​Lane Stadium in the quiet of a mid season renovation. | John Schneider – SB Nation No sooner than we launched into our first detailed deep dive article on the Preserving College Sports Act (SCORE/Cruz-Cantwell) than we get a huge and predicted curveball pitched across the plate. Stanford’s athletes form a union chapter. Old dismissals and write-offs disintegrate like wet tissue paper.The Situation Morphs and Warps, AgainRemember back in February of 2024? There was a National Labor Relations Board regulatory ruling that Dartmouth’s basketball players were “employees” and therefore allowed to form a union chapter. On March 5th of that year, the team voted to unionize. NLRB Rules Dartmouth Athletes Are Employees, Orders Union ElectionA quick check of Co-Pilot shows that currently the decision still stands. Dartmouth filed suit against the move, but nothing has been determined, to date. If the NLRB affirms the Dartmouth Regional Director’s decision, it would require the school to bargain with the union or face further legal action. Any reversal would likely come through NLRB review or, if dissatisfied, appeal to a U.S. Court of Appeals, but as of now, no such reversal has occurred Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete, LLP+1.In summary: The NLRB’s Dartmouth employment finding is still in force, pending NLRB review, and has not been overturned by any court.The relevance to Tech fans suddenly blooms on the hear horizon because Stanford football players just voted on July 27th to form a chapter of College Football Players Association (CFBPA). The association was founded in 2021, as the NIL era began to roar, and has structural assignations to be similar to the NFL Players Association. Stanford players make first step toward potential college football unionThe CFLPA website is linked here for your information and situational awareness. CFBPA — College Football Players AssociationThe first reality of this is just exactly who are they talking to and which programs are they hearing interest from? There aren’t any clear answers in any searches, just links to the various articles so C0-Pilot doesn’t have enough information to generate a summary. There are two obvious angles with the move and the Virginia Tech Hokies football program. The first is obviously that Stanford is an ACC program and no program in a conference is mute when it comes to other programs, at any level from players to coaches, and administrative staff. They all know each other and talk. The second is an interesting angle because a certain new head coach was running a program that turned down a bid to start a chapter. Penn State refused to become a chapter, Fired Penn State football doctor helps launch player-led chapter at Stanford – pennlive.com(sorry that requires a subscription but the link is important in proof) but when the firings happened, a significant staff doctor decided to throw in with the effort to expand the association. He’s listed on the bo