Photo by Gazelle Multimedia Team/The Gazelle

The administrative decision to exclude seniors from this spring's Athletics Department trip to a tournament in Milan should bring worry to all current and future NYU Abu Dhabi student athletes. It's a decision that marks a decisive shift in the department’s ideology.

Essentially, this decision represents a commodification of the athlete at this school. A student athlete’s value to the department is now determined solely by his or her ability to impact future performances. The department’s move implies that if a player won't help bring wins and championships to NYUAD past the current year, then the team has no reason to reward them.

This policy inspires the counterintuitive notion that as you progress through your career here, you actually have less value to the team because you have fewer games left to play. A senior athlete has one playoff run left, while underclassmen stand to impact several more seasons. The most valuable players on the court or pitch become not those with the most experience, but with the least.

Though the administration may think this is a pragmatic decision, we believe it will have a negative effect. Sure, opportunities given to seniors now are ones that cannot be given to underclassmen. But by not rewarding commitment to the program, the department fails to bring the inspiration necessary for athletes to give years of hard work and time to their teams. It's a signal to take what you can from Athletics now, because there's no guarantee that working harder will bring you anything later.

In my own senior year of high school, I began my final basketball season with a serious ankle injury. Eight weeks later, I returned to see not only my starting position gone, but nearly all playing time as well. Though fewer than half of the games were already played, the season was chalked up as a losing season, and it became a rebuilding year. Younger athletes became the focus of the team at the expense of the older ones, and an already ugly season grew worse for not just seniors but all students involved. Instead of leaving the program happy about the time invested and all the games played, both won and lost, I left with a seriously bitter taste in my mouth.

Milan represents an important turning point in athletics at NYUAD. The student body will learn the philosophy of the Athletics Department. Right now, they stand between creating two markedly different outlooks. There's one in which they foster an environment of dedication and commitment. Athletes come into the program knowing that hard work is rewarded, that winning is the goal now and that an environment that promotes success in the long run is ideal.

The other, bleaker outlook is the one that Athletics seems to be guiding us towards. It's one where athletes come to teams looking not for what they can contribute, but what they can gain. It's one where teams are more fluid than they are enduring, more a collection of transient individuals than an actual team. We are calling on Athletics to reverse the current exclusion policy and to lead us down the former path.

Our unrest stems from the fact that athletes who put in years of time and effort developing this program and representing our university are being told that they are less important because they will graduate soon. Athletics is turning its back on the very players who quite literally built our program. What message does this send to other players or potential players for the future? Will they also be thrown under the bus when their time comes?

-Liam Meier, Class of 2019 Basketball Player. This letter is published on behalf of the NYUAD Men's Basketball Players.