It has begun again. Sports agents have launched attacks on African-American college football players. Now someone needs to stand up for the students. College coaches, the NCAA, and the NFL Players Association certainly aren’t helping enough.

Agents will target guys who come from inner city, single parent households because the mother, father or grandmother don’t understand how sports contracts are drawn up. They will search out relatives, family friends, and longtime coaches whom they can easily persuade with bags of cash. “Sign with my agency,” they say. Then, if an intelligent relative or family friend who can see through their shady dealings tries to stop them, they spread lies to turn the player and other loved ones against the people who have their best interest at heart.

An agent with  ?  Sports Management approached a player I knew that he was trying to sign. He claimed The Young man Coach had been paid a $200,000 finder’s fee. This was a bold-faced lie and when The Coach confronted the agent about it, he recanted his statement. Agents pull this kind of unscrupulous tactic all the time.

Most players and their families don’t realize the representation contracts they sign disproportionately favor the agent. In fact, agents will try to get a player to sign three contracts: a standard representation agreement, plus two more for “marketing” and “training” to prepare a player for the draft. They are triple-dipping, plus collecting kickbacks from the car dealers that sell the student athlete a brand new ride to the physical trainer who gets the player in tip-top shape.

And to make sure they get their hooks into a player, the agents will have a power-of-attorney clause that allows them to control an athlete’s money. Before the player knows it, he owes the agent millions of dollars.

Only the smart players like Cleveland Browns star Duke Johnson and Atlanta Falcons pro bowler Devonta Freeman have people looking out for their best interest. Johnson and Freeman hired my wife to negotiate their contracts with their sports agents and co-represent them, something white quarterbacks like Andrew Luck and Peyton Manning have done. This ensures that they don’t get screwed over by the agents. At the same time, they are getting two agents for the price of one.

The NCAA makes billions of dollars off these players, yet it allows agents to pursue them after the season virtually without scrutiny. The players association doesn’t do anything either. Why? Well, many of the college coaches and NFLPA executives who are ex-players are represented by the same agents looking to rip off student athletes entering the draft.

A majority of these players and their families are signing contracts without an attorney to look it over. In the music industry, an artist must have legal representation or sign a waiver. The NFL should have the same requirement. African American players need someone who’s in their corner.