If you look up the definition of curmudgeon in the dictionary, I’m pretty sure you’ll find Frank Deford’s mug there, but this is still a good shot:
… Everybody is in a funk about college football because of the stupid BCS. And the guy who won the Heisman Trophy was arrested for stealing a laptop at Florida and is playing for Auburn only because his father couldn’t sell him to Mississippi State. Oh well, be grateful for small favors. The likely MVP in the NFL is an ex-con.
Get The Picture 
He’s dead on this time.
LikeLike
Might I suggest some bathroom reading? http://www.amazon.com/Portable-Curmudgeon-Plume-Jon-Winokur/dp/0452266688/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293456875&sr=8-1
LikeLike
When you’re right, you’re right, and I hate to find myself agreeing with the curmudgeons of the world, but I do.
The more I think about it, the more outraged I become about this whole Ohio State-Sugar Bowl thing. Let’s leave the Cam Newton situation completely aside… NCAA enforcement is clearly selective and clearly a joke at this point, even if you don’t consider the egregious violations commited by Newton… ahem… Newton’s father.
Pryor and his buddies commited the EXACT SAME violation that AJ Green did. Except they were proven to have sold more items and received more money and benefits. But, thanks to the fact that their violations weren’t found out by the NCAA’s investigators until bowl season*, the players involved are suspended but quite elligible for the Sugar Bowl. It’s a BCS bowl, after all, and we’ve gotta keep those TV ratings pumped up. Screw you, NCAA. AJ Green’s presence certainly doesn’t guarantee a win (see: Boulder), but you can’t tell me that we lose all three of the games against South Carolina, Arkansas, and Mississippi State if he’s in the lineup. Each of those games came down to the wire, and in each case the Bulldog offense struggled. Perhaps the NCAA should consider that Georgia may very well have been in line for the SEC’s at-large BCS berth (and the sweet, sweet benefit of the NCAA doubt that apparently comes along with a Sugar Bowl berth) with wins in all three of those games. It’s a stretch, sure, but who knows what could have happened in the Colorado game if the UGA offense was rolling and in rhythm from four straight games at full strength? Who knows what psychological advantages the Bulldogs may have reaped in Jacksonville if they didn’t have four losses on their ledger? A stretch, sure, but who knows what would have happened? Maybe Bobo and Richt would have even opened it up for Aaron Murray much earlier, knowing that they had a guy on the other end of risky throws who could bail out their QB if needed?
Point being, the NCAA can go fly a kite. Between this joke and the Cam Newton story, it’s clear that the rules aren’t the same for everybody. It’s just Georgia’s bad luck that AJ Green happened to get caught in a year where the Bulldogs weren’t a Top 5 team. Wins, losses, and bowl game slots matter just as much as integrity, if not more, these days. I’m far too young to sound like a curmudgeon, but in my day, at least the hypocrisy wasn’t so naked and obvious.
* = at least, they weren’t ruled on. Our friends at the NCAA certainly move pretty slowly these days, except when it’s fortuitous for championship-bound teams for them to rule quickly, before investigations are even completed
LikeLike
We obviously need more curmudgeons running things. Sports, and its’ participants, owners, rulemakers, etc. need to kick some ass and begin cleaning up the mess. The headlines are a sad, pathetic reflection of how tolerant we as a society have become of bad behavior.
LikeLike
I could never be mistaken for a UGA fan, but I agree with the posters than cannot see a lot of difference between what AJ did and what the OSU players did.
LikeLike
Somebody (read: THE Ohio State University since UGA was too chickenshit to do it) needs to sue the NCAA and get an injunction barring the NCAA from suspending players for doing what they have an absolute right to do legally–sell property that belongs to them. As long as there was an arm’s length transaction and fair market value was paid the NCAA has no legal or moral right to bar players from selling their own property.
LikeLike
The NCAA isn’t barring them from selling their property. The NCAA is revoking their amateur status for selling their property.
Last time I checked, nobody has a constitutional right to a college football career.
LikeLike
Or, it appears, parents peddling their kids. I would think long and hard before appearing to understand anything the NCAA has done since Emmert took over.
LikeLike
People DO have a constitutional right to sell their own property, however. If you want to get down to legal niceties, the NCAA is an organization made up of state universities (units of state government) for the most part. It acts on behalf of its members, those units of state government, from all over the US. Certainly when a student athlete is enrolled in a state university there is state action connection. So where does government get off penalizing a citizen by taking away a valuable right (i.e. participating in a sport sponsored by his state university) for doing something that is absolutely legal? No way this passes muster in Federal Court.
LikeLike
This is not complicated.
The NCAA is not a legal entity, and is not taking away the right to sell private property. The NCAA has the right to determine which players are eligible to play in events that they sanction.
This is not a question of criminal law. They are not taking away the right of someone to sell their property, upon threat of fines or prison.
Their right to control who participates in their games does not seem to be improper. The rampant inconsistency seems to potentially be an issue, however.
LikeLike
By “not a legal entity”, I should have said “not a judicial entity”.
LikeLike
When was Tom Brady arrested?
LikeLike
Bah! Humbug!
LikeLike
Well said Hobnail.
And even if Vick wins it, at least there was a transparent legal process in which the guilty did their time. From the NCAA concept of “justice” to the way champions are crowned in exhibition games, college football’s injustices are systematic.
LikeLike