Once upon a time, I, like many of you now, was an unabashed amateurism romantic. My conversion to the dark side has occurred over time, but looking back on it, the sources of my revolt were the suspensions of Green and Gurley, which I found to be petty and arbitrary (especially in the case of the former). Sure, I had a particular ox that was gored, but I certainly don’t have a pro-Georgia agenda about it now.
I am reminded of it now and then, though. Yesterday came the news that Marty Blazer, a former financial advisor who’s a government witness in the FBI’s college basketball corruption trial, testified about payments he made for years to college football players.
Witness Louis Martin Blazer said he paid football players from Pitt, Penn State, Michigan, Notre Dame, Northwestern, North Carolina and Alabama, according to reporters present at the Manhattan federal court for the opening day of the second college basketball bribery trial.
As recounted by CBS’s Matt Norlander and reporter Adam Zagoria, Blazer said he paid athletes from multiple hundred to several thousand dollars. Blazer said he paid family members and associates of the athletes so they would choose him as their financial advisor upon turning pro. He testified he never paid a college football coach.
Blazer went into more specifics with Penn State and UNC. He testified that, at the encouragement of an assistant, he paid the father of former Penn State player Aaron Maybin to convince him to stay in school. Maybin went to the NFL and the money was repaid.
The problem with being an amateurism romantic these days is that you have to suspend your belief about the black market. It’s only possible to wag your finger about players being paid if you believe it’s the odd occurrence, or, to simply choose wilful ignorance.
I wish I could. Instead, I just become angry thinking about the highfalutin’ finger pointing at Georgia while other, more sainted places tried (and still try) to pretend they’re better than that. It’s a bullshit narrative. The reality is that there are two kinds of programs, the kind that makes sausage and the kind that makes sausage without being inspected. Pretending that there’s some way to stop the sausage making entirely is to ignore basic human nature. Romantically, of course.
Get The Picture 
UGA says come on in and watch us make sausage. We’ll even give you the recipe.
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More like pointing out all the health code violations to the health inspector and recommending he double the fines.
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I’d rather eat at a place where they have the decency to get away with the violations.
I sure hope that all the food that I eat, the medications I take, the cars I drive and the planes I fly on are produced by people who don’t give a rats ass about the rules or any enforcement bodies because that is the American way.
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Lucky for us that bureaucrats are only motivated by altruism. Otherwise, all the restaurants would poison their customers.
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In a break from normal policy, as a civic duty, I offer a specific and directed PSA:
https://www.medicinenet.com/vasectomy/athens-ga_city.htm
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American doctors aren’t regulated heavily enough for us leftists, Derek. We’re better off someplace like Cuba where medical decisions are left to a patient, his doctor, and the all-powerful state.
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Did you know its easier to land in prison for life for malpractice than be sued for malpractice for the same conduct?
Thank you tort reform!
https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2018/12/life-sentence-upheld-on-appeal-for-christopher-duntsch-aka-dr-death/
Economic incentives to rid ourselves of shitty doctors aren’t necessary if we just let them hack people up until the DA gets involved.
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If only there were some sort of government regulatory agency(ies) that could oversee the health care field. Perhaps we could even increase government involvement in health care for people like veterans. That system would likely be the envy of the world. Alas!
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Big money gets you big privileges. Especially when you give it to members of Congress and state legislatures.
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The health inspector is an alum of one of the schools listed above.
By design.
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I really like Kirby’s sausage, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to see it made.
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Like to see it or not, it’s about to be exposed.
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Also file this under “damn, son, I don’t think I would have said that”.
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Regardless of your political stance, I feel like the country is heading towards tuition-free college. If that happens, what will become of the scholarship the athletes currently receiving? Will they then get paid since there is no longer tuition that is being provided by the school?
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You know, that is an interesting question. I have no idea.
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Inflated COA stipends, family perks, and under-the-table payments will continue regardless of tuition structure.
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I wonder if Richt paid players.
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You’re not asking the relevant question. It’s not whether Richt paid players; it’s whether third parties paid Richt’s players. And you’re kidding yourself if you think outside of two cases, nobody did.
Besides, Richt paid his assistants. 😉
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If he did, then there was at least one game each year where he should have asked for a refund since they never showed up.
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You have the “Holier than thou” programs that swear their shit don’t stink and then you have Auburn that says “catch me if you can”.
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It’s wild to me how we get in these heated well researched debates (from both sides) about amateurism, but as soon as the undeniable fact that these athletes are already getting paid comes up the romantics just gloss over it like we just spoke in a language they don’t understand. I don’t get it.
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It’s wild to me that people “think” that because people ignore the rules that there shouldn’t be any rules.
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I find myself agreeing with Derek again. What in the world is happening?
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When he’s right he’s right.
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It’s wild to me that schools who benefited from school company reps directing recruits to their programs get to paint themselves as victims entitled to six-figure restitution.
I don’t know if there shouldn’t be any rules. But there damned well should be better rules than we have now.
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The world needs better rules, better rule makers and better enforcers across the board.
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Yes, but that’s not “wild”, is it?
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The only problem with kings is that we haven’t had the right one yet. Maybe if we replaced Mark Emmert with Michael Adams, things would get better. If not, we’ll just keep trying over and over and over. What else can we do?
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Kind of like those who control the present control the past. It won’t seem quite so redundant.
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I have migrated in the opposite direction of the Senator, opening the rules will allow for more elaborate cheating. At the same time that isn’t saying that changes aren’t needed.
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I have a feeling this is semantics, but if the rules are opened to, say, allow unfettered third-party payments, it wouldn’t be cheating for a third-party to make a payment.
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..and nothing bad could come from a shoe company sponsoring a school and talking to recruits.
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You mean, like now?
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Is the NFL elaborately cheating?
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Wrong, I think the rules should be changed, and as such I don’t particularly care if they are broken.
You wouldn’t know anything about that though I suppose. You love and follow all the rules and laws that have ever been made and wouldn’t dream of changing any of them.
I assume.
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Whether you are right or wrong about what the rules ought to be, that argument should be uncoupled from any consideration that people aren’t following the existing rules.
That people don’t follow the speed limits is not a good argument for their elimination.
The murder rate in Chicago doesn’t argue for permissiveness.
There may be arguments for professionalizing college sports. The existence or pervasiveness of scofflaws isn’t one of them.
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You’re whiffing on the correlation because you’re not taking into consideration your long held position, and the crux of your entire argument against player payment is that it would fundamentally ruin college football. Which it hasn’t imo ymmv, but you’re still watching and probably haven’t purchased that season tickets to Berry football yet.
I’ve never said the rules should be changed because people ignore them, I’ve said the rules should be changed because they’re unfair and illegal. But when you argue that the effects of player payment as a hypothetical when it is already occurring to the exact opposite effect of your predicted outcome it pretty much destroys your argument. It’s not that there are no reasonable arguments against player compensation, it’s just that the ones pretending it doesn’t already happen are in no way based in reality.
Of course people still speed and murder despite laws (mostly to the detriment of the public which is a key differentiation here). In order to mirror your logic you would have to hold the position that nobody speeds or murders because of laws, and as such laws are good.
I’m acknowledging that all of the aforementioned are being broken, but one of them causes zero harm. Whereas you are ignoring current player payment entirely and arguing effects that aren’t based in reality. My favorite being the mandated draft of high school players. That one always gives me a case of the LOLz.
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I’m not whiffing on anything.
Your suggestion is the equivalent to the idea that post-prohibition America appeared much the same as prohibition America. It didn’t, shockingly enough.
Big difference between Al Capone and the Red and Black Liquor Store.
Just because you could find a drunk both in 1928 and 1934 doesn’t change the fact that you’re spewing nonsense.
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Right, so your saying that prohibition laws created a black market and Al Capone, and when they were repealed everything got better? Thanks for clearing that up, but how does that reinforce the idea that we should keep the current amateurism laws which is creating a black market for players? Talk about making the case against yourself lol.
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Unless your argument is that change is always for the better you’re failing again.
The prohibition argument wasn’t about which reality I preferred. It was simply that they are vastly different realities.
Focus on the argument you’re making and not the argument you’d like to be making.
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I’m focusing on the moving target of your ever changing position.
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Have you heard of irony?
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It’s been dead for a while with regard to your position on this subject.
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you’re
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Furthermore, you’re comparing murder and speeding laws to NCAA rules that are textbook violations of federal antitrust laws so that’s another conundrum for you to work out.
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Not exactly. The issue is whether rampant rule breaking held any meaning in a discussion about maintaining the rule. It doesn’t.
You’ll get it eventually. Or not.
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The issue is whether the rules prevent anything that actually matters. They don’t, in fact the rules are against the law. Laws>>>Rules.
You’re choosing not to get it. You spell to well to be this dense.
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Rules are not “preventive.” They are at best remediable.
You don’t pass laws with the expectation that the behavior will cease. You pass laws precisely with the expectation that the behavior will continue.
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So now we’re down to the semantics of whether preventative or remediable. I think we’re done until next time.
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I agree that the system is corrupt.
I also think that imposing an ubridled free market system would be a disaster. The NFL can’t create a competitive league without salary caps, an antitrust exemption, rookie minimums, franchise tags and free agency restrictions, so how is college football going to do it with ESPN, college kids, massive revenue disparities, a fluid coaching market, greedy parents, classes, agents and the NCAA? Plus, most all the other sports, particularly women’s sports, depend on football revenue to keep afloat.
If someone wants to propose reforms, then great. But it should be done deliberately and slowly, because you can make it worse, and you can ruin women’s sports. The strongman is bad, but you depose him and you beget disaster.
I don’t have a solution, but idealism and virtue signalling are not a plan. Until one is proposed, I’ll stick with the shitty system we have.
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I must have missed when “college football” became a competitive league.
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I guess I missed when they lumped all college football into one pool. Sad that now Valdosta State has to compete against UGA and Alabama for the national championship. Yes a school like Georgia Southern is at a HUGE disadvantage (so not competitive) compared to UGA but it was their own choosing to move from FCS to FBS. Many others are in the same boat due to their own choice. Schools like Vanderbilt compared to UGA will be non competitive just like Jacksonville will be non competitive vs New England. No competitive league is going to have every team with a realistic chance to win every year due to their own ineptitude or just circumstances.
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If it’s not competitive, then why do you spend so much money to go to the games?
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To watch future NFL’ers who we’ll completely lose interest in once they’re gone!!!
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So, by that standard, if they start paying players and I keep spending my money, it’ll still be competitive, right?
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AJ and Gurely really set me off also.
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The reality is that there are two kinds of programs, the kind that makes sausage and the kind that makes sausage without being inspected.
Fucking genius, Senator.
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“Cheatin Costs money and we ain’t got none of that around here”…Erk… when all the world was young…
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