Sedona Prince is beginning her seventh and final year of college basketball. From her viral video back in the NCAA Tournament bubble in 2021 to her role in a landmark antitrust lawsuit that will help get money for college athletes, she has already left her mark off the court.
If she can help TCU have a memorable season on the court, it will be a welcome bonus.
Now 24, Prince was one of the lead plaintiffs in the House vs. NCAA lawsuit that led to the $2.8 billion NCAA settlement agreement that recently received preliminary approval from a federal judge. When it's finally done, the agreement will allow colleges to directly pay their athletes, perhaps as early as next fall. It also includes millions in damages.
“It’s a big win, something we’ve been trying for, for a long time," Prince said in a interview with The Associated Press. “Major step forward. There's a lot to be done going forward. It's more than we ever could have asked for and a step in the right direction.”
It’s been quite the journey for Prince, whose career started in 2018 with Texas before she left for Oregon after breaking her leg playing for USA Basketball.
She was with the Ducks in March 2021 when her social media video went viral for exposing the disparities between the weight room for the women at the NCAA Tournament bubble vs. the one the men had, as well as differences in the food. The video embarrassed tournament organizers and prompted apologies — The New York Times a year later called it "The Video That Changed the N.C.A.A." — and it prompted changes across women’s basketball.
“Making those changes is incredible and I hope it continues to be that way, and not just from a massive scandal, and a player exposing them on a national stage,” Prince told AP in the aftermath. “Things shouldn’t be fixed that way.”
More than three years later, Prince can look back at the uproar with context on the changes she helped drive.
“The weight room video stuff was insane, something I wouldn’t have expected as a 20-year old kid,” Prince said.
She was even younger in June 2020 when she and former Arizona State swimmer Grant House became the lead plaintiffs in the landmark antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA and the five biggest conferences in the country. Their primary goal was to throw out the rules against athletes earning money based on the use of their names, images or likenesses — and a year later, the NCAA cleared the way for the NIL era in college athletics.
“I didn’t know that this lawsuit would benefit in any capacity of financial gain for anyone," she says now. "My biggest goal was to create change. When I wasn’t playing, I started to create my social media platform and it started to gain traction, I knew then I could be a person to create this change, especially from the position I was in.”
“I was approached to become a plaintiff in the lawsuit," she added. “I educated myself on what NIL meant, what it is, how it could help, dove deep into this particular conversation and I agreed to become a plaintiff.”
Prince was also part of a federal lawsuit along with Duke football player Dewayne Carter and Stanford soccer player Nya Harrison seeking to bar the NCAA from enforcing any rules that prohibit athlete compensation. The settlement announced in May is intended to address those concerns.
Prince said she envisions a future where schools can directly pay athletes what they are worth — and those days seem to be coming up fast.
“NIL was started as a much different thing, now it’s morphing into a salary for student-athletes,” she said. “It’s very different looking back. How I earned my NIL money was doing brand deals, now student-athletes will be able to get paid for playing for school. It’s cool to wonder where it’s going to be next year.”
Prince spent a few years at Oregon before injuring her elbow and needing reconstructive surgery. The 6-foot-7 center later dropped out of school and moved to Los Angeles, figuring her college career was over.
Two weeks before the 2023 WNBA draft, which she had entered, she saw that Oregon assistant Mark Campbell had taken the TCU head coaching job. She called him to see if she could play at the school a few hours' drive north of where she starred as high school player in Liberty Hill, Texas.
After a lot of paperwork, she enrolled in TCU, only to break a finger 14 games into last season. After surgery, she was sidelined for nearly two months. Prince wound up averaging 19.7 points and 9.7 rebounds over 21 games.
“At the end of the season last year I thought it was all over, but the NCAA gave us a phone call that you had one more year left,” she said.
Prince, who has only played in 70 games over six years, noted that two redshirt seasons and an extra COVID year left her with seven eligible seasons and that “finally, all the pieces fell into place and I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be and everything happens for a reason.”
TCU's season opener is Tuesday at home against Houston Christian. Prince can't wait, even if her legacy is already established, and she is eager to get ready for the next WNBA draft with her pro career hopes alive and well.
“Being the player I want to be on the court, I haven’t been able to show that yet," she said. "I haven't been able to impact the game with my basketball play because of injuries, but off the court I have been able to boost the game, close the gap inch by inch.”
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