To protect student-athletes’ eligibility, Georgia sends cease and desist letters to people selling autographs on eBay – even though the players received no compensation for their signings.
‘Rules be damned, I’m doing what I want to do, I’m in it for me.’
Filed under It's Just Bidness, The NCAA
Get The Picture 
classic case of the NCAA protecting their interests over the student athletes. If you find the student athlete sold an autograph… Well, I can get behind enforcing that. But potentially holding a student athlete responsible for what happens to an autographed item that they didn’t sell to the recepient? That’s flat out reprehensible.
Good on mcGarity for being proactive though.
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Especially when you consider that most of the time that’s done at school-sponsored events.
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And oftentimes they sell signed items at charities.
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How could any organization suspend/penalize a player under such circumstances? There is not a court of law in the US that wouldn’t block it.
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I’ve never understood why anyone would pay big money for a CFB players autograph or any athletes autograph for that matter. Guess McGarity really had no choice but to cover his rear.
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Admittedly, there are athlete’s signatures I’d pay for, but most of those are UGA people and most I can get those without paying for them. Actually, I prefer them personalized, but I digress. I’d pay some reasonable amount for someone’s autograph I haven’t been able to get.. but it’s not going to be much. I now have Hershel, Dooley, Richt, Munson and Lewis Grizzard, along with some others, mostly players. Out of those, I can only think of paying for Grizzard’s (since he’s dead), but it also doesn’t mean as much to me if it’s not personalized. I don’t want this stuff for its monetary value. It amazes me how much people will pay for this stuff, especially when its really pretty easy to get so many of these.
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Good luck with that. The majority of people getting these letters are probably UGA fans and will comply to help the school. But there’s an underclass of sleaze out there that just goes to autograph events to get signatures to sell. If one of those guys with no concern for the school gets a letter like this, he’ll probably just include it in the package with the autograph when it ships.
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True, but UGA’s only responsibility is only to ask them to stop. The letter retains the players’ eligibility and puts a wall between the school and the potential seller.
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Make no mistake. The wall they are attempting to build is between the school and the athlete.
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If this keeps up I can foresee a time when the players will no longer be able to sign anything for anybody. Picture day will be limited to pictures.
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Hate to be a downer, but I would advise any college athlete to NOT sign ANY autographs (including anything for charity) for their entire collegiate career – especially if they are at the level of a AJ Green or Stafford, etc.
1. The athlete cannot make any $$ of their likeness including autographed memorabilia so why should they give away their likeness and let someone else profit from it?
2. Signed memorabilia that makes it to the secondary market draws the interest of the NCAA and requires the University to take steps like noted above.
3. If you do become a transcendent player and did not sign autographs throughout college, basic economics tells you that you should be able to command top dollar for your signature when you are allowed to profit from it.
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Paying Cam Newton $200k to play for Awbarn is reprehensible.
Denying AJ Green the right to sell his souviner bowl jersey is reprehensible.
Stopping an institution from hinting to a player that he will “sell more stuff with us than any other school” is the NCAA’s nightmare and I’ve not really heard a proposal that can fix the dilemma.
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Although “all it takes is a simple google search”, I’d say UGA has too much time and/or money on their hands if they’re sending out “cease and desist letters”. This is compliance run-a-muck. We don’t have funds for the long-needed indoor practice facility, but we’re using resources on googling and sending letters?!
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I’m confused? How does having interns google e-bay equate to enough resources for an indoor facility? And why haven’t these interns been checking on the status of driver’s licenses instead?
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Eventually the SEC and one other conference get fed up and walk away from the NCCA
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