Unverified Voracity Drops Mic On Foot
I suppose that it is in fact internally consistent that you would be dumb enough to say the things you are saying and also dumb enough to keep saying things. NCAA president Mark Emmert has escaped his holding pen and is making the most of it before he is tasered back into serene acceptance of fifty-dollar cucumber sandwich lunches. He's making the most of it by getting into rap battles with strawmen in front of microphones… and losing.
#AskEmmert would have descended into farce if there was anywhere to descend to, with one particularly stupid argument about CFL players getting the most attention. Most recently, as part of an interview with Dan Patrick recently Emmert claimed that if he was on a football scholarship he wouldn't want anything on top of that:
He's just the kind of guy who doesn't need that much money, you see. He's barely aware that he made 1.7 million last year. Never asked for a raise in his life. Miracle of compound interest. Still drives the same 1978 Ford Pinto to and from the office. Weaves his own suits on a loom he built himself from plastic bags and floss. Has not eaten anything but multivitamins and rice since 1884.
Also from that interview:
Emmert just said athletes shouldn't be able to capitalize on their own likenesses because of "competitive fairness." Yes. He really did.
— SI_DougFarrar (@SI_DougFarrar) April 21, 2014 Nonsense, obviously. As Andy Staples points out, it's lawyer nonsense—to escape anti-trust laws leagues have to demonstrate that their rules keep things balanced and thus increase the overall popularity of sport X and league X. So he has to make his nonsense arguments so the NCAA's lawyers can make their nonsense arguments that a judge will hopefully fart on.
The "people in charge of things are just in charge of them for no reason" tag is getting a workout these days. Speaking of, Texas's new AD is opening his mouth again.
Meanwhile. Michael Bird provides an excellent explanation of why the whole "you're getting a FREE EDUCATION" line of argument is flimsy: when you put people who wouldn't get into a school in it and give them a 40-50 hour a week job on top of that the free education is usually just an education in how to stay eligible to play. Like philosophy, the only thing you can do after is teach people how to do the thing you just did.
You've got a nice lack of union there. Wouldn't want anything to happen to it. While CAPA won their first round matchup with the NCAA at the regional NLRB level, they've only won the right to vote on union. First they've got to vote to form one. While that seems like it would be a slam dunk since Colter and company had to have overwhelming support to even take their case to the board, Northwestern is pushing back as hard as they can with all means at their disposal:
[Former NW player Kevin] Brown said he and others recently met with coach Pat Fitzgerald for two and a half hours to address some alumni concerns, such as the treatment of former quarterback Kain Colter and threats made to current players.
The former defensive back said former players have contacted current players, saying if they vote “yes” for the union on April 25 they will lose out on employment opportunities and other benefits of the football alumni network.
CBS has obtained a document from Northwestern itself with the usual scaremongering. If you vote for a union, you might miss out on your dying grandma's last hours, it says. Seriously.
Northwestern tells a player that the current benefit of going home for a family emergency might not be available after a majority vote because "that would be subject to negotiation with the union." "The union's agenda, which is set by the union leaders, may not take into account the specific things that are important to you as an individual," Northwestern states Fitzgerald later adds, "I don't think I have EVER denied or discouraged any player from taking the time they need for important personal matters."
Seems likely. Also likely:
Northwestern tells parents change will happen faster through NCAA reform than through unionizing, which could "take several years before the issue whether our players are employees entitled to unionize finally is resolved."
You desire changes, but let us make the changes without any input from you.
One thing's clear, anyway: Northwestern is terrified about CAPA.
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Next year Michigan's promotional poster will read "WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON THE SCHEDULE AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH IOWA"
Michigan: Rutgers: NIGHT: explosions: invasion: New York: money. Speaking of people just in charge of things, Michigan's game at Rutgers will be at 7 PM. Mark your calendars. Mine says "Michigan versus nonstop pursuit of dollars."
Number based awards. Beilein is the best in the country after a timeout, which probably just means Michigan has a real good offense. Boston College was next, which just goes to show that anyone making a big deal about performance after timeouts probably shouldn't. Also: Michigan unsurprisingly had the best offensive tourney.
That doesn't seem good. Another guy heads for the lifeboats at Indiana, and this one is kind of a big deal:
Assistant men's basketball coach Kenny Johnson has accepted a job offer from Louisville, leaving Indiana one coach short of a full staff. Whether Tom Crean can find another assistant capable of the same impact Johnson made in just two years in Bloomington remains to be seen.
Who is this guy you probably haven't even heard of? Well…
Kenny Johnson was the lead man at IU for Noah Vonleh, Rob Johnson, Troy Williams, Stan Robinson & played role in James Blackmon recommitting
— Evan Daniels (@EvanDaniels) April 22, 2014 That is a lot of guys to bring in in two years, and now he will be attempting to get those guys to Louisville.
Dagnabit. Maryland was trying to get social momentum around a #hashtag promoting their November 15th night game against MSU…
Oh, the jokes... RT @BTNBrentYarina: #BlackoutSparty is what Maryland is calling the Nov. 15 game. http://t.co/iTdsBgR1FI
— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) April 22, 2014 …but someone caught on and Maryland deleted that tweet before I could replicate the image.
Why college kickers suck. According to Chris Kluwe, they don't get coached. Literally.
In my five years of college ball, and eight years in the NFL, I did not have a single special teams coach or head coach who had the faintest idea how it is that I did my job, and that is how it is EVERYWHERE. (I was lucky that early on in high school, I found a couple coaches who did know a thing or two so I could teach myself later).
Kluwe was a punter, but chances are that ignorance extends to the other kicky-footy guys around. I assume Dan Ferrigno is also in that boat and Matt Wile is going to sink or swim based on his own ability and what I assume are witheringly expensive visits to Chris Sailer and the like.
It's kind of weird that Michigan's going with that same setup at corner. Shhh, shhh, it looked good in the spring practice-like substance, I know.
Western Civilization died yesterday. I will miss it.
Just saw someone on Facebook congratulate someone else by saying "Ur whole lifestyle is coming together as a brand. Good work bro."
— Roar of the Tigers (@RoarTigers) April 22, 2014
Do you now. Great Leader on Great Leader:
"I have a little experience with branding," Brandon said.
![20090421-dominos-pasta-bowl[1]](https://mgoblog.com/sites/mgoblog.com/files/images/UV_A7F6/20090421-dominos-pasta-bowl1.png "20090421-dominos-pasta-bowl[1]")
"In the world of branding, you build what's called brand equity. If you look at the Big Ten Conference, you've got brand equity that's been built over decades and decades. The Big Ten means something."
I love the image of Dave Brandon explaining the concept of the Big Ten meaning something other than the number of team in the conference like he is talking to a room full of five-year-olds. As he does this he's standing next to Jim Delany, and they're talking about the fact that they've just added Rutgers and Maryland.
Brandon saying "I have a little experience with branding" is like Walter White saying "I have a little experience with supporting my family."
Etc.: I do not regularly watch Craig Ferguson but I appreciate his bizzaro-world take on late night when I have occasion to. Jordan Morgan's throwing out the first pitch at tomorrow's Tiger's game. Kenpom is now trying to estimate weights, which sounds like an episode of Kenpom The Sitcom. This week: Kenpom comes up with a new zany stat!
It's been three years, time for more Izzo to the NBA rumors. Minnesota joins the Pistons amongst the ranks of NBA teams who will throw Izzo's name out but not hire him.
You probably shouldn't call Derrick Green fat. Or anything other than "sir." Jane on Jameis Winston and the total lack of investigation in re: the rape charges filed against him.
File under: I'll believe it when I see it.
Dr. Atkins is spinning in his grave.....
he didn't eat enough carbohydrates to have the energy to spin.
Correct on the Ferrigno assertion. He coordinates special teams and develops and runs the schemes therein, but he lets the specialists do their own thing. He has some cursory knowledge of each specialist trade, but those guys just seek Chris Sailer and other related camps for specific technique work and whatnot.
If you're a special teams coach, why wouldn't you go learn the technique and everything so you can teach your own kickers how to do their job? Have your school pay Sailer for training and go spend a couple of weeks with him learning the finer poitns of kicking.
Once kickers get to this level, they've likely been to camps like Sailer's and have a pretty good feel for the general way things are supposed to work. That's not saying that a specialist doesn't help even when they're in college, but he has to be just that, a specialist that really knows his stuff.
Kicking is very much between the ears for college kickers. A position coach getting a cursery knowledge on technique and everything would be little help to college kickers (who likely also know it and have the other kickers around them to help), and may in fact just make matters worse by not being well trained in the craft to speak in anything more than platitudes, or just mess up the kickers feel altogether. I think it's like someone getting a mini-course on how to shoot a basketball and then thinking that will help college basketball players shoot a ball better. Either you're a specialist or you're hands off, IMO.
On a side note: I think the "Michigan went that direction with the CBs" was a swing and a miss, but that's beside the point.
Agreed: acting like most teams in the country do not also have coaches who did not play the position they are coaching seems to be an example of the pervasive bitchiness Brian's luxuriating in recently.
But wince whenever it and slavery are even put close to the same breath. "Enslaved" and what college athletes are doing (even more so when you consider non-major-football/basketball programs) are really far apart on the whole injustice scale. "Crush the freedoms" is similarly extremely far apart; this isn't the Eastern Bloc, even in hyperbolic terms.
EDIT: Shit, just realized -- this is satire, right?
Crean is having a bad hair day. Thanks for making my day even better,Rick.
IU is turning into a tirefire. i wonder whether the drumbeat to dump crean will grow now that mike woodson is a free agent (not that i think mike woodson would solve their problems).
Academics at elite instutions are not supportive of football (or sports in general, but especially football). In fact, they think it wastes university resources and lowers the quality of the student body. While most people see sports as positive, adademic deans, administrators, and professors, for the most part, see it as a negative (or neutral at best).
The reason why Northwestern Football is so terrified of the union is because it really does give the academic side of the university a chance to strike against the athletic department. It's hard to say that extracurriciular activities being performed by students that have existed for nearly a century should be disbanded. Once student-athletes are deemed employees, there's no reason for academics to tolerate it. It becomes just like any other service provided to the university. It will immediately be painted as going against the academic goals of the institution. This is not like unionizing GSIs who contribute to academics and the teaching of undergraduates.
Brian has argued that the "people making this decision will be throwing away countless hours of free marketing, making their school less attractive to prospective students, and essentially firing themselves."
That's a major mischaracterization. Northwestern withdrawing from athletics would not be a case of people "firing themselves." Instead, it would be a case of the academic wing of the university firing the athletic department wing.
The belief that academics, deans, etc (the ones in charge) think that Northwestern somehow needs marketing from football to get top-flight prospective students is absurd. There are studies showing that resources being used differently actually leads to better results regarding school rankings, reputation, etc. They view their peers as Cornell, Dartmouth, etc. In the 1980s Northwestern openly considered joining the Ivy League. The issue was raised again a decade or so. The only reason they didn't leave is because they got vetoed by one of the existing Ivies (I think it was Cornell). Northwestern would drop D1 football and leave in a heartbeat if the Ivy League offered them a spot.
http://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/10/sports/ivy-league-considers-adding-2-s...
This comes from my experience as someone who is an academic and was involved in these debates at a school similar to Northwestern. I know MGoWife is an adjunct, I'd be interested to hear how she thinks her colleagues would react if football players became deemed employees of the university and started making more money than most adjuncts.
Certain schools don't need the athletics marketing boost (like the Ivy League) but I'm convinced that Northwestern does. For example, Duke is a school that gets a higher quality of student simply because its basketball team wins a lot. Before, it was a pretty good school, but now people consider it on par, or better than, the non-Yale, Harvard, Princeton Ivy League. Our own school, Michigan, almost certainly gets a boost from the visibility the athletic program brings.
tl;dr: Michigan=Northwestern=Duke, Ivy League=Ivy League. Northwestern gets a boost in student quality from athletics.
April 22nd, 2014 at 10:15 PM ^
Firstly, this is a discussion about football, which is costly and oftentimes a burden on athletic departments and is the driver of all of the debate about student employees, money, etc, not basketball.
Secondly, do you have any proof that Duke gets a better quality student because of basketball or are you just saying that? If sports drove up the quality of students, why wouldn't Chicago, Tufts, MIT, Washington, etc try to have great athletics. They could if they really wanted to do so. They have the money to make that kind of investment and have a commitment to landing the best students available.
Very few top students choose their school because of sports. Are there some? Sure, but we're talking about a very small group. I'll see if I can dig up one of the studies I saw awhile back that showed that at the upper tier of academics, sports had almost nothing to do with the quality of student.
Also, Duke has always been considered one of the best schools in the country. There are problems with the US News rankings, but they've been between 6-8 since 1983, which was before they became a dominant team under K. http://web.archive.org/web/20070908142457/http://chronicle.com/stats/us…
FInally, I'm not talking about Michigan, an elite public university that is inherently connected to the state of Michigan. Michigan (and MSU) football helps bring the people of the state together, nearly everyone in the state, regardless of where they went to college, has an opinion on one of the two teams because of its cultural value. Instead, I'm talking about Northwestern, an elite private university that has very few Walmart Wildcats (hence their stadium being so small) and doesn't need or really care if it's the flagship university of Illinois.
...of about 300 million Americans, the entire world features universities that have no problem attracting and educating students without fielding athletic teams.
The idea that any university needs a football team or athletic department is delusional bullshit.
It's a day ending in "Y" aka "Someone employed by MGoBlog bitches about the NCAA" day.
I really wish football season would get here so the main articles would be about the actual sports rather than the endless b!tchfest about the NCAA (followed by a few paragraphs about CAPA).
I wasn't going to make my Thursday article about the NCAA, but apparently I have to now. Oh well.
Though to your point, if there was football to write about, we would write about it. But there isn't. And if you can come up with a lead bigger/more relevant than Mark Emmert's continuing dumbshittery, I'm all ears.
... with your last point. In fact that's really why I wish it was football season because I'm just tired of reading about it. I mean, UVs existed prior to this year of "F the NCAA" and "CAPA Rocks" so there is clearly something else we could be talking about but we're not.
I guess the other thing is that I don't think anything in support of the NCAA has ever made the front page and that's fine since this is a blog and is subject to the wishes of the owner but eventually it just gets a little long in the tooth.
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/10802011/mark-emmert-agree…
^That's an article describing how Mark Emmert acknowledged some of the more ridiculous aspects of the NCAA. Yet somehow he's still a dumbshit who knows nothing.
Look, the NCAA isn't perfect and that's pretty obvious. The problem I have with Brian is when all he can spout is vitriol.
easy solution - since you know when football starts, just come back to the blog then.
And I try to avoid reading most of the stuff that pops up because it's just an endless bitchfest but the UVs are usually a staple of really interesting stuff but even those have turned into the same NCAA Sucks/CAPA Rocks arguments so, as I said to BiSB, it's just getting a little long in the tooth.
For now I don't really Brian's NCAA bitching, as it might be keeping the inches devoted to football bitchiness down to a minimum.
Careful what you wish for and all that.
And now what should have been a shoe-in transfer to help our O Line is headed to Ohio. Oy... Resume b!tching about the NCAA!
Everyone knows that college athletes have it hard.
:@JehuuCaulcrick: I don't understand y everyone is making a big deal over Arian Foster saying he got money while he was in college. News flash We all did.
My column on Brady Hoke over at Maize n' Brew made neither the mgoboard nor Brian's UV post. I am terrible at life, blogging, and everything else! 2,000+ words for nothing!
/shameless plug
You may resume your daily lives now.
Don't feel bad. He's still reading it. Maybe next week's edition?
That was a nice piece but I have to ask you about one point you made.
"Right now Hoke is projecting to look more like Kirk Ferentz -- and while that's far better than where Rodriguez seemed to be going in his third year, it's not exactly Heaven for Michigan fans."
Rich was on an upward arc - Brady's heading down.
Ah. I see I made an inadvertent swipe at ol' Rich Rod.
Here's a little clarification:
Basically I was and am of the opinion that after three years of having Rich Rod (remember that defense, yo) I could not see us ever winning a Big Ten championship with him. I did not (and do not) see going from two disaster seasons (3-9 and 5-7) to one equally disastrous but still slightly better season (7-6) as much of an upward arc. Hoke's record might technically be trending downwards, but his first two seasons were still competitive, and he at least wasn't 0-3 against MSU and OSU. He also replaced Al Borges with Doug Nussmeier. RR replaced Scott Shafer with Greg Robinson.
Not sure if that makes you see my point any more or less, but I tried.
Rich Rod was kind of a boom or bust hire, and he busted, for a lot of various reasons. But to describe Rich Rod's tenure at Michigan as anywhere near Ferentz level of success would be insane. Hoke, meanwhile, has been fairly similar. I tend to disagree with some of your conclusions, but I think your intention and meaning was very clear.
April 24th, 2014 at 11:39 AM ^
My conclusions are always bullsh*t anyway ;)
Noticed in Green's instagram that Khalid appears to have shed most of his bad weight and looks pretty strong.
an extended riff on CAPA and NCAA hypocrisy is immediately followed by a note on this fall's trip to f***ing rutgers. these things are not unrelated.
"Emmert just said athletes shouldn't be able to capitalize on their own likenesses because of "competitive fairness." Yes. He really did."
Ummmm, isn't he 100% right? If you allowed players to capitalize off of their likeness without restriction, then the entire college system would instantly be dead, and I mean DEAD. This seems pretty obvious.
I know everybody likes to cry about a Minnesota wrestler or whatever not being allowed to pursue a music career, but in reality the problem stems from the fact that the second a star recruit steps foot on campus his likeness becomes worth whatever a booster wants to pay for it. Hey booster, wanna a photo of me for $1000? Why of course, young strapping man, that seems like fair market value for a photo of a guy who hasn't played a down of college football. How would you ever regulate that without just imposing the same types of restrictions?
Honestly, I think bringing this up as if it is some kind of dumb argument from the NCAA reflects more poorly on the person calling it a poor argument than the person making the argument, in my opinion. If you think the whole system should be blown up, then I understand, but to act like this isn't a good argument is truly bizarre unless taken out of context entirely, as you and the original tweet managed to do.
"Competitive balance" might be a better way of putting it than "competitive fairness," but yeah, there's basically no way to allow athletes to capitalize on their own likeness without the rich schools exploiting it like crazy, what with boosters coming up with "endorsement deals" up the wazoo.
Yes, allowing players to capitalize on their own likeness without restriction would doom the college system. But that's not really the point of criticism.
Emmert picked a stupid, hypocritical reason to make this point. "Competitive fairness" is code for "If the NCAA can't rake in dollars based on the likenesses of college kids, then NO ONE can profit off them, including the players themselves." To me, this hints at bitterness over the O'Bannon fallout re: EA Sports.
Of course, this might be giving Emmert's awareness of the universe far too much credit.
the record shows, and what you find is someone who took one or two ideas he thought were ingenious (branding!) and beat the crap out of everyone around them with them long enough to make them capitulate.
Michigan fans are capitulating with their feet.
It took me a few seconds to the the joke.
I went to mark my calendar for Rutgers-Michigan, but it was already marked Yom Kippur, just the most important holiday of the year.
Actually, making it a night game helps some in that regard. Day games will be lost to services, but the night event is just a breaking of the fast meal at someone's house.
Hot wings? Nachos? Pizza?
Actually, if you make it a pepperoni pizza (made from pork, of course) you'd get an early start on the sins for which you'll need to atone next year. And if the pizza is extra greasy, you'll get to atone starting about an hour after you eat it. Sooner if you're lactose intolerant.
He's either bewildered or just smelled a fart. Hard to tell.
Not all of the initial 30% may necessarily end up voting for unionization, either. It's one thing to favor holding a vote on the issue, and another to actually favor unionizing.
Anyone who says that the schools are making billions all because of the athletes is sadly mistaken. Try a thought experiment. What if college football went away, versus what if the players were just college version of high school players.
What if college football didn't exist? What we would have then would be minor league football. Players would play for Toledo, or some other podunk market., They would get a couple thousand people showing up to most games. They would never be on TV. Their names would never be in anything but the highly acclaimed Toledo Blade (or similar). They would get paid a salary that would probably be less than what there college education is worth and just cover living expenses in Toledo. They would not get much in the way of health care and they would probably play 20 games or more per year. It is clear, replacing the university with a minor league professional version would be just pathetic (relatively speaking).
Now imagine if college football players were like HS players, recruited from within the school and out there for the love of the game. The talent would be lower for sure, but it would be across the board lower on all teams. The games would still be good because there would be parity. The excitement would still be there because it is the product of rivalry and the sense of belonging that comes with your alma mater. The fans are there because of a loyalty to the school They certainly are not there because of loyalty to some 19-year-old kid. Those kids are all replaceable, and in fact they do get replaced every few years. College football is a personal experience for the audience because of the sense of fan ownership that is completely a product of the university, not the players. You follow a school mostly because you or someone close to you was an alumni. If the players were replaced, even with much lower talent, the game would be largely unchanged.
Colleges have done an amazing thing turning a bunch of non-professional level athletes into a tremendously successful product. How many schools out there have even 10% of their players make the pros? These guys are for the most part getting far more than they would in any other system. Unions are going to benefit a very small number of people (mostly not the athletes) and overall hurt the athletes by destroying the entire scholarship system.
I agree with you for the most part. Although I think, in this High School/ College world you've detailed, that over time fewer people will watch college football, and (especially TV) revenues will have to fall. This will force the budgets of athletic departments down, way down.
Athletic department staff will shrink and pay will become more in-line with the rest of a school's departments. Athletic facilities will also mirror the rest of a campus rather than be cutting edge. Many people will see these changes as fairly positive.
Additionally, there will be fewer opportunities for kids from lower class backgrounds. There will be fewer scholarships overall, as college football pays for a lot of scholarships. Those lost revenues do not get made up elsewhere. Granted, we are talking about a couple hundred spots at each university, but that will have an effect on people and will be a big unintended consequence of changing the college athletics model. Universities will move to focus a little more on a student's ability to succeed and contribute in an academic setting, rather than an athletic one. That's could be considered a good thing too, but many people will be upset with how that changes opportunities for different groups of kids. A star athlete/ mediocre academic in high school won't have the same appeal to a school anymore. He won't be admitted, and certainly will not receive a scholarship to attend. This is all fine, it's just a matter of priorities for the school. An argument can be made that such a student doesn't benefit from his or her (but mostly his) academic time at the university anyway, so if he doesn't get to go it doesn't matter.
None of these affects are that bad. I'll watch the occasional college baseball game, and more than a couple ice hockey games. Football would probably fall in prominence to somewhere around college hockey. People focusing a little less on 18-year old kids on the field, and a little more time on doing something productive, isn't necessarily a bad thing.
A lot of people on this board wouldn't like the change though.
The good news (maybe) is that Michigan is in a place to deal with paying players/ unionizing etc. However only perhaps 25 schools at most are in that position, and I believe realistically perhaps only 10-15 would make the serious sacrifices needed to play football at this semi-pro level. We would have a division 1-SUPER-A. I personally would not be very interested in college football with only 10-15 teams playing at my school's level. Part of the fun is playing a random west-coast team every couple of years, or even a UCONN. Maybe other people feel differently.
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