October 13, 2017 · 6:44 AM

You know, when you put it that way…

Yeah, Larry Scott is a dick.  That’s callous even by Jim Delany standards.

9 Comments

Filed under Pac-12 Football, The NCAA

9 responses to “You know, when you put it that way…”

  1. Mayor
    October 13, 2017 at 7:06 AM

    I always thought that working as a coach or administrator in collegiate athletics was a calling to serve student athletes and not a way to get rich too. My golf team coach never made more than $30,000 per year.

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  2. Huntindawg
    October 13, 2017 at 8:19 AM

    The entire P5 college football system is a charade. There is very little about it that is amateur. You basically have a tryout system for the NFL, with players that are not true college students being forced to masquerade as students. Kids that never in a million years would make it into the school based on their academics.*

    If you don’t want “student-athletes” coming to your school to make a living, make them qualify as students first, and hold them to the same academic qualifying standards as the rest of the students.

    Would it really be so bad to call it the UGA Professional Football Team, and just have the players live and practice off campus and pay them market rates? That’s really what it is now, except the players don’t get paid and have to pretend to be students. We just pretend it isn’t and let certain people make a tremendous profit off a professional system with almost free labor.

    I guess I’m totally a hypocrite because I scream like crazy for the Dawgs on Saturdays??? I probably wouldn’t know every players name, number, and hometown if they were all actually students just playing football.

    *Of course there are exceptions. I recognize that there are players actually taking advantage of the educational opportunity. 27 seems to be doing so despite his professional stock value.

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    • Southernlawyer11
      October 13, 2017 at 11:53 AM

      My stance has really been evolving on this. I really like the idea of a UGA Professional Football team. Not kidding…..sports is really not that different from the performing arts, IMO.

      Times have changed. The reality of what this has become can, in and of itself, become part of the education process. And you could probably achieve some type of balance by creating a system where you play for the UGA Professional Football Team for 4 years with as little or much classroom enrollment as desired, but then with some type of incentive to come back and enroll in traditional college if/when the pro sports thing doesn’t work out.

      Obviously we see people doing this anyway at the conclusion of a professional career, but I don’t see why it’s inherently bad to just openly admit that we have a platform to let 18-22 yr olds take a shot at UNPRECEDENTED wealth accumulation, but then give them a fallback / incentive to LATER go get that traditional college degree. They would probably be better prepared to get the most out of both experiences if you separate them. Even Chris Conley was probably not getting as much as he could have out of whatever really hard major he chose (i forget) than he could have if he wasn’t at the Butts Mehre everyday. I have no idea how we could weave compensation, etc into that, but I think separating the mandate of simultaneous schooling and sports is not inherently bad.

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      • alamosa
        October 13, 2017 at 8:57 PM

        Agree with the above two: Southern and Huntingdawg. my views on this hve drastically changed over the past few years. Just call it pro ball and take away all the charade. Take away the charade of them being “student” athletes. Do like the idea of then letting them return and when they do, help them all you can.

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  3. Joey C
    October 13, 2017 at 9:28 AM

    Might be a dick. But he’s right. College sports is no longer college sports if you change the underlying concept on which it is based: the student athlete. You can of course argue that model sucks/is outdated and should be replaced with another one. But then folks like this guy lose their entire career. So it’s understandable why they wouldn’t want to go that way.

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  4. Dog in Fla
    October 13, 2017 at 10:15 AM

    “Paying students a salary to play sports or allowing them to join a union would fundamentally change college sports as we know it,”

    This guy is Management all the way

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  5. Normaltown Mike
    October 13, 2017 at 10:24 AM

    “Paying students a salary to play sports or allowing them to join a union would fundamentally change college sports as we know it,” he wrote. “It would push many sports that don’t generate revenue toward extinction.”

    I wonder if he omits players profiting off their own likeness b/c he’s open to it or unawares…or maybe he’s just an asshole.

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  6. Debby Balcer
    October 13, 2017 at 11:38 AM

    Other students are paid through internships and research and co-op jobs. The only students they do not want to earn money are athletes.

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