NCAA Comes After Texas A&M Cross Country Runner For Promoting His Own Water Bottle Company

The NCAA is threatening the eligibility of 17-year-old Texas A&M freshman Ryan Trahan, a cross country runner with a YouTube channel that promotes the line of water bottles that he developed with a friend in high school.

In a video posted yesterday, Trahan says that he was told that he’s in hot water for “promoting his company with his name, image and likeness as an athlete.” By which they mean that he has used his YouTube channel alternately to showcase his water bottle and to talk about his personal life, which naturally includes his life as a runner. (The nerve!) He’s apparently been told that he can publicly talk about one of these things, but not both.

“These are the two biggest things in my life,” Trahan told the Dallas Morning News of the NCAA’s request that he limit himself to either water bottles or running. “They’re asking me to throw one out the window, essentially.”

Trahan said that he is the process of filing a waiver request to retain his eligibility, though the NCAA said today that they had not received it. His status for this weekend’s meet is in question, per the Morning News.

This comes just a few months after the NCAA wandered into a similar dispute over an athlete’s use of YouTube, coming for Central Florida kickoff specialist Donald De La Haye for showing clips of his day-to-day life on the football team on his channel. De La Haye was ultimately ruled ineligible after he chose not to meet the NCAA’s demands.

[ Dallas Morning News]