Shorter Verbatim Marie Antoinette Maryland Athletic Director Kevin Anderson: “If you don’t want to be a student-athlete, you can say no and not go to school.”
That’s like saying that if you don’t want to deal with a student-athlete union, you can say no and not have an athletic department.
Do these people really not grok that they sound like a bunch of colossal, whiny-ass dicks?
Get The Picture 
That’s f-ed up logic.
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“Do these people really not grok that they sound like a bunch of colossal, whiny-ass dicks?”
You’re talking about the athletes, right?
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Yeah, I can see how you think asking for better medical and educational support would qualify for that.
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The athletes sound like Americans.
The Athletic Directors take turns sounding like mid 20-th century Eastern Bloc Communists and petulant, spoiled 18th century French aristocrats.
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Wow Senator!
Nice formal logic with the “you can say no and not have an athletic department.”
I see this large issue focusing on two main points:
1. Athletic departments, high paid coaches, NCAA, etc. seem to have very little self-awareness or empathy about the student-athlete situation and double standards are the norm.
a. This is especially true when one of them has to give an offhand comments and not something run through a PR team
2. With what little self-awareness most of them have they are aware that their business model will become a victim of its on success and greed.
a. Thus, they are making clown statements in hopes of putting the genie (e.g. student athletes) back in the bottle.
b. This will only result in the quicker erosion of their ivory tower and NCAA athletics as we know it.
I do not claim to have the answer for this complex problem, but the hypocrisy of the powers that be are very sad and apparent.
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If you are going to sit and throw stones, tell me what your solution would be and how you make it economically viable and still fair to the colleges involved? Frankly, every idea I’ve thought about beyond just medical and educational assistance isn’t viable. If you say, okay, you can use your likeness and jersey to make money- well guess what, who’s to stop a booster from telling a kid I’ll buy 10,000 of your jerseys if you sign here at Auburn? What about a stipend? Okay, are you going to give every athlete the same stipend? Can all of these schools afford the stipend? Probably not, so then you have to cut programs like soccer, lacrosse, swimming, etc. If that’s the case, then who’s the asshole now?
This is a very complex problem that has a ton of unintended consequences. Frankly, collective bargaining will only make it worse and will lead to the end of college football as we know it. I do honestly believe that the NCAA and the school administrators want to do what is right for the students in an effort to make things make it easier on everybody and it will eventually happen. But, it won’t be pretty when the football and basketball players finally force the hand, however they do it, to get larger benefits. This isn’t the government, so it has to come from somewhere, so it’s either higher ticket prices, less programs, more commercialism in our beloved college football or something else none of us like.
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Based on what?
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Wow that was written horribly.
One, based on this quote in the article prior to the pound sand quote: “I do believe we need to look at enhancing the cost of attendance, in particular on a need basis…,” Also, Emmert made it pretty clear on MTP that they are looking at solutions to do something. Whether that is because their hand is being forced or it’s out of the goodness of their hearts is for you to decide.
C’mon, take the pen.
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Written horribly on my part.
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They’ve already taken a shot at the stipend, only to see it voted down. The rest of Emmert’s MTP wish list hasn’t even made it that far.
They could have settled O’Bannon for a relative pittance. That they didn’t should speak volumes about their mindset.
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By the way, I like your handle. The only problem is that I read your comments in his voice. 🙂
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Several conclusory statements would need to be fleshed out to give you a legitimate reply.
One thing I think we can agree on, we are going to see an end to college athletics as we know it.
Simple (and probably would do more damage than good) answer – Limited Antitrust Exemption(s)
PS – And just for fun, make college coaches play by the same transfer rules that players have to follow.
• The buyout clauses are generally paid by the schools the coaches leave to…
I agree this is a very complex problem.
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I think the unions would be the tipping point for marginal programs. It would serve to thin the herd so to speak. There are really too many marginal programs that think they can get in on the big bucks but it’s not going to happen. I can see college football becoming for the smaller programs a lot more Ivy League, not because of academics but because of economics.
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Well said – this whole thing is going to thin the herd across the board. Fewer programs in the money division and, sadly, fewer scholarships offered to deserving student-athletes who don’t play to make a living playing professional sports.
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They could always cut coaches’ and administrators’ salaries to alleviate tha… never mind.
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Well played, Senator 😉
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Pay-to-play, head injuries, market saturation, collective bargaining, technology, millennial generation apathy…If CFB where a stock, I’d short it.
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Allow any player to sign with one agent at any point. Legitimize it. Make it the norm. That agent pays that athlete whatever he wants. The market will decide who gets paid and how much (AJ gets paid all through school, fourth-string receiver probably not). There are probably as many female basketball, swimming and diving, even soccer players that could get paid as well. Schools don’t have to worry about paying and premiere players that are making money for the school get paid.
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