The Most Important Article Ever Written About College Sports*

You never know. We all think something has to be splashed across Sports Illustrated or be the focus of ESPN for a day or two.
You know who reads The Atlantic? College presidents and other academic types who feel it only deals in important matters.

 

I'm about halfway through it. So far, it seems really good. But I'm a little confused about the Oklahoma State pitcher.

It seems like he first wins his case, then there's a damages suit. But it's not worded very well, and I couldn't tell if the NCAA was suing the pitcher for some reason, or if the pitcher was suing the NCAA, which I'm assuming.

And the story says a settlement of $750K, which I'm assuming is for the pitcher and his lawyer to receive, not the NCAA. But then the judge had to vacate his order which helped their case to begin with? It doesn't make sense, unless it was part of the settlement. Why would they do that?

But so far, from what I've read, this is excellent.

 

Couldn't fall back asleep, so read it. Damn powerful stuff. It's making me rethink how I view the NCAA, that's for sure. They appear, in this story, to be so sold out to the networks, shoe/apparel companies and that ilk that it's impossible to put the horse back in the corral.

Since the OP bought up Frank Deford, I remember him saying years ago (I think it was on one of Roy Firestone's shows)."It's too late to save college sports. Let's try to save high school sports." With all the nationally televised football and basketball games and holiday basketball invitationals drawing national fields, we may be at that point now.

 

Copying this beast to my Kindle. Though with my chatterbox wife, it may take me forever to get through it...lol

 

Damn-good piece. Had some issues with some of the real-life metaphors (religion, slavery), but enjoyed it on a level of critical thought. Not many pieces in recent memory made me think as much as Mr. Branch's piece.

 

I have typed this before...

Make athletes employees of the university with the option for free room, board, books and tuition. The QB does not have to be a student, but has the option.

Players negotiate their own salaries with the university before signing them to four-year contracts. Swimmers, chances are, are just there for the perks of being a university employee and without salary.

The NCAA can still exist by making sure practice rules and National Championships are played.

Allow univeristies to own the shoe contract and jersey money, but if a player wants to use his fame to earn money (autographs, events) that would be allowed.

The player can be fired at any time, but free tution extends for life.

Now all this bullshit goes away.

 

Great point by Jason Whitlock (who will apparently have a podcast with Branch out soon). This makes Charles Robinson's story look even worse than it already did.

"11 months spent rehabilitating a career criminal just to get kids in trouble. Branch took 4 months to indict a corrupt, exploitive system!"

 

I have become a complete agnostic about the NCAA "rules." As long as this is the system, everybody in it should be getting as much as they can, as soon as they can, from wherever they can. There is no way anymore to watch the games and have even the least bit of concern over whether Cam Newton is getting paid or Derrick Rose passed his SAT.

 

And some 32-year-old QB who got cut in the NFL decides he'll become an "employee" of Ohio State.

A thousand times no.

It would be much worse.

 

Fixed

 

At the risk of violating the "spoiler alert" code, I was interest in what the former North Carolina A.D. said at the end -- that if the courts mandated or the NCAA chose a pay-for-play model, that would be so far out of the academic mission that many schools would simply choose not to be a part of it, or they would pick a few sports to specialize and shitcan the rest. (Which would be just fine by me, as there are never more than 2-3 sports on any campus that do anything to promote the social/togetherness part of college anyway.)

I guess we won't know until that happens, but it would seem like a very tough sell to the captains of higher learning that they need to pay people simply to wear their uniform and not attend their school.