Stephen A Smith has launched a blistering attack on Donald Trump for not including Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman in the Saving College Sports roundtable discussion at the White House earlier this year.

This week, the Senate passed the Protect College Sports Act 77-22, with a vote in the House of Representatives due in November following the midterm elections. The PCSA is a bipartisan federal bill that aims to establish uniform national standards for college sports, including regulations on financial compensation, NIL (name, image, and likeness) rules, and guidelines for the transfer portal, among others.

It has been months in the making, with Trump hosting a roundtable discussion at the White House earlier this year in March. There were 50 attendees, which included NBA commissioner Adam Silver, former Alabama head coach Nick Saban, and Senator Ted Cruz, who recently made a bizarre claim about his appearance on ESPN’s College GameDay last month. However, only two of the attendees were Black: former Heisman trophy winner Charlie Ward and former U.S. Secretary of State Condolezza Rice.

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The lack of Black attendees left Smith irked, with him launching into a furious tirade about the makeup of the roundtable and how it marginalized Black voices in the conversation about the future of college sports. Speaking on Straight Shooter, Smith questioned why the roundtable did not also include any student-athletes who will be impacted by the new NIL rules and guidelines, adding that revenue-generating sports at the college level feature a large number of Black athletes.

He began: “Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you why I bring this up and why this is such a problem. I brought that sound to you because, make no mistake about it, while there are some good things in the bill, there’s a lot that people are complaining about as it pertains to empowering the NCAA, empowering collegiate institutions.

“And minimizing and dissipating the power of the student athlete. Also, keep in mind that a lot of these student athletes, particularly in the revenue-generating sports, happen to be Black.”

Smith then turned his ire toward the makeup of the March roundtable, clearly furious that Black voices were minimized by Trump’s actions. He continued: “And when you take that into consideration, and then you disect this even more and you recognize the fact that the President, just months ago in the month of March had convened 50 people at the White House to discuss this issue and to find a way to reach an accord so they can get college sports back under control, and the billions of dollars that flow into the NCAA comes attached with a level of control that’s not necessarily in the hands of the student athlete.

“You’ve got yourself a problem. And I’ll tell you why. There were no student-athletes at the negotiating table. They didn’t have representation. There was nothing collectively bargained. There were 50 people in attendance. According to the registry, two were Black. Two. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, with her association with Stanford, and of course, Charlie Ward, former star at Florida State, former NBA player as well … 50 people, two Blacks.”

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It was then that Smith questioned why Marcus Freeman, one of college football’s top coaches and a Black coach, was not invited to the roundtable, given his pedigree and achievements at Notre Dame. “Let’s go a step further with this, because we’re talking about the Saving College Sports roundtable,” added Smith.

“This took place on March 6th, 2026 … by the way, also, no Black college football head coach. No Black college athletic director, or Black conference commissioner, appeared on the published final participant list. Nobody. I’m going to repeat that. A Black college football coach. You ever heard of this guy named Marcus Freeman?

“Happens to be one of the top five coaches in the nation. Happens to be coaching in one of the most prestigious programs in all of college football. A matter of fact, Notre Dame is the one college that has independent status and holds on to it for dear life. They participate in the ACC conference in every other damn sport but football.

“They keep their independence with football because they don’t have to engage in revenue sharing. A Black man coaches that team! Who is one of the top teams in the nation! 50 people are invited to the White House. He ain’t one of them! Black athletic directors, nowhere to be found.

“Black conference commissioners nowhere to be found. Let’s call it what it is. Trump and the people that he had up in there, it looked like a modern-day country club. But that man is talking to Black people, and he’s sitting up there and saying, ‘What the hell do you have to lose?'”