The following story is from the Fall 2024 edition of the "Roar Report" that came out September 25. It is authored by Gary D'Amato, the former longtime sportswriter and columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who joined the staff as the feature writer for the Roar Report in the Fall of 2018.

A Whole New World
 
Joah Tucker never imagined that he'd become a fundraiser when he left basketball behind and started a career as a successful businessman and entrepreneur.
 
Then again, he could not have foreseen how the landscape of college athletics would be drastically altered — upended, really -- by the NCAA's name, imagine and likeness (NIL) policy, which went into effect on July 1, 2021. That allowed student-athletes to control how their identity is used for commercial purposes.
 
Tucker, who helped lead Milwaukee to its first Sweet Sixteen appearance in program history in 2005 and then played professionally in France, recognized immediately the challenges that NIL would create for college programs everywhere, but especially at mid-majors.
 
The recruiting and retention of players — given the Wild West nature of the transfer portal — became exponentially more difficult.
 
It wasn't enough that Milwaukee was in the process of building a new state-of-the-art basketball practice facility (the Orthopaedic Hospital of Wisconsin Center). It wasn't enough that nine months after the NIL policy went into effect, the school would hire Bart Lundy, a proven winner, to coach its basketball team.
 
The future was crystal clear. The school had to find a way to compensate players through NIL, or the basketball program would not be competitive.
 
"I felt that UWM, especially being a mid-major school, would really be hurt by this ruling because most of the larger schools would have some type of foundation set up where they would be able to offer incentives to student-athletes," Tucker said. "I felt that a school like UWM, where we have a great young coach building a foundation, would be hurt because our players would just be poached every year."
 
So Tucker rolled up his sleeves and helped found the Panther Future Fund, which he directs. The PFF is a nonprofit organization that raises money from fans, donors, boosters and businesses to support student-athletes, who earn money from the collective for speaking engagements and various forms of community service.
 
Tucker, 41, was a natural to run the PFF. A graduate of Glendale Nicolet High School and a former star for the Panthers, he has maintained close ties to the  university and its basketball program — he was on the hiring committee that chose Lundy — and has deep roots in the community. He owns a lawn care company, manages a small portfolio of properties and has invested in bars and restaurants in downtown Milwaukee.
 
"What I knew I could bring to the table is that I could utilize the relationships and the bonds I've built with people over the years," Tucker said. "I think people are familiar with my sports background at UWM. I think people are familiar with my business acumen here in the city and within the community."
 
The only problem? He knew little about fundraising and admitted he was somewhat out of his element. Tucker worked hard for everything he'd ever gotten and wasn't necessarily comfortable putting his hand out.
 
"I believe in working hard, I believe in earning for my family," he said. "So it's against my natural character to ask people for things. In this fundraising effort, I've had to really go outside of myself."
 
Money that goes into the PFF is distributed to the players for opportunities such as speaking engagements and community service involvement.
 
"It's a tricky situation and every university and every collective has a different way to go about it," Lundy said. "We do the best we can with whatever money is raised. But it's not even across the board. Although there a few universities that do it that way, there are a very few."
 
Lundy describes himself as "old school" and admits that NIL and the transfer portal have added complexities to his job that he couldn't have imagined when he started out in coaching.
 
"Not that NIL is a bad thing," he said. "It's probably long overdue in college athletics. Instead of looking at this as a negative, we try to turn it into a positive. This city needs us. They need our guys and they need us to make a difference, on the court but also off the court. We really do try to roll our sleeves up. If these guys are going to get money from the collective, then they get out in the community and give back."
 
Lundy said the PFF was necessary not only to recruit players but to retain the players on his own roster. No matter how loyal a player is to his school, his coach and his teammates, the opportunity to make substantially more money in another program is hard to pass up.
 
"Athletes are getting NILs as early as high school now," Lundy said. "The current group of players are growing up in this environment where this is the norm. You can feel whatever way you want to feel about the NIL in general, but it's here to stay.
 
"So we have to embrace it and do the best we can with it. But as far as being able to recruit new players or retain your players, if you don't have a collective and you don't have NIL, then you have no chance. Once they're in the door, you can sell the education and it doesn't necessarily become what kind of NIL they're going to get. But if you have none, then the door never opens for you to sell your program."
 
The Panthers were stung in April when star guard B.J. Freeman, who averaged 21.1 points, 6.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists last year in leading Milwaukee to a 20-15 record, transferred to Arizona State.

Lundy didn't want to divulge exactly how much NIL money Freeman got, but said it was "closer to $1 million than not." There's no way UWM could compete in that arena. To be clear, Freeman loved Milwaukee, the coaches and his teammates, but money — as it always does — spoke loudly.
 
"I guess it's good for our fans and the people at the university to understand (why Freeman left)," Lundy said. "That's life-changing money for him."
 
Tucker said he harbored no hard feelings for Freeman, an elite college talent who would still be considered a long shot to play in the NBA.
 
"Realistically, if someone is offering me an opportunity at another university, it's just like any other job," Tucker said. "If you want to put scholarships and all those things into a price, obviously you're getting some form of compensation. But if I'm able to double what I'm getting (paid), that's typically what people do. It's what I would have done."
 
For now, Tucker's focus is on growing the PFF and helping Milwaukee recruit and retain basketball talent. The challenges and the stakes have never been bigger.
 
"I've been given a ton of opportunities due to the game of basketball," he said. "Obviously, I put in a ton of hard work, but I feel that I was blessed with a lot of opportunities over the years. Now, I'm paying it forward."