Mark Emmert is brainstorming again.
The NCAA may need to mandate new “dead periods” to rein in the time demands on college athletes that increasingly pull them away from the classroom, NCAA president Mark Emmert said Wednesday.
“One of the things that’s being very actively discussed right now is the creation — it would have to be sport-by-sport, of course — for serious dead periods,” Emmert told reporters following a breakfast speech to members of the Prince George’s County Chamber of Commerce.
Athletes would be forbidden in such periods “from going to the weight room, forbidden from having practice, forbidden from being engaged in any informal practices,” Emmert said.
I think they used to have that period once. It was called “summer”.
Emmert was just getting rolling, folks.
In his speech, Emmert noted that a top college football player recently said he spent 354 days of the year on his sport. “He had 11 days … when he wasn’t doing something for football,” said Emmert, who did not name the player…
… In his speech, Emmert also reiterated his opposition to paying college athletes. He said schools’ academic missions would be compromised by such pay. “If you’re a football player, you’re a football player,” he said. “Why would I pay you to [play and go to school]?”
Asked and answered, albeit in a totally disconnected manner.
He got a standing ovation for this. Really.
(h/t John Infante)
Get The Picture 
Sure, you spend all but 11 days out of the year busting your ass for your sport . . . but please, we’re still not gonna pay you! Bitch, is you crazy?!?
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I’d want to know what they did for those 11 days.
Hell, they don’t even have time to carouse with their buddies and smoke a spleef!
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Well, he THOUGHT he had those 11 days off, but Saban was still coaching him up by having him wax his cars, sand his deck, and paint his fence.
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Emmert is an ass. And maybe this has been asked before, but why can’t “Football” be a major course of study? If a kid is spending 354 days a year on something within the framework of his education, why is that substantially all of his work toward a diploma? Congrats, you’ve earned a degree from the University in Football Studies.
The “education” that schools are able and willing to fit in around the primary demand on these student’s time (football) is generally a joke anyway. Just give them a degree in the field that they were recruited to the school for; studied diligently while at school, (under the highest paid group of educators in the institution); and in which they will almost certainly earn their living, even if it’s not in NFL. It’s insane that all the resources schools pour into football amount to a PE credit.
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Totally agree. If college is supposed to prepare you for a career, why can’t that career be as an athlete? Make sure they have enough classes in their minor field of study that they’re qualified for employment, but otherwise let ’em do what they want to do.
The obvious reply to that is “But their chances of becoming professional athletes are so minuscule” — well, I guess we better tell all those music, theatre and art students to go pack their stuff up and pick another major too. Hell, I was one of those brilliantly foresighted kids who went out and got a degree in print journalism just as the newspaper industry was preparing to go over the cliff. What’s that degree worth to my employability these days, you think?
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They could make the degree in coaching in the sport of their choice. Many more athletes have a legitimate chance to make a career out of that. It could be set up similar to an education degree program, with internships and practicums and whatnot.
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Standing O, well consider the audience the Chamber of Commerce. They have never seen free employees that they didn’t like. They really should just tell Mark to go sit in his office and STFU.
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No kidding. Markie Mark received not one but two standing Os from the Star Chamber audience
“Prince George’s County Chamber of Commerce….The speech, focusing on NCAA values, was followed by a question-and-answer session. The audience included local youth and high school coaches, as well as Prince George’s County business leaders. Emmert, who has the led NCAA since 2010, received a standing ovation at the beginning and end.”
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Emmert seems to be just a dim bulb.
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Love it when “non-traditionals” use Reagan’s line. Effective, indeed. If only it were more thoroughly applied in original context.
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