.
“How can we help HBCUs if we’re going to sugar coat the truth? Then we are failing the next generation,” said Miller. “What do we need to fundraise for if staff members are saying we have everything we need?”
So is this situation good or bad for HBCU athletics?
Overall, it shines an uncomfortable light on HBCU programs that have gained much-needed momentum in athletic competition.
To address Master P’s claims, the Tennessean looked at other programs in the state.
FBS programs Tennessee and Vanderbilt each have 37 staff members on staff. They range from directors and athletic trainers to rehabilitation specialists to interns.
Those are much bigger programs, so more appropriate comparisons are to schools like Austin Peay (Ohio Valley Conference) and Middle Tennessee State (FCS)
The former has 7 full-time sports medicine staff members consisting of four athletics trainers, two interns and one graduate assistant. They also have a team doctor for all home games.
The latter has 11 sports medicine staff members, including six certified athletic trainers and five certified graduate assistants.
TSU, as mentioned previously, has 7 full-time medical staff members. They also work with orthopedic surgeon Damon Petty, who is the Tennessee Titans’ team physician.
While we don’t know about the facilities at TSU, it appears the size of the staff isn’t the issue.
Maybe it was the initial treatment or maybe Hercy did something to aggravate it later on. That’s unknown.
But maybe Master P’s decision will help improve the treatment options and resources at HBCU institutions in general.
“That’s when I said I have to bring awareness to what’s going on at all these HBCUs — underfunding with no resources. I’m going to be with all the HBCU programs to bring awareness to this but I’m not going to sacrifice my son’s career and his future.”
While Hercy recovers, Master P said he’s open to returning if changes are made.
“If they got the right funding and resources and doctors and nutrition like all the rest of the state-funded schools,” Master P said. “He loved the coaches, he loved the school, he loved Nashville, my family loved Nashville.”
If the recent wave of support for HBCU institutions continues, hopefully it will flow over to the medical treatment options to comfort more parents and students like the Millers.
