There is apparently a growing movement in the PAC-12 to start a general strike amongst all sports. Mainly based around the athletes being uncomfortable with risking their lives to play during a pandemic.
There is apparently a growing movement in the PAC-12 to start a general strike amongst all sports. Mainly based around the athletes being uncomfortable with risking their lives to play during a pandemic.
Political analyst Jared Yates Sexton has a thread discussing how truly fucked up things are:
I honestly wonder how that $412k per compares to what OSU is actually currently playing their players
That’s how much a championship-ring-for-tattoos trade costs, right?
FYI this isn’t a Tressel apology post, he shouldn’t have tried to hide tat-gate, he should have been using it as an example how Pryor needed to trade his ring just to afford a tattoo despite OSU making millions off him during those 3 phenomenally frustrating years
Yes but is Rashan Gary a player worthy of just an average salary?
(I honestly don't know who that is)
Michigan DE '16-'18, was the #1 player in his high school class and a first round pick of the Packers. Freak athlete, had a bum shoulder for a lot of his Michigan career so never quite became the Clowneyesque destroyer of worlds we wanted him to be.
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Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
In addition to the following concrete demands, players called out exorbitant spending on administrators, coaches, and commissioner Larry Scott, suggesting all three should voluntarily take massive pay cuts in order to help all athletes, not just football players.
The players also want fair market pay, rights and freedoms, summarized by the following six demands.
-Distribute 50% of each sport's total conference revenue evenly among athletes in their respective sports.
-Six-year athletic scholarships to foster undergraduate and graduate degree completion.
-Elimination of all policies and practices restricting or deterring our freedom of speech, our ability to fully participate in charitable work, and our freedom to participate in campus activities outside of mandatory athletics participation.
-Ability of players of all sports to transfer one time without punishment, and additionally in cases of abuse or serious negligence.
-Ability to complete eligibility after participating in a pro draft if player goes undrafted and foregoes professional participation within seven days of the draft.
-Due process rights.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
CSU football players and university athletic department staff say coaches have told players not to report COVID-19 symptoms, threatened players with reduced playing time if they quarantine and claim CSU is altering contact tracing reports to keep players practicing.
And they say those actions by the athletic administration is putting their health at risk in return for monetary gain the school would receive if fall sports are played.
Football players said they would like to play this season but don’t believe there should be a season given the spike in positive cases on the team in the past two weeks and the threat of more once Colorado State’s full student body comes to campus later this month.
Guided by what they are calling a college athletes bill of rights, Booker, D-N.J., and Blumenthal, D-Conn., issued a statement saying they will seek to give athletes “revenue-sharing agreements” with the NCAA, conferences and schools, plus the ability to capitalize on their name, image and likeness “individually and as a group, with minimal restrictions.”
The envisioned bill also would create new safety and wellness standards, provide improved health care; attempt to improve educational outcomes and would end the requirement that athletes sit out if they change schools or withdraw from a National Letter of Intent.
“We have to create a system that clearly the NCAA has not been willing to do on its own,” Booker, a former Stanford football player, said in an interview with USA TODAY Sports. “We’re talking to a lot of athletes who have painful stories. These are courageous young people who right now are speaking out — and often facing retribution for speaking out — about their basic rights. I just really respect these athletes for showing such courage and commitment to the larger issues of equity and justice within college athletics.”
Thursday’s statement says the senators will seek to provide athletes with “lifetime” scholarships to finish an undergraduate degree, a benefit many of the wealthiest college sports programs already provide. Booker said the opportunity to get graduate degrees is “something that the athletes want to put at the center of the conversation and negotiation. I would have no objection to that.”
The statement says the senators want to “increase financial assistance for current and former college athletes with medical bills and out-of-pocket expenses from sport-related injuries and illnesses from COVID-19.” They want athletics departments to provide “more detailed annual public reporting” about their finances and the number of hours athletes spend on their sports. They also want a “permanent commission” of current and former athletes and various other experts “to give athletes a meaningful voice” in NCAA rules-making.
D1 council is recommending to the board of directors that all fall sport athletes be allowed an extra year of eligibility regardless if their school actually plays at any point in the 2020-2021 calendar year. Which is good.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
D1 council is recommending to the board of directors that all fall sport athletes be allowed an extra year of eligibility regardless if their school actually plays at any point in the 2020-2021 calendar year. Which is good.
More that they can see the cracks in the foundation. If they don't do this, the fallout will strengthen the players.
And the NCAA mouthpieces are out playing all the 'hits' prior to oral argument on the 31st. I mean, they're all there - the current system helps athletes (it doesn't), non-marquee sports would suffer (only in that they would no longer be able to siphon off the labor of marquee athletes), that "cash-strapped" schools would strain to pay players (while conveniently leaving out how much money coaches make currently.)
I'm getting tired of having my leg pissed on and being told it's raining.
Edit: The whining about "Olympic" sports is especially galling in light of what's happened to actual Olympic athletes like Katie Ledecky, who was forced out of collegiate swimming because of the restrictions on professional endorsements, which she needs to fund training at the Olympic level. Not to mention how NCAA rules have prevented UCLA gymnasts from cashing in on their viral performances.
You're definitely not wrong about that, but it's funny to bring up UCLA gymnastics, one of the few programs that basically does good things. And by good things, I mean reconstruct the psyches of gymnasts after USAG destroys them.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Also, Slate has a piece on Kansas AD Jeff Long, who demonstrates the monument to the Peter Principle that is the business of college athletics. Some of the lowlights of his career:
Kansas’ AD is named Jeff Long, currently the Most College Sports Athletic Director alive. Let’s take a walk.
• The first thing Long did as an athletic director, in 2008, was hire Bobby Petrino to coach the Arkansas Razorbacks. This meant Petrino ditching the Atlanta Falcons in the middle of his first NFL season, just one of many dirtbag moves by Petrino to that point. Bobby Petrino: The Arkansas Years was going fine for a while, and then blew up in Long’s face when Petrino wrecked a motorcycle while riding with his employee/mistress, then lied about it. Long fired Petrino, and somehow received praise for firing the known dirtbag he’d hired.
• Long’s emergency stopgap hire for the 2012 season was John L. Smith, who’d been mostly out of coaching since 2006, but was set to take over at his alma mater, Weber State. Long offered Smith the chance to enjoy three months as lord of a dirtbag’s mess in a demented pressure cooker, and who can say no to that? Arkansas went 4-8, including losses to ULM and Rutgers .
• One person who praised Long’s handling of the whole Petrino thing was Bret Bielema, then the frequent Rose Bowl–attending coach of the Wisconsin Badgers. Bielema sent Long a lovely letter, urging him to “stay strong.” A few months later, Long handed Bielema a fat contract to coach the Razorbacks.
• Somehow amid all this, Long became the College Football Playoff committee’s first-ever chairman. The early CFP had a really weird obsession with touting its own integrity, which they proved by putting the guy who fired Petrino (and also the guy who hired Petrino) up front.
• Arkansas then fired Long, not because he’d hired the dirtbag Petrino years earlier, but because Bielema lost too much. Long then landed at Kansas, which cares much less about football and thus would’ve been wise to just lay low for a while, letting a young coach build in peace. Instead, Long chose to fire David Beaty, who’d improved the team from 0-12 in 2015 to 3-9 in 2018. I want to emphasize that 3-9 is pretty good for Kansas football.
• Long’s KU then got involved in a big, petty, embarrassing lawsuit over Beaty’s buyout, ultimately spending even more money than they would have if they’d just paid him off at the beginning.
• During that whole fiasco, Long hired Miles off the couch. In 2012, Long had actually wanted to hire Miles at Arkansas, presumably because Miles … said something nice to Long like 20 years ago? That’s just a guess.
• Did Long at least do some due diligence before finally landing his coveted Miles at Kansas? Did he at least try to find whether there were any skeletons in Baton Rouge? Well, depositions suggest Long had his heart set on Miles even before Beaty was out the door, and that Long couldn’t remember which other coaches he’d interviewed before hiring Miles. Some other clues also seem to indicate that Long’s mind was already made up.
BlackDragon480Bluster KerfuffleMaster of Windy ImportRegistered Userregular
I'm looking askance at the last sentence in that final bullet point. Everything else in the summary suggests that Long doesn't have a mind, let alone one that could be made up.
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
I'm looking askance at the last sentence in that final bullet point. Everything else in the summary suggests that Long doesn't have a mind, let alone one that could be made up.
Apparently they met when they were at Michigan, when Miles was on the UM coaching staff and Long was an assistant AD, and became friends.
I'm looking askance at the last sentence in that final bullet point. Everything else in the summary suggests that Long doesn't have a mind, let alone one that could be made up.
Apparently they met when they were at Michigan, when Miles was on the UM coaching staff and Long was an assistant AD, and became friends.
We dodged a bullet. He was a post-Brandon candidate.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Nearly 550 collegiate athletes from across the nation signed onto a letter sent to the NCAA on Wednesday demanding that the association stop holding championships and events in states that have passed or are considering passing laws that effectively ban transgender women and girls—and, in at least one case, trans boys and men—from participating in youth and college sports aligned with their gender identity. Idaho passed such a bill last year, while ones in Mississippi and South Dakota are awaiting governors’ signatures. Similar laws in other states are expected to follow.
“We, the undersigned NCAA student-athletes, are extremely frustrated and disappointed by the lack of action taken by the NCAA to recognize the dangers of hosting events in states that create a hostile environment for student-athletes,” the letter opened. Addressing NCAA President Mark Emmert and the NCAA Board of Governors, it continued, “You have been silent in the face of hateful legislation in states that are slated to host championships, even though those states are close to passing anti-transgender legislation.”
The letter was shepherded by runners from Washington University in St. Louis, junior Aliya Schenck and senior Alana Bojar, along with GLAAD and Athlete Ally, national LGBTQ advocacy organizations. It was signed by athletes from at least 85 schools, including the likes of Duke, Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Villanova and Maryland. The signees run the gamut from programs including football, men’s and women’s basketball, soccer, cross-country, gymnastics, rowing and beyond.
Barkley shared his blunt thoughts on college sports and how student-athletes are viewed during his NCAA Tournament analysis. He did not hold back.
"Education, to me, that’s my biggest gripe. When these people on television talk about who should get paid or not … I get sick and tired of people telling these young kids getting a free education is nothing,” he said.
“That’s total BS in my opinion. The NCAA got some issues and they’re not perfect, but to tell kids especially young Black kids that getting a free education is nothing is ridiculous and stupid.”
Last time I checked, Chuck, "free" did not mean "paid for through one's labor, often at an inequitable rate." Players are overwhelmingly rejecting the idea that the education that they are paying for with their own labor is somehow "free", for unsurprising reasons.
I can't even muster up the energy to get mad at Barkley saying out of touch boomer shit anymore, but something tells me he wouldn't be so charitable about college mens athletics if he hadn't been one of the rare few to actually get to the NBA and be successful. It's far too easy to sit at the top of the pyramid and tell the guys grinding at the bottom that they just need to work harder and appreciate the scraps they do get.
Now tell me why college football coach salaries are perfectly fine Chuck.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I can't even muster up the energy to get mad at Barkley saying out of touch boomer shit anymore, but something tells me he wouldn't be so charitable about college mens athletics if he hadn't been one of the rare few to actually get to the NBA and be successful. It's far too easy to sit at the top of the pyramid and tell the guys grinding at the bottom that they just need to work harder and appreciate the scraps they do get.
Now tell me why college football coach salaries are perfectly fine Chuck.
I imagine not having to actually deal with the NCAA also helps.
You're definitely not wrong about that, but it's funny to bring up UCLA gymnastics, one of the few programs that basically does good things. And by good things, I mean reconstruct the psyches of gymnasts after USAG destroys them.
This is late but y’all UCLA gymnastics is such a good program and I love that they represent my school in that way.
So, tomorrow will be interesting, as the Supreme Court has oral arguments for the Kessler compensation lawsuit. The NCAA has lost at the lower levels, so they're going to be desperate to win here.
Justices across the ideological spectrum teamed up during Supreme Court oral arguments on Wednesday to voice skepticism about the N.C.A.A.’s position that it could bar relatively modest payments to student-athletes in the name of amateurism despite the antitrust laws. But some of the same justices also seemed worried about opening the floodgates to further challenges.
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said that “the antitrust laws should not be a cover for exploitation of the student-athletes,” adding that he doubted that college sports fans understood amateurism to require it.
“To pay no salaries to the workers who are making the schools billions of dollars on the theory that consumers want the schools to pay their workers nothing,” he said, seems “entirely circular and even somewhat disturbing.”
Justice Clarence Thomas noted that other participants in college sports are paid enormous sums. “It just strikes me as odd that the coaches’ salaries have ballooned,” he said, “and they’re in the amateur ranks, as are the players.”
By contrast, Justice Elena Kagan said, colleges and universities have used their combined market power “to fix athletic salaries at extremely low levels, far lower than what the market would set if it were allowed to operate.”
Also, apparently the NCAA lawyers made the "competitive balance" argument. When everyone knows that your football championship may as well be named the Alabama Invitational, that argument may not hold the weight you think.
Also, apparently the NCAA lawyers made the "competitive balance" argument. When everyone knows that your football championship may as well be named the Alabama Invitational, that argument may not hold the weight you think.
Did lead to the hilariously out of touch comment from Thomas that included Nebraska in the list of powers.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Also, apparently the NCAA lawyers made the "competitive balance" argument. When everyone knows that your football championship may as well be named the Alabama Invitational, that argument may not hold the weight you think.
Did lead to the hilariously out of touch comment from Thomas that included Nebraska in the list of powers.
Basically, if I was in Mark Emmert's custom Italian loafers, I'd be drawing up plans to set up a glide path to paying players, because I'd realize my shit got done kicked in today.
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Political analyst Jared Yates Sexton has a thread discussing how truly fucked up things are:
I honestly wonder how that $412k per compares to what OSU is actually currently playing their players
That’s how much a championship-ring-for-tattoos trade costs, right?
FYI this isn’t a Tressel apology post, he shouldn’t have tried to hide tat-gate, he should have been using it as an example how Pryor needed to trade his ring just to afford a tattoo despite OSU making millions off him during those 3 phenomenally frustrating years
(I honestly don't know who that is)
Michigan DE '16-'18, was the #1 player in his high school class and a first round pick of the Packers. Freak athlete, had a bum shoulder for a lot of his Michigan career so never quite became the Clowneyesque destroyer of worlds we wanted him to be.
Though to be fair, as a Directv subscriber, it's not like I was watching PAC12 sports anyway...
But I would support it for all schools and conferences regardless
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/pac-12-players-threaten-to-sit-out-2020-season-over-health-concerns-medical-coverage-racial-injustice/
In addition to the following concrete demands, players called out exorbitant spending on administrators, coaches, and commissioner Larry Scott, suggesting all three should voluntarily take massive pay cuts in order to help all athletes, not just football players.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Via LGM
More that they can see the cracks in the foundation. If they don't do this, the fallout will strengthen the players.
I'm getting tired of having my leg pissed on and being told it's raining.
Edit: The whining about "Olympic" sports is especially galling in light of what's happened to actual Olympic athletes like Katie Ledecky, who was forced out of collegiate swimming because of the restrictions on professional endorsements, which she needs to fund training at the Olympic level. Not to mention how NCAA rules have prevented UCLA gymnasts from cashing in on their viral performances.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
Republican house member from eastern San Diego/southern Riverside county
Apparently they met when they were at Michigan, when Miles was on the UM coaching staff and Long was an assistant AD, and became friends.
We dodged a bullet. He was a post-Brandon candidate.
Yeah, that was a terminal fuck up.
Edit: Asking why Petrino, Bielema, and Miles were deficient as coaches was not the winning move, it seems.
Being a CEO or VP at any mid level American company or larger might give it a run.
Political punditry.
Last time I checked, Chuck, "free" did not mean "paid for through one's labor, often at an inequitable rate." Players are overwhelmingly rejecting the idea that the education that they are paying for with their own labor is somehow "free", for unsurprising reasons.
Now tell me why college football coach salaries are perfectly fine Chuck.
I imagine not having to actually deal with the NCAA also helps.
This is late but y’all UCLA gymnastics is such a good program and I love that they represent my school in that way.
3DS: 2981-5304-3227
The NCAA is, in a word, fucked.
Did lead to the hilariously out of touch comment from Thomas that included Nebraska in the list of powers.
I think he's from Nebraska?