While I don’t doubt Vince Dooley’s sincerity in his support for the current NCAA amateurism model – hell, I even give him credit for consistency (“I don’t agree with the fact that you should be selling jerseys with their names on the back of them, the school or NCAA,” he said. “I don’t think that’s right.”) – it’s more than ironic, considering that he was a primary player in the matter that set the wheels in motion for the battle over amateurism.
“If the money wasn’t there, would there be litigation? No, of course not. But the money is there.”
Filed under It's Just Bidness, The NCAA
Get The Picture 
“Sometimes things just peter out, like the dripping of a faucet. No parades. No cannon salutes. Just the closing down of all we cherished.”
James Michener
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Perfect quote
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Blutarsky I think that’s a weak connection, borderline Kevin Bacon. I’ll give you credit for a little irony, but it’s meh. Vince couldn’t possibly have perceived today’s circumstances at that time.
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He couldn’t have perceived that AJ Green would have been flagged for Dooley’s “calling attention to himself” rule either.
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He didn’t see Penn Wagers coming.
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But he sure can now, as he’s defending the NCAA.
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I’ll give you half a point, but Vince still sounds like the ‘these young whippersnappers have it easy’ point of view,
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Dooley? Vince Dooley? I thought Mark Richt was the coach at Georgia.
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Vince Dooley used to lead the Redcoat Band, or something or other.
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Play Dixie, Fire Dooley.
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Some things deserve revolution. Sometimes wrongs can only be righted by revolution. Todd may be remembered as the Nathan Hale vs. the NCAA?
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Bulldog Joe’s fearless prediction:
I believe Todd will be suspended by UGA for the Arkansas game, which will fulfill the 10% NCAA suspension requirement and $400 will be received as required by the rule.
Georgia will not be required to vacate its first four wins as there was no knowledge of this transaction by the athletic department prior to last week.
Bryan Allen will not be charged, but will get to see Todd run all over his beloved gator defense on TV and will kick himself for not waiting one more week to frame Todd.
Soon afterward, Bryan will realize that to support himself, a move out of the state of Georgia will be a necessity.
Bryan will then accept a scholarship offer from the Raymond J. Harbert College of Business at Auburn University and will support himself by selling merchandise online through the Auburn University bookstore.
The end.
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Sounds like a happy ending to me but you left out the part where the team rallies around the adversity for a second week and lays the smack down on arky. A guy can dream can’t he?
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Title IX is the real root of the battle over amateurism
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Um, what?
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Apparently Joe doesn’t have a daughter.
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I think that what joe is referring to is the fact that many schools use the big money made by football and men’s basketball to support non-revenue producing women’s sports. Paying male athletes in these revenue producing sports might reduce the revenue available to subsidize women’s sports.
Or he could be talking about some kind of equal pay argument under Title IX .If male athletes receive compensation do female athletes have to receive equal compensation?
Not sure that either argument reflects a realistic scenario.
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Thanks West, I thought most people understood that the current arms race in college football is a direct result of the money sports having to subsidize the non-profit sports.
Also, paying male athletes in the revenue sports will simply reduce the number of male sports. It will not reduce the amount of money available to subsidize the women’s sports.
Vince did A LOT for women’s athletics from all of that TV money. When he left the AD post, UGA had, by far, the best women’s AD in the SEC. Tennis, Golf, Gymnastics (HT to Don Leebern) and swimming all won national titles in the nineties and early 2000’s. If the basketball team had a decent in-game coach, they probably would have won a title or 2.
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If it wasn’t for some shenanigans over at the natatorium, UGA might have a bit more wiggle room with our running back.
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Baloney. If congress allowed universities to fund just football and men’s basketball the NCAA and schools still would not want to change what they call the amateurism model. Instead of paying the football snd basketball players the savings from non revenue sports would go into higher coaching and administrative salaries, more lavish facilities and, in UGA’s case, the reserve funds.
you really believe that the SEC would not have partnered with ESPN to form the SEC network or negotiated the television deals it has if it’s teams idid not have to fund women’s sports? I don’t. They take the money they can them figure out how to spend it, not the other way around.
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For the sake of argument, let’s say that tomorrow the NCAA abandoned its amateurism model and adopted the Olympic one. The next day, Nike announced it signed Todd Gurley to a million dollar contract. What would the Title IX ramifications be?
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Interesting question. I’m not sure that it would have any. We’ve had football players who were pros in another sport for some time now. If I remember right John Elway played in the Yankees farm system and I think that Russell Wilson played minor league ball while he was at NC St. The fact that they were receiving money from an outside source didn’t seem to have any Title IX ramifications.
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Oooh. Oooh. MISTAH KOTTAH!!!! I KNOW THIS ONE. I know the Senator knows it, but for you folks out there in Rio Linda that don’t understand Title IX, let me help.
There wouldn’t be any Title IX issue in the Senator’s example, because Nike isn’t UGA, or part of the educational system, awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwl. Some folks just don’t understand the difference between free enterprise and gubmint action. Title IX only applies to colleges that take gubmint money, n’est pas?
Now when Nike pays UGA boatloads of cash, and then UGA takes that boatload of cash and spends it all on football? That’s a Title IX issue, because (say it with me) UGA is an educational institution that takes gubmint money. So it might eliminate Title IX issues if we let Nike just pay folks directly, at least until the Communists and socialists and pointy heads decide to make it apply to Nike, WHICH IS UNAMERICAN AND AGAINST THE TRADITION OF FREE ENTERPRISE, Y’ALL.
(drops mic. Exits stage right)
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There is plenty enough money available to give cash stipends to all athletes, revenue or not. Schools have all this money to spend and they don’t pay athletes so they have to spend it on lavish offices and facilities and making football and basketball coaches and athletic directors the highest paid state employees. The paying the players issue really isn’t wide receivers versus volleyball players. It is players versus coaches’ and a.d.s’ bonuses.
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I get what you’re saying in that it’s hard to pay football players w/o paying other athletes but it’s not just the female teams. There’s plenty of unprofitable male sports getting propped up by football or basketball profits.
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Related thread hijack: Jameis Winston being investigated for autographed merchandise through same authenticator as Gurley. Here’s the best part…approached by compliance and Jimbo after the game, Jameis said he didn’t get paid for over 300 items. So Jimbo says that’s good enough for him, no suspension. The only difference right now is that there is no dealer claiming Winston was paid.
We are either the best or the dumbest school out there…maybe both. I just don’t know what to think anymore of the CFB cesspool.
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Yeah. I saw that too. I hate that TG3 is now being associated with an accused rapist and convicted thief but I guess he should have thought about that before he took the cash. Sigh.
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Or maybe the slimeball was waiting until closer to the UF/FSU game to come out and accuse him.
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Seriously though, Vince did great things for the university and for the athletic department as is pointed out above. And he was way ahead of the curve in a lot of ways.
I remember, for instance, what Sanford Stadium was like before Dooley…man, the splinters I may still have from the wooden bench seats.
But, Vince sees things the way they ought to be , as an idealist. Its hard to disagree with what Vince is saying, philosophically.
But the reality is so far removed from the ideal, its a whole different world.
In the world of most 80-ish white men, no matter their life experience, the field hands are not supposed to profit from their labor directly….chop that cotton now boys…we will pay you later.
Greed and corruption have rendered that business model infertile and incontinent.
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Yeah, you and I are of generations that realize how UGA sports in the pre-Vince Dooley era was so different. Your reference to the single deck stadium with wooden seats was spot on. There were almost always plenty of unused wooden seats at home games, too.
Younger folks don’t know UGA had to play some home games at Grant Field as the undercard in doubleheaders with GA Tech in the 1950s in order to balance the budget. Because we did not draw well in Athens we played away from home more. One year we had just three home games. Wally Butts coached more UGA games away from Sanford Stadium than he did in Sanford Stadium.
After Dooley (and Joel Eaves) we never again have to pay rent to GA Tech to make a buck.
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This may be a stretch, but it seems to me that one symptom of the system being out of touch with the reality of modern college athletics is the resistance and lack of institutional support for adding Vince’s name to the damned stadium.
The absurdity of this is mind boggling.
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Maybe so, but I thought that such was the result of one pompous ego, which, unfortunately, is the ego that counted.
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Would rather add Erk’s name personally.
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I have always wondered if Dooley knew something when he wanted to stay an extra year…knew something about Damon’s ahhh extra-curricular activities? That maybe staying the extra year would give him time to resolve the situation. Guess we will never know.
On the stadium name, the Sanford family also pitched a hissy-fit, which I found stranger than Adams objection. At least I could understand Adams not wanting to share the limelight with Dooley. The Sanford family?
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Why not Dooley Field at Sanford Stadium? You know, kind of like Mark Richt Field at Bobby Dodd Stadium?
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