Mocking Stacey Osburn’s unwillingness to comment is a popular theme here, but, damn, there are times when she comes off as the smartest person at the NCAA. Take, for instance, this… um, remarkable official statement about the EA settlement in O’Bannon.
I mean, man, read that righteously indignant first paragraph! If the NCAA doesn’t consider the money going to the players payment for their athletic performance, what the hell is it doing in court in the first place?
If the first paragraph comes off as clueless, the second one is incoherent. Assuming it’s an attempt to bash lawyers for getting paid – is Donald Remy an amateur, by the way? – well, guys, I don’t think “benefactors” means what you think it means.
The whole thing comes off as a misdirected pile of passive-aggressive resentment that somebody besides the NCAA is exploiting student-athletes for financial gain. (Although, unlike in the NCAA’s case, there are student-athletes actually receiving money as a direct result.)
Next time, folks, just write the last sentence and call it a day. Or let Stacey do your talking for you.
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UPDATE: About that second paragraph – somebody found the dictionary at NCAA headquarters.
Get The Picture 
To say nothing of the money the NCAA has made since they first started licensing the video games or any and everything else. It’s mighty good of the NCAA to let the players keep this money all these years later and after this lawsuit without compromising their eligibility.
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She’s right. Only the lawyers will profit. The poor college presidents and universities have not made a single dime off these players.
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Don’t forget the poor NCAA lawyers that got paid a total of $9 mil in 2011-2012 and will get more in 2014, when they loose the case(s).
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Can we get AJ back for 4 games then please?
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I’m with ya’, not sure if I will ever get over that.
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I’m really hoping a generous benefactor will donate a dictionary to the fine folks who put out this statement.
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Beneficiary.
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Such greed…those kids should be ashamed they’re letting the lawyers only keep $15mm. They could at least leave a nice tip with the $50 they’ll each be getting.
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I saw this story last night and thought to myself, “Blutarsky is going to rip this apart.” Heheh.
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Every so often my bride asks me to accompany her to dinner with one of her colleagues. During dinner the subject of kids and college came up. I spoke about my sons next step toward their careers. My youngest is starting law school at Georgia. That evoked the response of “Isn’t there surplus of attorneys?” I thought to myself WTF? But chose to ignore that. Later I got to listen to a couple of lawyer jokes. Maybe it shouldn’t have but that annoyed me. So I asked what his son was doing. He responded with “He is an avant garde artist.” That got my curiosity up.So I asked “Avant-garde artist. That’s the new age stuff isn’t it? Like when an artist pisses in a glass and sticks a crucifix in it …. right?” There were no more lawyer jokes. No one wanted dessert. And my wife didn’t talk to me all the way home. I guess I better develop thick skin huh?
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God bless you AHD.
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Mark Twain: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
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Hey the 99% who are unethical are giving the rest of us a bad name. I kid, I kid. I’ve been a lawyer for 36 years and I still enjoy the jokes. Everybody jokes about us until they need us then they get all serious. I was until I retired, a tax attorney. The IRS can make grown men cry. My clients needed me on that wall and they paid the price.
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I always felt that the antipathy towards lawyers stems from the fact that if you encounter them in a professional setting, at least 50% will be against you. By contrast, when you encounter doctors when they’re working, 100% (give or take) are trying to get you better.
Case I had about four years ago, I proved a guy lied in his deposition and on the stand at trial. Flat out proved it. Nothing underhanded on my part (if I do say so myself), nothing sneaky, nothing that even raised a peep of an objection until at the very end. Just showing him three emails that he wrote and that he gave us in discovery. Guy walks off the stand and out of the courtroom, where he’s heard in the hallway cursing “fing lawyers” for a solid minute. When I hear someone bitching about lawyers, I always think about that guy, and a part of me wonders if the person bitching is just someone who thought he was smart enough not to get caught, but one of those fing lawyers caught him.
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Wow. Formatting fail. Sorry, all.
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