R.J. Cole was in Greece last March and April, staying up until the wee hours of the morning to follow his former UConn men’s basketball teammates as they surged through the NCAA Tournament to the national championship.
“I know we put so much work in helping the program get back to where it was at,” Cole said. “Unfortunately, we got to two NCAA Tournaments during my time there and we lost in the first round, but I think those moments were like the catalyst for what happened for this last team.”
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As Cole, who transferred from Howard University and had two stellar seasons as the Huskies’ point guard, helped lay the foundation for the program’s fifth championship, he was also on the ground floor of the new culture of name-image-likeness income for student-athletes.
Now on the back end as he pursues his playing career overseas, he’s putting some of his money where his heart is, jumping on a new NIL platform, myNILpay.com, to help student-athletes at both Howard and UConn.
He intends, in fact, to pay all the men’s and women’s basketball players at both schools. His version of giving back.
“It was brought to my attention from my agency,” Cole said. “It would be a good way to give back to both UConn and Howard. It’s an opportunity to be able to give back directly to anybody, to be able to pay them the same amount. It will be easier than it was when I was in school, the funds are going directly to them, and they wouldn’t have to go around and do a camp or something to receive that money. Now, as fans, we can be involved a little more than when NIL first started, and myNILpay is a great way to streamline that.”
R.J. Cole for 3️⃣ to put @UConnMBB within one‼️ pic.twitter.com/ZxlsMH4cB3
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) March 18, 2022
The platform can be described as a sort of Venmo for NIL. In partnership with Marc D’Amelio’s Huskies Collective, this path allows for direct payments of $20 to $5,000, and it is NCAA compliant, in return, for example, for a non-fungible token (NFT), a unique, digital piece of art and, with a digital signature, the athlete fulfills NCAA requirements.
“We created the app because we saw a problem that wasn’t being addressed and wanted to shift the momentum to empower student-athletes by giving them a platform to be recognized and rewarded for their efforts and commitments,” said Brent Chapman, CEO of myNILpay. “We could not be more excited to be a conduit for R.J.’s passion and support for the national champion Huskies and (Howard), one of the nation’s most prominent historically black colleges and universities.”
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Through the platform, any collegiate athlete can be found and paid. Cole is focusing on the men’s and women’s basketball players at the two schools for which he played.
While at UConn, Cole developed “Cole-blooded” apparel to generate NIL money.
“For me, it was huge,” Cole said. “I feel like we were the trial run. For everyone, when we started looking at our own brand, it helped the brand of college basketball grow and the individuality of each player, their brand go. I don’t think it was as big as it is now, but my year was a trailblazer for what NIL has become. It’s just good for the athletes to be able to understand their worth a little bit.”
Cole, who played in the NBA Summer League with the Los Angeles Lakers and has played professionally in Greece and Germany, is leaving Friday for his second season with one of the top pro teams in Lithuania.
Want to support our collective so we can continue to provide these opportunities to athletes? Head over to our website https://t.co/EyIlhjQk4Z and check out Ways To Support!
— D’Amelio Huskies Collective (@DamelioHuskies) May 23, 2023
“Getting out and being able to see the world, I don’t think I would have had this opportunity to travel as much as I have in just a year and a half,” Cole said. “Basketball-wise, you can see the difference in the level of play, the physicality for one. The refs don’t call the game as they would in America. It’s a great brand of basketball, and you get an idea why NBA teams look to grab Europeans in the draft.”
Cole, having helped UConn return to the national spotlight, sees Dan Hurley’s Huskies staying there for years to come.
“They have the right man for the job, obviously, in Coach Hurley,” Cole said. “Now that UConn is getting back to that national brand as a top-level school, I think it’s just going to continue. Student-athletes are going to want to be a part of that. It started with the foundation we laid.”