College Football Thoughts

Some offseason college football thoughts with emphasis on the Brendan Sorsby situation and the Protecting College Sports

Was having these anyway and figured may as well jot them down and post on Substack.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Life Lessons from a Pro Bowler. When I read "pro bowler" I thought football.

- From the archives: Four levels of reading.

- A far-sighted warning from 1961. Fear many may not even remember Eisenhower never mind his warnings.

- Inside the latest bill to "save" college sports.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- What if college athletes weren't afraid to speak up? He's not wrong.

- Prisoner no more: The true story of Tae Jin Park. Worth a half hour of your time.

- Jonathan Turley on Hakeem Jeffries.

- Climate change was always a hoax.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Scientists create nasal spray that reverses brain aging in weeks. Involves mRNA delivery but I'd be willing to risk it if started feeling effects of brain aging or degeneration.

- How college sports built a $2 billion company. Admit I thought of the South Park episode as soon as I saw the headline.

- The Islamic Revolutionary Guards are asserting control in Iran and the strait of Hormuz. They just guaranteed that even the smallest boat of the Iranian navy will ceased to be and painted targets on their own backs.

- Gambling industry vs harm done. Two rules of gambling: never bet more than you can afford to lose and if something's not a "hell yeah!" its a hard no.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- How much should college athletes be paid in revenue sharing money? Honest question: if a college sport loses money should the athletes share the expense?

- Justin Trudeau faced a moral test after Oct 7th and failed badly.

- Tax burden by state

- VDH on the end of old left-wing myths

Football Player Signs NIL Deal to Promote Local Candidate

This is an interesting development - a football player at the University of Tennessee at Martin signed an NIL (Name Image and Likeness) deal to support a local candidate for District Attorney. The player is a family friend of the candidate but this is a real blending of politics and sports and perhaps a sign of things to come.

Can you imagine running for Congress in a district that has a university with a big time football or basketball program and you, as a candidate, help secure a top recruit for the program via a big NIL deal? How many votes is that worth? Is there a limit on how much campaign cash can be used to buy such an endorsement? 

This could be interesting.

Lia Thomas Smashes Ivy League Swimming Records

Interesting observations from the Ivy League swimming championships held at Harvard and how Lia Thomas won all her events easily.

Most people have knee-jerk reactions to this situation but to be honest my opinion changed after reading Brooke Forde's statement on the situation. Forde most likely will be competing against Thomas at the upcoming NCAA championships. 

I wrote this post a while ago mostly in jest. But now I can really see the situation devolving from people suggesting having a Men's Division, Women's Division and a Trans Division to just having a Swim Team with the best times and athletes competing. 

The road to hell is paved with good politically correct intentions.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Seeing the victorious team skate the Stanley Cup around the ice starting with the team captain is one of my favorite traditions in all of sports. The pure joy on the face of each player as they hoist the Cup always puts a smile on my face no matter the team. And keep in mind this only happens after the traditional handshake line against the vanquished foe - another of my favorite traditions... Interesting - how the NCAA v Alston ruling effects college athlete "loss of value" insurance. Big schools will now insure top players for millions giving additional incentive for players to stay in school. Which in turn with help that school's marketability... Just a thought but with the NCAA v Alston Supreme Court ruling and NIL payments happening left and right - what is the reason or justification for college sports remaining non-taxable? Think that should change... Hockey players are the best (no inner dialogue whatsoever)...  

Changes to the NCAA

Yesterday we Americans celebrated our Independence Day but for many in college athletics that day actually came a few days earlier as on July 1st NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) became allowable nation wide by the NCAA. Many are saying this may be the end of college athletics. I think it will be a boon to college sports.

College sports (especially basketball and hockey) have been suffering to a degree (no pun intended) from "student athletes" leaving early to make money in pro leagues. Now they won't have to leave because if you're good enough to be drafted - you're also good enough to make bank from local boosters. And the longer you stay - the more familiar you'll be to the fans and thus the more your NIL will be worth. As a side note - this greater familiarity should also lead to greater TV contracts for the schools and conferences. A true "win-win!" 

Of course the money will be there for recruiting enticements. Lots of money. There will also be more inducements for any solid athletes with a 5th year of eligibility to do another year of college instead of going pro or entering the real world. And the transfer portal - well it may as well be sponsored by eBay since many students would enter just to go with the highest bidder. It will be fascinating to watch.

The NIL freedom comes on the heels of another NCAA legal defeat at the Supreme Court (this one a 9-0 shutout) that basically said it is OK to pay student athletes. The example I saw most frequently was a $6,000 stipend for remaining academically eligible. You could probably also do another $6,000 for making honors and $6,000 for graduating (which would also be a minor inducement for team continuity). 

But wouldn't paying the student-athletes on top of providing full scholarships create a financial burden on some already strapped athletic departments? Not necessarily. Revenue creating sports should be able hold their own but also sponsor money becomes more above board. Why wouldn't Nike sponsor Phil Knight's alma mater Oregon in all sports? Same for the University of Maryland which the founder of Under Armor attended. Can't you see Apple sponsoring the athletes at Stanford and Harvard? That would be very on-brand for Apple. So many possibilities.  

The downside is the potential for many schools to drop non-revenue sports. Maybe drop them to "club" status. Is that such a bad thing though? Who really needs varsity squash?

Perhaps the best thing is the NCAA will be almost powerless to stop any of this. Try penalizing an athlete when they can sue the pants off the NCAA for restraint of trade. What will be the role of the NCAA in future years? What will be the purpose and reason for being of the NCAA in future years? Perhaps there will be none and the NCAA will become a historical oddity.

It will be fascinating to watch.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Biden gives Putin the Nord Stream prize and gets nothing in return. Not exactly the art of the deal. 

- Hartford U President Gregory Woodward facing criticism and scrutiny for moving from Div 1 to Div III and for fibbing about his own athletic career. Interesting drama playing out in Connecticut.

- The Texas Mask Mystery. It's no mystery - lockdowns and mandatory masks made no difference and were just ways for the government to exert control to look like they were doing their best.

- You aren't actually mad at the SAT's (your mad at what they reveal). "The controversy over college entrance examinations stems not from the examinations themselves, but from the fact that they reveal profound differences in human capital that make progressives uncomfortable."

Women's Sports

There's a perfect storm brewing for major changes in women's college (and perhaps high school) sports. First you have the pandemic which has literally decimated university budgets and enrollments. Then you had President Biden's ill-advised Executive Order allowing biological males to compete with females. Two independent events like runaway trains heading for an inevitable collision.

First many a truth is said in jest. College coaches are mainly judged on their win-lost records. What's to stop a coach feeling the pressure to "win now" from actively recruiting biological males who identify as women for their teams? Can you imagine what a couple of biological males who can play could do for the record of a women's basketball coach? They say that Serena Williams would have trouble beating the 200th ranked men's tennis player so why wouldn't a college tennis coach get a 200th ranked men's player to identify as female to win a bunch of matches for Whatsamater U?  

Biological females would be the losers since it would be unfair competition and suddenly there would be fewer scholarships available for women who were born with a vagina. But that's a small price to pay for being woke - right? 

But what about that Athletic Director who is feeling the budget crunch? This past July Stanford University, a school with a $27 BILLION endowment, cut 11 of its 36 varsity sports mainly due COVID related budget issues. Don't you think that most other schools aren't also feeling the budget pinch?

A simple solution that could cut the athletic budget in almost half would be to eliminate the distinction between men and women's sports completely. Instead of having a men's basketball team and a women's basketball team - just have a basketball team. All students no matter what gender they were born as or how they self-identify now are open to play. But there's only so many roster spots so...

In an instant budget crisis averted and that Athletic Director can claim to be the "wokest of the woke" since they eliminated any chance of mis-gendering a student athlete. All it would take would be for one desperate AD to take this path and if they were allowed to get away with it others would follow suit. Then you'd see high school athletic directors following the same blueprint. Once again biological female student-athletes would be the big losers.

Seem far-fetched?  If I told you a year ago that one of Joe Biden's first acts as President would be to sign an Executive Order allowing biological males to compete against females in high school and college sports and that he'd feel the issue was so compelling that he'd make sure to do it his first day in office - would you called that far-fetched too?

A Modest Proposal

President Biden signed an Executive Order Wednesday which was supposed to be a protection for the transgendered (as an aside my spell-check doesn't even recognize this as a valid word - someone should cancel Microsoft for this transgression). However, the EO explicitly gives legal protection to biological males who wish to compete in women's sports. As they say, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." And Joe Biden just signed a hell of a paving stone.

Everyone with eyes to see knows that whether it be basketball, track, swimming, tennis, weightlifting, etc. that a biological male has a huge advantage over a biological female. The only sport I can think of where the gap is closing is perhaps marathon running (and maybe dodgeball). 

I think we can all agree that there is no place as "woke" as a college campus. We can also agree that COVID-19 has decimated university finances. Now we add this last straw to the camel's back and I can foresee some desperate (or enterprising) university Athletic Director making this perhaps logical drastic next step.

If gender is just a social construct as some argue, if biological males can now compete with females, and females can play on male sports teams - why have separate men's and women's athletics at all?  Why have male athletes and female athletes when you can just have athletes? Why have the expense of separate teams at a time when school budgets are in crisis? The Athletic Director can simply say, "All are welcome to compete. We don't discriminate. But we do have a limited number of roster spots - so..." 

With a stroke of a pen (just like the signing of an Executive Order) - the Athletic Director can basically slash the sports budget in half while also eliminating most non-revenue sports. Don't get me wrong - I'm not advocating for this and it would be a vastly unpopular move eliminating not just women's sports but also the associated scholarships or financial aid to the women athletes. But because of the COVID-19 related budget crunch there may be one or more Athletic Directors out there who may be backed into a corner and feel this would be the only move possible. Even worse there may be some Athletic Director who thinks this is the right thing to do (either because excessive misogyny or excessive "wokeness"). And if one Athletic Director does it - others may feel free to follow. 

Thanks to President Biden - this may be the future of college sports. 

EDIT: Changed the photo because of broken link. Also wanted to mention that I don't think this issue will be an epidemic but it will be significant enough. That is if it is reported in the "news." 

Linky Links

 Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- What's it like to be a college Athletic Director (during a pandemic)

- This is so true.

-  The restaurant industry lost 372,000 jobs in December. "More than 110,000 restaurants, or 17% of the industry, have closed permanently or long-term." This is madness!

- Good on Tim Berners-Lee - I really hope this succeeds. EDIT: Here's a more recent article on Tim Berners-Lee's efforts.

- I'll never look at the show the same again.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Ann Althouse on the healing power of the Appalachian Trail. I've always wanted to do a through-hike. (HT Execupundit) 

- An oral history of WKRP's Turkey Drop episode

- To Do List

- Stop the Coup

- NIL could be the savior of college sports particularly basketball. Plan to post my thoughts on this at a later time. 

Linky Links

 Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- I did not know this. I'll have to try it.

- Going out with a bang: Janis Joplin's hard-partying wake.

- A common ant as seen through an electron microscope. Makes me think they should re-make the movie Them!

- University of Colorado's $1.625 million deal with a sports gambling company. College sports are so hypocritical.

- Lockdowns may have had little effect on spread of Covid-19. Sorry but anyone still advocating for lockdowns just isn't following the actual data.

- This thread looks at the year over year mortality in 30-countries. Pretty eye-opening.

Linky Links

 Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Why Biden will withdraw from the debates. I agree - it is only a matter of time before they make the announcement.

- Wrestling champion Navid Afkari executed in Iran despite international outcries. The Regime in Iran is evil pure and simple.

- How lack of college football is devastating to college towns.

- Disney's Mulan disaster highlights the dangers of China deals

- Amazon is moving out of Seattle - and who can blame them?

A Modest Proposal

 Recently I suggested some changes to higher education. One of those suggestions was that any revenue from college sports should be taxable. It occurred to me that another of my long held beliefs could help make that happen. 

That belief is that no non-profit or tax-exempt organizations should be able to pay a top executive or employee more than the salary paid to the President of the United States. That salary is currently $400,000 a year. That means a place like Harvard University that pays its President a salary and compensation of about $1.7 million would lose its tax-exempt status. 

The idea behind tax-exempt status was to promote a public good. Education is a public good but a place like Harvard has for a long time not been about the public good or even education - it's been about the brand of Harvard. If you are a "non-profit" and you can afford to pay your top executives millions you are a big business hiding in plain sight and under a cloak of tax-exempt status. That should end.

How does sports figure into this? In more than half of the States in the US the highest paid public employee is a coach at a State University Usually either a football or basketball coach. Nick Saban's $8.9 million salary to coach football at Alabama is well above that $400,000 salary of the President. Is there a single good reason why the revenue generated by Alabama football remains tax-exempt? I can't think of any. This isn't to pick on Alabama either. I could easily have made John Calipari's $9.3 million salary to coach basketball at the University of Kentucky my example.

The universities most likely would separate out the revenue generating sports programs into affiliated for-profit entities under my proposed change. For-profit businesses have to pay their employees. Suddenly the athletes get paid openly over the table. Pay the minimum wage for every hour spent in practice, working out, traveling or playing for a team. You'd suddenly see many states pushing for higher minimum wages to attract better prospects but that is a discussion for another day.

Anyway - that's my suggestion for the day.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Amazon US sellers will have to display their name and business address starting September 1st. Good!

- Lessons from history

- Did not see this twist coming - is Ghislaine Maxwell secretly one of the most powerful Redditors of all-time?

- Normally I don't link to stories on pay sites but the story of Terry Pluto's book Loose Balls really brought a smile to my face. Loose Balls is one of my all-time favorite sports books.

- Stanford is cutting 11 of its 36 varsity sports. This is a school with a $27 BILLION endowment fund.

- Covid-19 deaths in Sweden have dropped to nearly ZERO. As a reminder - Sweden never went into lockdown.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- After nearly a month in space, NASA really happy with Crew Dragon

- Matt Taibbi on "White Fragility" Read this one twice!

- YouTube TV is increasing their price from $50 a month to $65 per month.

- Down East Magazine's 12 Best Swimming Holes in Maine

- Michigan's athletic department projects a $26 million loss for 2021. 

- Sunlight inactives the Wuhan virus. Yet elected morons will close beaches, parks and golf course.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Just a reminder that CNN was kowtowing to Saddam Hussein and curbing any critical reporting in exchange for "access" prior to Operation Desert Storm. That's why I'm not surprised by CNN's complete ass-kissing of the Chinese Communists... Interesting historical comparison. Don't recall the US shutting down the economy for the Korean War (only being slightly sarcastic). HT Bryan Alexander... Yesterday was Tax Day and I didn't realize it till late afternoon. That's messed up... Heh Heh... If a college athletics director really wanted to cut costs (which will be a necessity after the Wuhan virus runs its course) the simple way would be to convince the administration to make all the bathrooms on campus unisex. The AD could then cut all women's sports and announce that the school would also only have "unisex" sports teams. All teams would be open to males, females, trans, whoever. That would be the "woke" power move (please note I'm not advocating this but I would love to see how certain people would react)... I'd give $100 to any reporter who asks California Governor Gavin Newsom when he thinks the porn industry can open back up. An extra $100 if the reporter casually mentions that people are getting sick of watching repeats...