On Laremy Tunsil
So the thing that everybody knew happened did happen.
Tunsil's Draft Presser via WBBM. "Was their an exchange between you and your coach for $$?" "I'd have to say, yeah." pic.twitter.com/TqYeOSjOfO
— Robby Donoho (@RobbyDonoho) April 29, 2016
As revelations go it's small time. Tunsil didn't get suspended for seven games for nothing.
Here is the best description of the admission. Tunsil went in front of the media almost as the Instagram stuff was posted and said these things in this order:
Then Tunsil was asked about the Instagram posts. He said he’d just found out about them, and reiterated that he’d made a mistake. Asked by reporter as to whether there’d been an exchange of money between Tunsil and a coach, he first responded, “I wouldn’t say that.” But when pressed a few moments later, he said, “Those messages?” almost as if he hadn’t understood the previous questions. “Those were true. Like I said, I made a mistake.”
Asked again if there had been an exchange of money, Tunsil then responded matter-of-factly, “I have to say yeah.” A further question about whether he’d met with the NCAA was being posed when Milam appeared from behind a curtain, cutting the session short. “He’s got no more comments. Thank you guys so much,” she said, tapping the offensive lineman on the shoulder, whisking him away and leaving media as baffled as Tunsil apparently had been.
Tunsil said it twice and was clearly referring to the Instagram posts since "those" is not a way you'd reference the bong hit. That's about as clear as it'll ever get.
Good for Tunsil, more or less. Dude got paid, got to the NFL as a mid-first-round pick, and got to do a gas mask bong in front of a Confederate flag. I guess that's empowering?
I don't have any issue with Tunsil's priorities. I assume 80% of college football players have taken hits off a novelty bong. I'm assuming his family is not particularly wealthy; it's a logical decision to get paid when you happen to be an incredible prospect in a field that has a professional career that lasts on average 2.6 years. Maybe don't film yourself doing a thing that you know the NFL is irrational about, but the only proper response to tut-tutters is to roll your eyes.
Meanwhile I can get behind following that up with an honest admission he got paid to go to a university with negligible football history and Confederate flags behind every bong. I'll only be vaguely irritated at Tunsil if he walks back those admissions. He doesn't owe anything to Ole Miss; a look inside the sausage factory can only speed up the day when people can give money to college football players over the table. There is a point at which the NCAA must admit that they have no ability to prevent people from getting paid and drops the whole charade.
It is an amazing bit of brainwashing. That's why I think some coach just needs to use protest-the-system defense. https://t.co/HmYhlGvgdl
— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) April 29, 2016
And what a charade it is. Whenever I bring this up and advocate near-total deregulation of money headed to college football players there is a pushback from people who say
- but then people with money will have influence on football programs and
- but then college football players will have the money.
I look at these people and wonder why they think 1 isn't already true—even at programs trying to stay between the lines—and why 2 is a problem. The text message exchange is an attempt to get a bill paid for his mom. We have zero issue with 18 and 19 year olds getting paid in any other sport; paternalistic concerns they might do something harmlessly stupid with the money are nonsensical since then the players are merely back where they started.
Ole Miss got greedy. The reason that Ole Miss might actually take a fall here is because they got greedy. They had a story why they might acquire Robert Nkemdiche—his brother was already on the team. They had zero plausible story why they'd acquire Tunsil or Laquon Treadwell, out-of-state five stars with zero connection to a program that hadn't done anything since the 1960s. Tunsil in particular seems to have come with some serious family baggage that may explain why Ole Miss was able to outbid others:
Suspicion for the hacks quickly and naturally fell upon Tunsil’s stepfather, Lindsey Miller, with whom Tunsil has been engaged in a lengthy and nasty legal battle.
Last June, Tunsil was arrested on domestic-violence charges after a fight with Miller. Tunsil told police that his stepfather had pushed his mother, and he punched Miller to protect her, and pressed charges against Miller. Miller told police that Tunsil hit him at least six times, that the attack was unprovoked, and that the argument started over Tunsil having impermissible contact with agents. NCAA investigators interviewed Miller over his claims that he had proof of rules violations committed by Ole Miss.
A month later, Tunsil and Miller agreed to drop the charges against each other.
This past Tuesday, two days before the draft, Miller filed a lawsuit against Tunsil, claiming Tunsil assaulted him and defamed his character. The suit alleges “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
If you're Alabama you can just move on to the next kid. (Or maybe not.) Ole Miss can't, and that may be their undoing. And it should be. While paying players is morally fine it is also against the rules.
Hi, Hugh Freeze. If there's ever been an example of a guy who just along for the ride it's Hugh "muh families" Freeze. Dude is an anonymous high school coach before a one-year apprenticeship at Arkansas State and then Ole Miss. Upon his arrival they start recruiting like they matter, and he bitches about having to work.
Gus Malzahn is a great comparison here. Malzahn also came from high school and also had a one year apprenticeship at Arkansas State before getting the Auburn job, but beforehand he was OC at Arkansas and Auburn and Tulsa and had excellent success at all those places, getting chased about because sometimes those places are insane. Malzhan got his job because he's a good football coach, and if Auburn's paying some guys to come that's only part of his success. Survey says they are, but not egregiously.
Freeze has nothing to his name other than the ability to not observe cash payments to high-profile recruits, and over the past year his program has seen one Nkemdiche fall out off a balcony whilst high, the other Nkemdiche leave the team and get hospitalized twice with "personal issues," and now the Tunsil thing. One of the appeals of the Ole Miss program appears to be a total lack of adult supervision. The NCAA changing official visit policies so that parents can come along will not be a help to them.
It's to the point where the NFL notices:
Multiple sources told The MMQB that Tunsil’s off-field behavior was becoming increasingly worrisome and reason for some teams to remove him from their draft boards altogether. Much of it had to do with the culture at Mississippi, sources say.
A Freeze implosion here would be richly deserved. Whether the NCAA has the ability to deliver it is very much in question, unfortunately.
And the players benefit from those palaces. They get the swankiest facilities, swag out the ass, tuition/books/room/board/per diem already. Do they really need an extra $200/month to make it all better?
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Nothing. That seems like a reasonable stipend to me.
The palaces are built by restricted donations.
They won't get paid by the team, they'll get paid, for example, by General Mills for appearing on a box of Wheaties.
I think the biggest challenge to that would be competitive balance. A few kids would get Wheaties or Nike contracts, but the vast majority who got paid would get it, legitimately, through "endorsement" deals from local boosters (for being in a car dealership commercial or law firm newspaper ad or whatever). The capacity for that kind of spending would be vary enormously from school to school. Alabama and Michigan boosters would pour a ton of money into it, and they could essentially offer scholarship players big-time, guaranteed salaries. Other schools' boosters wouldn't. The NCAA couldn't impose a salary cap, since the money wouldn't be coming from athletic programs, so big-spending schools would probably get a major advantage in recruiting. That would be great for us - and maybe wouldn't be a problem at all - but it would have consequences.
My opinion is that every option sucks, including (and maybe especially) the status quo. So I'm not helpful here. If there's a really clean solution out there, I haven't seen it. Your suggestion seems as reasonable as any other - and maybe the direction I'd go, too - but every idea seems flawed.
Thank you for your reply.
Aside from being a dreadful idea that'll doom college sports, it's simply impossible under Title IX.
We already have an incompotent governing body that won't do jack shit about Tunsil outting Ole Miss or Alabama's DL coach violating recruiting rules. Do we really want that same entity governing payments to athletes?
"Amateur" competition was put in place so that the NCAA didn't have to pay workers comp.
Tons of other collegiate "elites" get paid for their skills while on scholarship. Look at Stipends for top grad students, or undergrads. If you're the #5 Math Recruit in the country you better bet that MIT, Standford, Michigan, The Ivies, etc. are offering you a full scholarship - WITH benefits that athletes can't get.
Regarding the "Money" part of your argument - No athletic departments turn a profit today because it does not benefit them to turn a profit. Do locker rooms need waterfalls? No! Does the AD need hundreds and hundreds of employees? No! But all that money has to go somewhere (as long as it's not the players).
Title iX could figure itself out - I'm sure it already does for the math department, or any of the other hundreds of students who are in a more free market than NCAA athletes.
The first intercollegiate athletic contest in the US is generally thought to date to 1852, whereas the first workers compensation law (which are governed at the state level) was passed in 1911. I'm pretty sure that at the outset of intercollegiate athletics, they were really thinking about a bunch of students competing against another group of students, and "workers compensation" was the furthest thing from their minds.
I already agreed with the stipend argument.
I disagree with your argument that athletic departments purposefully don't turn a profit. Out of 48 Power Five universities surveyed by The Washington Post, 25 of them lost money in their athletic departments in 2014. The increased spending is simply the result of an arms race. Everyone thinks there is so much money being created for the schools, when in fact they each have 2-3 revenue sports and 20+ other money-losing sports to support, many of which are required by Title IX.
As for your last point, I don't know what you mean by "figure itself out." I guarantee you that as soon as you pay a male athlete and not a female one, there will be a slam-dunk civil rights lawsuit.
"Student Athlete" - http://deadspin.com/how-the-myth-of-the-ncaa-student-athlete-was-born-1524282374
Stipends - we're good!
Profits - http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/
The money exists. It's just not going to students.
Title IX - how do bidding math departments make sure they're compliant with this? Again, it is a totally open market for math/science/writing/etc. prodigies. Just not for athletes. Universities are compliant all the time. They can figure out how to do it here too.
http://knowyourix.org/title-ix/title-ix-the-basics/. https://math.mit.edu/academics/grad/financial/index.php
Can tell you weren't an econ or business major. Believe whatever you want, brother.
Math department complies with Title IX because they don't have a "Women's Math" and "Men's Math."
And how does that relate to this discussion?
Show me in Michigan's budget where "the money exists."
http://www.mgoblue.com/genrel/061815aaa.html
There's today's budget. The new TV deal will bring in an extra $20-30 MILLION per year. Where does that go?
The link is to the current year budget, which is break even.
Since I'm not preparing the budget for future years, I don't know where future increases in revenues go, or what reductions in current revenues might need to be replaced. Hopefully if it's a net increase in revenues above increasing operating costs, it goes to reduce ticket prices!
The Ivies don't offer merit based scholarships at least not for undergraduate. Their scholarships are all needs based. So being one of the top math students in the nation would get you nothing financially but neither would being one of the top football or basketball players. Obviously being tops in your area opens up the possibility of acceptance, but it doesn't add any financial help. I know Northwestern also has (or at least used to when my daughter was applying) no academic merit based scholarships.
First, they schools would not necessarily have to pay the players directly although that's probably the best way. Players could either get paid directly by boosters or by a booster club.
Second, if you think that the UM AD just breaks even, that's because it has a pile of money to continue building outrageous facilities and huge salaries.
Although a minor league system could work in theory, much of the fanbase is associated with the game because of the affliation with the schools. Take that away and watch the fanbase dwindle. Plus you basically have an established minor league system right now with the NCAA and the "kids" get a benefit of an education (if they want to use it).
I do agree that the NCAA cannot continue to have very strict rules but very selective and pathetic enforcement.
If the booster club is affiliated with the university, then it won't work.
I know the Michigan Ahtletics Department breaks even. This is a matter of public record. The facilities are donated. The salaries are driven by the market. Do you want guys like Manuel, Harbaugh, and Beilein or not? They come with a price tag. Like I said it's an arms race, but it's the cost of having a competitive program. Do you honestly think that if Michigan said, "Hey Harbaugh, instead of paying you $5 mil, we're going to give that to your players and pay you $100,000," that he'd stick around? No, he'd go to the NFL where he could make the $5 mil.
the NCAA is a paper tiger. I'm finally with Brian. Let schools pay players above the table. It is the only way to level the playing field.
I heard audio of the presser where Tunsil admitted taking money from a coach on the Dan Patrick Show. Then when I heard the woman who yanked him (so to speak) off the stage, I noticed her southern drawl. So, I was wondering who she was and her connection to the situation. On the DP Show, they said she was an Ole Miss alum...so, I thought that was interesting.
I think we should take a vote of conferences as to what should happen. Each conference should designate one representative, who doesn't have to abide by the wishes of the conference.
with legacy ties to the school, discovering that football players actually get paid seems about as revealing as water is wet. The question is, would the Tunsil affair actually prompt the NCAA to do anything about the truth behind the magic act of enrollment and admission practices of the SEC and ACC (where anything goes from academic fraud at UNC to pay for play at Ole Miss and Alabama foreced to dump a coach for wink, wink recruiting violations). ? Not likely now or ever.
But let's consider the backdrop of these new developments and the ACC abd SEC commissioner appeal to end satellite camps as a way to protect their bagman practices and enrollment qualification on their own recruiting ground.
It's one thing to claim that you are protecting your territory for some relative cause of backyard prospecting , it's quite another to do offer any sense of appeal for continued support of a satellite camp ban after everyone discovered that the emperors really don't wear clothes after all.
NCAA investigation expert on Ole Miss after Laremy Tunsil draft fiasco: "They're screwed"
Thought that was funny/interesting but I will also be shocked if anything happens.
I am in the camp of giving athletes more benefits like a little sponsor money or something but I hate Hugh Freeze and hope he gets checked here.
I heard Rich Eisen say this was nothing more than a "man bites dog" story. I'd say it's even less surprising than that. This is a "dog bites man" story. The truth is revealed, so what. Only a very naive person would have believed that Ole Miss was on the up and up.
I get it. The NCAA is a cash cow, and players are being left out in the cold (given free educations, training, advertisement of their skills on a national platform, room and board, leaving college with a degree and no debt).
Let me ask you this.
The University of Michigan brings in around about 1.3 billion in research grants annually. The bulk of the work and research performed is done by undergrads, and grad students. Being that these research projects bring in exponentially more money on an annual basis to the school, where is the outrage over these kids not only not being paid for their valuable research and labor, but also the fact that the bulk of them will perform this work, yet leave school with ridiculous debt?
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Missouri is the obvious recent exception, but that just buttresses the pay argument. As soon as the players threatened strike, there was immediate change because the administration did the math in dollars.
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Second, doing undergrad research on scholarship (and I highly doubt there are 85 on specific science acholarships at Michigan) not analogous to being on football scholarship no matter how to try to spin it. Fall Saturdays shut down Ann Arbor, and whether or not the team wins determines how well local businesses do. You also don't have college football players working on college football degrees unless you are Cardale Jones. Substantially most football players never make millions either. It's only the talented few, and even the average career lifespan is not very high. Rather, most are expected to fit in studying in between practice and "voluntary" workouts.
I don't feel that much sympathy for college football because it is also voluntary. At the same time, paying them for play shouldn't be a big deal from any moral perspective.
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that football saturdays and alumni donations are greater than the 1.3 billion research grants bring into the university?
it sure sounded like that.
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Im pretty sure a four year degree, and room and board kind of negates your absolute exclusion argument.
They should get paid as well. No argument there either. When we used to write grant proposals, the University would take about one-third, one-third would go towards paying fees and tutions and the rest would go for stipends for the grad student. most individual grants are small and geared towards supporting one or two students. Larger grants with longer timeframes sometime would support multiple students (stipend and tuition).
I do not support the idea that we should aim a portion of the money cannon at the players and deregulate the financial aspects of paying players. Hell, even professional sports leagues regulate salaries and payment to players.
However, there has to be an intelligent way to funnel some of the vast millions to players such that paying a couple hundred dollars isn't going to sway their choice of college or whether they can eat dinner that night. Here are some simple ideas that could be pursued further:
- Any sale of apparel or marketing material that use a player's likeness, name, jersey, etc. results in that player having access to a portion of that money.
- Players can more freely interact with professional teams and agents without loss of their amature status. (I'm thinking more like baseball and hockey than a total free-for-all)
- If a program chooses to do so (since not all Div-1 programs make money), they can establish a monetary fund for scholarship athletes. It can be based on status, seniority, playing time, academics, or whatever. That money is put into an investment account that grows while they are on scholarship. If they leave school in good standing that money is theirs to spend. During school they can borrow against it. The NCAA can impose some limits or regulations on its use or maximum.
I still believe there needs to be rules and limits established rather than a wild-west situation where some schools will pay every five star recruit a bunch of money and others go a different route. But something has to change to end the draconian situation we're in now.
Let's face it, these Ole Miss players probably took more money under Freeze than the Michgan basketball players did under Fischer. And we got vacated wins, banners removed, post-season bans, etc.
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Fuck that - I don't want any government entity involved in this.
I can ask anyone I want for money for anything. I can also lie about my reasoning for said money. So can you.
Why can't he???
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- Weed should not be illegal.
- College athletes should be able to make money for themselves and provide for family however they see fit.
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