Representing Excluded College Athletes: A New Client Market for State-Court Litigators

Geoffrey A. Tabor, Founding Partner | Glass & Tabor, LLP

Geoffrey A. Tabor is a trial attorney and founding partner at Glass & Tabor, LLP, where he litigates contract, employment, insurance, and civil disputes in Oklahoma’s state and federal courts — the same state-law building blocks now driving excluded-athlete litigation. A former Stanford University track and field athlete and two-time NCAA All-American, he knows firsthand what a roster spot, a season of eligibility, and a final year of competition are worth, and he brings that perspective to representing clients whose futures turn on fast-moving emergency litigation.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Tabor earned his B.A. in History and Political Science from Stanford University in 2013, where he competed in NCAA Division I track and field, and his J.D. from the University of Oklahoma College of Law in 2016, receiving the American Jurisprudence Award in Remedies — the law behind the TROs and injunctions central to athlete-eligibility cases. He is admitted to the Oklahoma bar, the U.S. District Courts for the Western and Eastern Districts of Oklahoma, and the Tenth Circuit — spanning both the state courts where eligibility claims are filed and the federal courts to which the NCAA seeks removal.

• Recognition & Leadership

In 2020, Mr. Tabor was named to the “Top 40 Under 40” attorneys in Oklahoma by The National Trial Lawyers. Before practicing law, he lived the system his clients now navigate: he was a two-time NCAA All-American in the discus throw (2011–2012), the 2011 PAC-10 discus champion, and the recipient of the Stanford University Award of Excellence and the Stanford Athletic Department Captain’s Award. A native of Ardmore, Oklahoma, and a four-time high school state track champion, he understands from the inside how eligibility rules, roster decisions, and competition windows shape — and can abruptly end — an athlete’s career.

• Professional Involvement

Geoffrey A. Tabor remains actively engaged in Oklahoma’s state and federal courts, representing clients in civil disputes where timing, forum selection, and emergency relief often decide the outcome. Beyond his legal work, he mentors and coaches young athletes in his community — keeping him closely connected to the athletes and families now confronting the House v. NCAA settlement’s roster limits and the NCAA’s five-year eligibility rule, the very population generating this new docket of state-court cases.

• Experience

Mr. Tabor joined Glass & Tabor in 2016 and has litigated contract, injury, insurance, employment, and property matters in Oklahoma’s state and federal courts — the state-law theories at the core of claim stacking for excluded athletes. His representative cases include Fraternal Order of Police v. City of Norman, 2021 OK 20, 489 P.3d 20. His practice pairs an athlete’s understanding of what is at stake with a litigator’s command of the emergency motions, injunction drafting, and forum strategy this program addresses.

Woodrow “Woody” K. Glass, Founding Partner | Glass & Tabor, LLP

Woodrow “Woody” K. Glass is a founding partner of Glass & Tabor, LLP, and one of the few state-court litigators in the country who has worked inside a major college football program. For more than 30 years he has represented plaintiffs across Oklahoma in high-stakes civil litigation, and he served as Chief of Staff to University of Oklahoma Head Football Coach Brent Venables — a role that placed him at the center of NIL, roster management, compliance, and the business realities of modern college athletics now generating the excluded-athlete docket.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Glass earned his B.A. in Political Science and History, magna cum laude, from Southwestern Oklahoma State University in 1991 and his J.D. from the University of Oklahoma College of Law in 1994. He was admitted to the Oklahoma bar in 1995, along with all three U.S. District Courts in Oklahoma and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit — admissions that span every forum in play when an excluded athlete’s state-court filing draws a removal fight.

• Recognition & Leadership

Mr. Glass has been recognized by Super Lawyers, in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Law Firms, and as a Top 100 attorney by both The National Trial Lawyers and the American Academy of Attorneys, and he received the Community Service Award from the Oklahoma City Association of Black Lawyers. That recognition reflects three decades of courtroom results — the trial credibility that matters most when asking a judge for emergency relief on a roster-deadline clock.

• Professional Involvement

Mr. Glass serves on the University of Oklahoma College of Law Board of Visitors and is a Trustee and Fellow of the Oklahoma Bar Foundation, and he is a member of the Oklahoma Bar Association’s Professionalism Committee. A frequent CLE presenter, he has spoken on legal ethics, employment law, and litigation practice, and he moderates an annual judicial roundtable for the National Business Institute — experience translating complex, fast-moving areas of law, like the post-House athlete-eligibility landscape, into practical guidance for practitioners.

• Experience

Stepping away from full-time practice, Mr. Glass served as Special Assistant and then Chief of Staff to University of Oklahoma Head Football Coach Brent Venables, helping guide the program through its transition to the SEC while advising on NIL, player relations, compliance, NCAA legislation, and roster and staffing decisions — firsthand insight into how roster limits and eligibility rules actually operate inside an athletic department, and into the institutional pressures on the other side of an excluded athlete’s case. Across three decades of plaintiff’s practice, he has handled serious cases throughout Oklahoma’s state and federal courts, including Hackworth v. Progressive Insurance Company, a $61 million verdict — the largest employment discrimination verdict for an individual plaintiff in the Western District of Oklahoma.

SESSION 1 – Turning an Excluded Athlete Into a Case: Claim and Forum Selection | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

This session teaches state-court litigators how to evaluate an excluded college athlete’s situation, select the strongest available claims, and choose a forum that maximizes the chance of emergency relief. Attendees will learn how the House v. NCAA settlement and the NCAA’s five-year eligibility rule are generating a new category of displaced athletes, which state-law theories are working, and how to structure a filing that avoids federal removal. Attorneys leave with a practical framework for intake, claim stacking, and forum selection in a rapidly evolving area.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – Winning the Emergency Motion on a Roster-Deadline Clock | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

This session equips state-court litigators with the procedural, evidentiary, and drafting framework required to win a TRO or preliminary injunction for an excluded college athlete before roster certification deadlines close the window. Drawing on outcomes in Borovicanin, Chambliss, Johnson, Sorsby, and Patterson, attorneys learn what evidence packages courts have credited, which injunction provisions are essential, and how to neutralize the NCAA’s Rule of Restitution. Attendees leave with a replicable motion-building framework calibrated to the roster-deadline clock.