The National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I men's and women's basketball championship games on Monday and Tuesday mark the culmination of a month that saw more than 10,000 student-athletes participate in 23 different championships at all levels of the NCAA.

We are proud to be a part of an organization that inspires the fervor and intensity of March Madness. For us, though, the championship games are about more than spectacle and excitement. Big events like these help the NCAA to provide opportunities for more than 460,000 student-athletes to get an education, to grow under the guidance of the world's finest coaches and professors, and to become leaders on the field and off.

Those opportunities are being jeopardized by a push from people who believe that unionization for a few is the best and only way to address the current dynamic of college athletics. For now, the unionization push is focused on Northwestern University football student-athletes, but we must see if the National Labor Relations board upholds its recent ruling in favor of Northwestern players who seek to unionize.

We oppose the effort to bring labor unions into college sports. One group of athletes is not more hardworking, more dedicated or more driven than another. Unionization will create unequal treatment not only among student-athletes competing in different sports, but, quite possibly, even among student-athletes on the same team.

Our concerns about this movement extend beyond the economic and practical difficulties created by transforming the college-sports relationship into one of employer-employee. To call student-athletes employees is an affront to those players who are taking full advantage of the opportunity to get an education.