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Twelfth-seeded McNeese State, which pulled off a thrilling 69–67 upset of No. 5 Clemson on Thursday afternoon, is this year’s first Cinderella story of the NCAA tournament. The team’s most viral star isn’t even a player, though. It’s student manager Amir “Aura” Khan.
Khan first went viral in February for a video posted on social media of him rapping Lud Foe’s “In & Out” while leading players out of the tunnel for a game against Texas A&M Corpus Christi, carrying a giant boombox around his shoulder. Since then, he’s become a sensation, leading his teammates onto the court while blasting the rap tunes.
Khan, a native of Lake Charles, La., and a senior at McNeese State, is also believed to be the first student-manager to land NIL (name, image, and likeness) deals. He also has partnerships with Buffalo Wild Wings and Insomnia Cookies, and has even worked with The NIL Store on custom merchandise. Through a deal with TickPick, he now carries a boom box with the company’s logo across the top. Just hours before tip-off Thursday, he posted another sponsored video promoting The Formula Bot.
The situation exposes the disparate manner in which the NCAA has insisted on treating college athletes, compared with their non-athlete student counterparts.
Unlike “student-athletes,” student managers have never been precluded from capitalizing on their NIL potential. The NCAA prohibited players from signing NIL deals until it agreed to change its rules on July 1, 2021. But the NCAA has never implemented a rule against a student manager doing endorsement deals, or otherwise profiting from their own NIL.
“It’s just another demonstration about how the only concern the NCAA had for amateurism was regarding the players on the floor,” Boise State sports law professor Sam Ehrlich tells Front Office Sports.
So while players and student managers alike can now capitalize on their Cinderella moments during March Madness, the NCAA for years insisted on treating players differently than even the student workers sitting next to them on the bench.
