Let Them Eat Bag
They probably didn't mean for his hat to look like a butt
A slow April day in the middle of the college football wasteland had a bomb detonated on it when Stephen Godfrey and SBNation published an in-depth article on the shadow economy of the SEC, wherein people get paid by other people to play football for school X.
"I had this one kid, great player, good guy. Never got in trouble, but never did much on the field. But he's calling me all the time. 'Hey, the sunroof in my car is leaking,' he says, so I tell him to come meet me. $150. Two days later it's: 'Hey, I'm going out this weekend with a girl, can you help me?' $200. Next week after that he's got $300 in parking tickets. So one day I go to meet him to give him money and I ask, "Hey man, aren't you a business major? Have y'all learned what ROI means yet? It means return on investment, and at this rate I'm going to need to start seeing some touchdowns.'"
The article is fascinating and you should go read it now. I'll wait.
…
Now, let's talk about how much we care about this. I do. I've got a sneer or two in me left when I see kids at Clemson and Ole Miss whose recruitments did 180s away from Ann Arbor. There was a recruit in the last five years who Michigan led for; his sudden decision to go somewhere else was financially motivated and that was an open secret amongst that recruiting class. As a guy who wants to see his football team win games, that kind of thing still grates my gears.
But that's all at this point. It's just partisan crybaby stuff. I regard it as a character flaw. (The tatgate thing was different since Tressel lied to the NCAA multiple times. You can't do that and expect to keep your job, even if you lied about stupid rules that make no sense.)
So I don't care, you know, morally. The NCAA's prohibition on kids taking money is not only asinine but (obviously) unenforceable. It also serves no purpose other than to concentrate wealth in the hands of administrators. Whenever I get in discussions about these sorts of things with the dwindling number of people on the side of amateurism, the conversation usually boils down to this:
ME: I guess I just don't see why rich guys giving some of their money to poor people is such a problem.
THEM: But then they'll have money.
ME: I'm unclear on why that's an issue.
THEM: But then they'll be influenced.
ME: …
Around here we like to say things like "I'm so glad Michigan doesn't do that." I think it's time to stop that. The rule is arbitrary, the system inherently corrupt, and if Michigan has a shadow network of boosters my main problem with them is that they're not good enough at being shadowy and boostery. The basketball recruits other schools have swooped in on aren't picking these other schools because of the coaching, man.
I'm over it. And you should be too, because the attitude about I'm So Glad We Don't Do That that's so pervasive around these parts is almost certainly false. I'm So Glad We Don't Do That As Much doesn't have the same horse height. Very averaged-sized horse, that. That's a horse that you can see your lunch getting eaten from only.
And in the service of what?
"Last week I got a call. We've got this JUCO transfer that had just got here. And he's country poor. The [graduate assistant] calls me and tells me he's watching the AFC Championship Game alone in the lobby of the Union because he doesn't have a TV. Says he never owned one. Now, you can buy a Walmart TV for $50. What kid in college doesn't have a TV? So I don't give him any money. I just go dig out in my garage and find one of those old Vizios from five years back and leave it for him at the desk. I don't view what I do as a crime, and I don't give a shit if someone else does, honestly."
Everywhere else in society, an 18 year old who works really hard at something is financially compensated for it and most of them do not… I mean… why am I even arguing about this? If you're the kind of person who thinks that young people doing dumb things with money is a threat instead of, you know, life, you probably start arguments with "Speaking as a parent." Anyone who starts arguments with "Speaking as a parent" wants you to turn off your brain so they can feelingsball you. They are my mortal enemies, speaking as a person who can formulate an argument.
The aura of paternalism that hangs over objections to letting players get theirs is suffocating. "But if they get money they'll…" They'll what? They'll still be under the thumb of a drill sergeant of a football coach desperate to remain in his good graces lest the faucet turn off. They will be the same, just with fewer things to stress about.
They might waste it. They might not. I just don't care anymore. Let them have their five hundred dollars.
Am I the only one who thought that player should've just gone to a friend's house to watch the AFC championship game? Dude's on a team, why is he all alone?
Yep that was my takeaway from the article.
I thought the same exact thing. I had a 17" tv when I was in Ann Arbor and was too cheap to pay Comcast. The Union was the last place you would find me watching a game.
April 10th, 2014 at 10:13 PM ^
I noticed that as well, but it is still a bit jarring that apparently this kid didn't even have a TV at all. I know some people view it as a luxury and unnecessary, but it is still pretty crazy that a kid would be in that position while also performing on the field and making the university money.
That's one hell of an article title, Brian.
The issue with "bagmen" isn't that they exist; I'm sure UM has some, as do most other major programs. I'm also certain the SEC have WAY more than others.
The issue is that they exist, in large part, as a naturaly response to the draconian and illogical rules proplogated by the NCAA regarding athletes' compensation. As noted in the article, lots of these kids aren't looking for millions; they may need stuff as simple as a little extra money to help family and enjoy some minor luxuries in college, luxuries many of their peers take for granted. I know there is a slippery slope that can get you into trouble where you'll dropping 100k on a RB, but it feels like you could eliminate a large swath of issues by letting kids declare "x" amount of known benefits from outside parties and just keep it above board. So if you give a kid a $75 TV, just let someone know it and you can deal with the tax consequences in some appropriate way. Or if you're the school, you give them a little more money so that they can afford to buy these small essentials like food, clothing, and light entertainment. It's not that hard, and then the faux moral highground that people take when they don't want to discuss the real issues.
Recruiting and retaining players aren't the problem right now. It's frustrating to lose guys like Treadwell out of the blue, but Michigan has the talent.
I too am frustrated by Michigan not gaining this advantage, but the disparity in on field success is due to a lot more than bag men.
April 10th, 2014 at 10:24 PM ^
Reading through all of this, I don't think the "bagmen" will ever come out in public, even if the NCAA were suddenly to make it okay. The reason? Taxes. You know what kind of headache it is all around if suddenly Devin Gardner has to start filing taxes on the extra benefits he receives from boosters/agents/anyone outside of school? Players aren't going to deal with that, and so the money will always stay cash, always invisible, always shady.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:16 PM ^
How far away from under the table compensation for play is compensation to fix?
while its hard to believe Bo would ever allow this sort of activity ever. I do not want to believe Bo would stand for it, Of course was there stuff Bo didnt ever know about? Some feel that was a different age, with less TV money influincing the game, and thats true. also they had many more scholarships to give and larger football rosters to stockpile talented players.
But if you think nothing happened because it was the 1970s just look at UCLA and Coach John Wooden. While it is fair to say John Wooden is a great coach, as is Nick Saban today. Sam Gilbert, known as Papa Sam, was a wealthy businessman, booster and devoted UCLA fan who is known now to have given UCLA players goods and services. UCLA won 10 National Championships,with some of the best talent in the country Wooden reportedly looked the other way while this goes on. he has an aura of a great man and someone who was clean.
Unlike the bag men of today, Sam liked the limelight, so its hard to believe how much Gilbert got away with. there were eventually NCAA sanctions in 1981.
Heres an article from 2010 in the LA times.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/08/sports/la-sp-0609-wooden-gilber…
April 11th, 2014 at 10:21 AM ^
Michigan gets in Trouble for PRACTICING TOO MUCH!!!! While the SEC just keeps on cheating cheating cheating....NCAA is a complete joke and waste of time...How the SEC keeps getting away with all their cheating year after year after year just shows how corrupt the entire ncaa is...remember Scam Newton?...NCAA ruled that while his father shopped him around for a HUNDRED GRAND...SCAM new nothing.....
April 11th, 2014 at 10:44 AM ^
The problem with paying these kids to play football in college is that it is never going to be enough. They already get a free education, plus close to $1,000 a month, with free food. If you pay them, they will still want more and still take money from boosters. That kid who couldn't afford a tv so he had to watch it in the union, probably blew all his money on Jordans or gambling. If he really wanted a tv, he could have gotten himself a tv.
When people grow up and don't have money, their first taste is like a drug. They want more and more and more. Pretty soon, it is all about the money and they put making money over anything else.
I am a HS football coach and we have 3 guys playing in the B1G and 6 in the MAC from our last 2 graduating classes. They come back and visit, or I go visit them frequently. Its amazing how the kids who never had money are so focused on money. A kid I coached is at MSU, all he talks about is all the free stuff they get and how all the players make money off it. I went and visited our kids at Kent State, they told me story after story about how all the kids on the team lose all their money gambling. One player gambled his entire meal card for the semester and lost it the first day of classes.
It doesn't matter what we give them or what they truly deserve, it will never be enough, players will cheat, players will steal, booster will pay them, and we will be facing the same issues.
And for the record, I do feel that players should be paid, but there needs to be a system/scale that pays the bigtime players more, and it must be realitively equal throughout.
April 11th, 2014 at 11:19 AM ^
Just to be clear, Brian Cook sees no ethical problems with bagmen paying Michigan players under the table.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:26 PM ^
that it is in fact happening at Michigan right now and that we should all be fine with it.
Well, I'm about as fine with Michigan bag men paying athletes under the table as I am with the 1918 Black Sox taking bag money to fix World Series games.
April 11th, 2014 at 12:14 PM ^
How about this solution:
Pay Scholarship athletes cost of living dependant on division.
Legalize player endorsement deals and direct booster payments to athletes. - but disclose the payments.
Divisions in college sports depend on reaching certain thresholds of total payments (COL+Booster)
The only incentive to hide payments is to get your university to compete at a less-than-top tier, which isn't as appealing to a booster.
Most big 10/SEC schools still probably end up in the top division, but now no one is penalized for "trying to do things right"
I think this also makes sense from a title 9 perspective, booster payments dont count.
Like Brian, I am totally appalled at the lack of effectiveness of our Bag Men if they even exist at all. Michigan has been late to the party on a number of innovations in college athletics like progressive / variable ticket prices, night games, luxury boxes, club seats, etc. We simply cannot afford to be left behind by yet another shift in the college football landscape. I hereby call on the University of Michigan to form a diverse, multi-cultural committee of civic leaders, poets and non-mainstream religious figures to recruit and retain better Bag Men. Clearly, this is our only hope.
Returning from the land of sarcasm for a moment, I think we would actually struggle to produce effective Bag Men. While the article does specifically mention the culture of the South being generally tolerant towards this type of behavior, it doesn't mention the effect that social structure has on Bag Men. The South is effectively a class-based society. People are born into a social class and generally stay there all their lives. One of the trappings of the upper (ruling) classes is attendance at The School in your state or region. This concentration of alumni and wealth among a relative small and geographically related group, while maybe not unique nationwide, is certainly more pronounced in the South.
If I think about the people I went to U of M with, we are first scattered around the world and second concentrated in careers that don't lend themselves well to Bag Manning. I don't know anyone from Grand Blanc for example who went to U of M and then returned home to take over running Daddy's car dealership or tractor repair business. I struggle to see an entrepreneur take a break from a meeting with the investors in his new biotech startup to deliver an envelope full of money to kid at a bus stop on Washtenaw. Or a playwright or a dentist or a.... Furthermore, we don't exist in an area where every single business owner went to either Alabama or Auburn with a few stragglers from Tennessee and Georgia thrown in. Wealth here is much more distributed than in the South. Not to say that those people don't exist here, but there's far fewer of them and they hold far less stature in society.
Now in Ohio on the other hand...
Another first in diversity for the University of Michigan, a female Bag Person. Submit her name to the multi-cultural review committee immediately! She just needs to work out how to turn insurance payments into loose cash and she's in business.
April 12th, 2014 at 12:07 PM ^
Our bag people (or is it, rather, "People of Bag") will deliver unto recruits Zingerman's Townie Brownies (yes, they are real - wheat free and made with quinoa).
The answer was what some of us wrote long ago, which is not to get down in the muck with the SEC. We should have let them do their thing -- cheating, which they'll do even if bagmen are legalized -- and kept the B1G/Pac 12 relationship and the Rose Bowl and all the rest and not even bothered with them. If they wanted to pretend they were the national champion every year, let them.
Michigan is never going to bagman and cheat as well as the SEC and Texas schools. It didn't in the 60s when Alabama was always on probation; it didn't in the early 80s when the governor of Texas participated in the buying of Craig James and Eric Dickerson for SMU; it didn't in the 90s, when The U rose to prominence on the backs of bagmen, and it won't in 2014 and 2024.
It's in the DNA of those schools (and maybe even Ohio) and the citizenry and culture surrounding them to cheat the system, no matter what the system is. It's not in Michigan's.
We let Delaney go along with nationalizing the sport -- which meant, in practice, doing what the SEC wanted. (The SEC got pretty much exactly what they wanted at every turn in the nationalization process, up through and including the parameters for the playoff.) The SEC's goal was to herd everyone into their system, which would then (1) vindicate their "superiority" -- done; and (2) vindicate their cheating ways -- all but done.
So the battle is over. We've lost. We aren't going to gain back what's lost by bagmanning.
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