I have faith in Director of S&C Mike Favre. Just check out the guy's resume and list of accomplishments. It goes on for pages. (Is he the other bald dude that prowls the sidelines of M football games? Looks like a Herbert mini-me.)
Over hill, over dale As we hit the dusty trail, And the Caissons go rolling along. In and out, hear them shout, Counter march and right about, And the Caissons go rolling along.
Then it's hi! hi! hee! In the field artillery, Shout out your numbers loud and strong, For where'er you go, You will always know That the Caissons go rolling along.
I know, Caissons/Cason, but I figure that's close enough.
On offense, he can be a 4. On defense? If we play a team with a 4 that can't shoot the 3, fine, sag off, but if he has to challenge the 3 point line, it's a blow-by waiting to happen.
That said, the 4s he will have trouble guarding will have trouble guarding him. So it's like a game of chicken to see which coach backs down first.
I read a book about European history recently. The Vikings didn’t just impact Northern Europe (but why is that relevant? Slavery is awful wherever it occurs.) The Slavs inhabited most of Eastern Europe. Europe and Asia didn’t have a trustworthy monetary system back then, so the Vikings and Arab traders would use people as a medium of exchange. The Vikings wanted goods available in Persia, so they would capture humans in Eastern Europe and bring them with them to the slave markets.
I was very worried after Iran and Israel traded salvos, but it appears that both sides are claiming victory and backing down. I’ll keep praying for peace and hoping people in charge of things realize how much better the world can be when we direct our energies towards positive actions instead of destructive ones.
I remember Novak playing the 4 for us. That worked ok until we ran into Oklahoma and Blake Griffin. I’d like more bigs on the roster just for flexibility if nothing else.
Juwan was targeting the wrong kids. It's too bad that someone with institutional knowledge couldn't have provided better advice for him, or that he couldn't figure that out on his own.
Speaking from personal experience, 30+ years ago, I transferred 3 trimester courses from MSU to UofM. I received some credits, so that was nice. 3+ years into my UofM studies, the college reviewed the syllabi of the MSU course and the equivalent UofM course, decided that the MSU course was lacking something and docked me a credit. This was so late in the game that I had to stay an extra semester in undergrad. I ended up transferring all but 1 of those final semester credits to grad school, but it was kind of a bummer.
Persi started at RG for one of the teams. He played more at guard last season than tackle. I would put him as first backup for RG. He’s somewhat odd shaped for guard, but so were Ben Braden and Trevor Keegan. If he’s the 6th best lineman, he’s going to be the backup for both tackle and both guard positions.
Congress has the authority to regulate interstate trade. Now that we all agree that intercollegiate, revenue sports are businesses, Congress should authorize the creation of an FDCS (Federal Department of College Sports) akin to the FDIC, FDA, FAA, etc. Would something like that be any better or worse than the NCAA? I have no idea, but at least the regulators/administrators would be indirectly accountable to the voter/sports fan through their elected officials. The alternative is Congress gives college sports an antitrust exemption and the colleges band together to hire a commissioner, a la Roger Goodell or Gary Bettman. I’m pretty sure that is an awful idea. How does Commissioner Petitti sound to you? Ugh. So I don’t know what the answer is, but the wild, Wild West era we’re in now isn’t working so well.
RE: Jersey sales, we already do that. The university doesn’t sell the jersey, they only license the apparel companies to use their logos and trademarks and whatnot. There’s actually a lot of people taking their cut of the cost of a jersey. I read somewhere that UofM gets like $3 per shirt in license fees. To find out what the players are making, look at the cost of the generic jersey versus the custom jersey and deduct whatever you think is reasonable to customize a jersey. The players aren’t getting rich off of uniforms. It’s a bit of a canard that the university was getting rich selling Fab 5 stuff while Webber was struggling to buy pizza. Things are a lot better now, but no one is retiring based on jersey sales.
That’s not at all my point. My point is that generally speaking, people learn a trade. As they gain experience and abilities, their earning potential increases. That’s true almost across the board.
But the folks on the other side of the argument want to pay freshmen 6 figures because they dominated the AAU circuit against other 18 year olds. Prove it at the college level and earn your money.
Siri tells me that the average hourly wage for an apprentice in the United States is $19. Let’s round that up to $20/hr. The NCAA limits sports related activities to 20 hours per week. That works out to $20k per year. BTW, I would love it if someone paid me to workout for 5-10 hours per week in UofM football’s weight room. The full cost of attendance for out of state students at the University of Michigan is $76K. I made $3.50 an hour for my first job. I made $1k per month as an undergrad at UofM. In grad school, I made $15k annually. After I graduated, I got a job making $70k/year. I have no problem with freshmen proving themselves first, and making a name for themselves, before making 6 figures.
Speaking of Raines, I saw the Expos play the Cubs in Wrigley. Raines was playing center (or left?) and Andre Dawson was playing RF. It was towards the end of Dawson’s career and you could see what a toll playing on Montreal’s turf had taken on his knees. It was like every step was torture for him.
I saw Wolf play a couple games for Yale. He could be a stretch 4, but I wouldn’t play him many minutes with Goldin. It’s just that we’ve been so thin depth-wise at center ever since Austin Davis graduated that our centers play really tentatively on defense, afraid of getting in foul trouble. It would be nice to have 2 solid 5s to share ~45-50 minutes per game.
I saw a game between his Cardinals and the Phillies in the mid-80s. I was eagerly anticipating seeing Vince Coleman, Willie McGee and Ozzie Smith in person. I much preferred the base stealers (Rickey Henderson, Coleman) to the home run hitters. Alas, it was a hot Sunday in August, over 100 degrees on the carpet, so only Ozzie played. The game was in Philadelphia and Mike Schmidt, only - arguably - the greatest 3B of all time, got booed by the Philly faithful because he was having a mediocre season after signing a huge contract in the offseason. RIP, Whitey.
Their orange dreamsicle frosty is delicious. It’s only available for a limited time and I’m worried that if it doesn’t sell well, they’ll never bring it back. So do me a favor and buy one or a dozen. Thanks.
For example, the most popular sitcom is Mom. Mom is produced by Chuck Lorre and Warner Brothers and airs on CBS. CBS doesn’t pay the actors ANYTHING. They buy episodes of the show from Chuck Lorre who pays the actors. This is completely analogous to ESPN paying universities for rights to football games.
I believe that money is involved in providing education (professors are paid in money,) room and board, access to training facilities (how much does access to a top notch gym cost?) and full cost of attendance stipends. Is it what the OP thinks is fair? I don’t know, because they only claim that the athletes are getting no money from the universities (which is false) or the networks. They provide an analogy to sitcoms that I disproved with a one minute google search.
I only get stuff from Fanatics when they offer free shipping (usually for minimum order of $24,) I find an item on sale and I can use FanCash. Every now and then they drop $10 fancash into my account. My most recent purchase was a pair of slippers for $5 all in. Living in SoCal, it’s recommended to keep footwear near your bed in case there’s an earthquake overnight and broken glass ends up everywhere. Anyway, I have the opposite problem. Despite what you have read here, not all weight gain is good weight gain.
Just because ESPN made $2.9B of profit, that doesn’t necessarily mean they made billions from college football. When you exaggerate or dissemble to make your point, your argument loses weight.
The players are earning a lot more than ZERO. I’m spending $150K over 4 years for my son’s college education, room and board. Scholarship players receive tuition, room and board, training for the next level, access to weight rooms, tutoring support, and full cost of attendance stipends. Players are working ~20 hours per week. That equates to $35/hour for my son’s situation, or $90/hour for USC. And here’s the major problem for your argument, if the individual player decides to go elsewhere, there’s no shortage of players that would gladly take their place. That’s how the marketplace works. Supply and demand.
The fact that the OP keeps bringing up revenue shows they don’t understand the first thing about business. ESPN’s $2.9B profit is brought up ad nauseum, as if college football is the sole contributor to that. That ignores the fact that ESPN shows college football on Saturdays and a few weeknights in the fall. How much of the $2.9B is attributable to college football? We don’t know.
The fact is, ESPN is a business. ESPN takes a risk in purchasing broadcast rights to college football games. They have every right to expect to make a profit. If they aren’t getting a ROI better than a low risk mutual fund, they’d be better off closing shop and passively investing their capital.
So the real question is, are the Universities exploiting the players (for playing a game). It’s obvious that the Universities are not sharing the revenues with the players comparably to the professional leagues. If that were so, the universities wouldn’t have enough leftover to support the 20-30 non-revenue sports. So what is the college football player to do? How does one exploit this market inefficiency? If there is this major profit opportunity, then the players should form their own league and sell the rights to the TV networks. But this hasn’t happened. It’s been attempted to some level (spring football,) but it has failed. Why? Because I don’t care to watch the Michigan Panthers. I do care to watch the Michigan Wolverines, both during times of greatness (2023) and during times of struggle (2008). Sad to say for the OP’s POV, the value proposition lies with the universities, not the players, because every season there’s a new cast of players but the same maize and blue winged helmets, the same Big House, and the same fight song. We’re consuming the traditions of college football.
If you want to pay the players for playing a game (and practice, etc.) I think you have to consider all forms of payment. Education, room and board, access to training facilities, etc. I guarantee, even with how little OP seems to value a college education*, the rest of the benefits amount to significantly more than minimum wage. So, sorry, I’m not nearly as offended by the current state of things as the OP appears to be.
*Average new college graduates make $22K more per year than new high school graduates. That’s why they charge what they do.
The problem with juniors is that they still need to get 60 credits at UofM to get a UofM degree. So even if all of their credits transfer over, they still need 60 credits (2 years worth) to graduate. That’s like giving up a whole year of college. Some guys want the degree to have something to fall back on, but don’t want to give up a year towards the degree.
For the naive, Pollyanna sorts like myself, NIL was the answer to 3 problems.
Allow athletes to benefit from fans buying items featuring the athletes’ NIL. You can call this the Fab 5/Denard Robinson issue.
Allow athletes to benefit from their images being used in video games. This is the Ed O’Bannon issue.
Allow athletes to use fancy cars and get free tattoos provided they contribute the bare minimum to advertising for the car dealership/tattoo parlor. This is the OSU issue.
I still think this version of NIL works, but it requires a regulatory body that gives a 💩. I have one slight pushback to Seth’s, “they’ve earned it” comments regarding NIL. (I don’t know if he made that comment here, but he’s voiced it before.) Players are worth what someone is willing to pay them. In that sense, they’ve earned the “NIL” (booster $, formerly under the table inducements). A monopoly - the NCAA- stands in the way of that. But the incoming freshmen haven’t earned any of the three NIL sources I mentioned. No one buys incoming freshman X’s uniform before they sign. How many Semaj Morgan jerseys were sold last season compared to JJ jerseys? If Semaj has a huge year, his jersey will sell and he will have earned a portion of the sales. I dare say no one would buy a video game to play with a bunch of almost completely unknown freshmen. Would you buy a car from Columbus Honda because some 5* safety leans against an Accord and smiles? So go to the University, earn your starting position and then start making actual NIL money. But no one wants to accept that because the cat is out of the bag. (Or maybe the cat is in the bag with the $$$?)
OK, here’s my James Garner story. The President of a company I worked for was a member of the Bel-Air Country Club. Every year at Christmas time, the company would have our holiday party at the club. The view was spectacular. As part of the celebration, employees from the different departments would plan a skit for entertainment. My first year, our group dressed up like The Beach Boys and performed a medley of Beach Boys songs. The Department Head was the nicest, most Mr. Rogers-like guy I’ve ever met. So before the entertainment part of the night started, we went to the locker room to change into our Beach Boys Hawaiian shirts. The boss pulls out a bottle of Jack and we all do shots to lighten up. I down my shot, and I’m just soaking this in. Then I look at the lockers and see one with a nameplate that says, “James Garner.”
We performed our show, had a blast and that was that. Shortly afterwards, the President got divorced and rumor has it that his wife got the country club membership in the settlement and that was the one and only time I’ve ever been to the Bel Air Country Club.
Recent Comments
I have faith in Director of S&C Mike Favre. Just check out the guy's resume and list of accomplishments. It goes on for pages. (Is he the other bald dude that prowls the sidelines of M football games? Looks like a Herbert mini-me.)
https://mgoblue.com/staff-directory/mike-favre/108
Did anyone else sing this song in 2nd grade:
I know, Caissons/Cason, but I figure that's close enough.
On offense, he can be a 4. On defense? If we play a team with a 4 that can't shoot the 3, fine, sag off, but if he has to challenge the 3 point line, it's a blow-by waiting to happen.
That said, the 4s he will have trouble guarding will have trouble guarding him. So it's like a game of chicken to see which coach backs down first.
I read a book about European history recently. The Vikings didn’t just impact Northern Europe (but why is that relevant? Slavery is awful wherever it occurs.) The Slavs inhabited most of Eastern Europe. Europe and Asia didn’t have a trustworthy monetary system back then, so the Vikings and Arab traders would use people as a medium of exchange. The Vikings wanted goods available in Persia, so they would capture humans in Eastern Europe and bring them with them to the slave markets.
I was very worried after Iran and Israel traded salvos, but it appears that both sides are claiming victory and backing down. I’ll keep praying for peace and hoping people in charge of things realize how much better the world can be when we direct our energies towards positive actions instead of destructive ones.
I just checked and they are down to one MGoPoint, singular. LOL.
I remember Novak playing the 4 for us. That worked ok until we ran into Oklahoma and Blake Griffin. I’d like more bigs on the roster just for flexibility if nothing else.
Juwan was targeting the wrong kids. It's too bad that someone with institutional knowledge couldn't have provided better advice for him, or that he couldn't figure that out on his own.
What is special about freshman English?
Speaking from personal experience, 30+ years ago, I transferred 3 trimester courses from MSU to UofM. I received some credits, so that was nice. 3+ years into my UofM studies, the college reviewed the syllabi of the MSU course and the equivalent UofM course, decided that the MSU course was lacking something and docked me a credit. This was so late in the game that I had to stay an extra semester in undergrad. I ended up transferring all but 1 of those final semester credits to grad school, but it was kind of a bummer.
Persi started at RG for one of the teams. He played more at guard last season than tackle. I would put him as first backup for RG. He’s somewhat odd shaped for guard, but so were Ben Braden and Trevor Keegan. If he’s the 6th best lineman, he’s going to be the backup for both tackle and both guard positions.
It would be nice if Roddy brings Felix Okpara with him.
Is Zyavier related to Z/X-avier Simpson?
As an Italian, I agree with you.
Hinton started. He got bent backwards and hasn’t returned.
I’m going out on a limb here and suggest some version of Jaydn Davis Warren Denegal is going to be the backup QB.
Reminds me of when we had a defense of Hills and Greens and Hill-Greens.
Tonelli looked like Loveland on that
I tried. I used the three dots. I selected my image. This is what I get:
That bassaball was like a bassaball to me
Another good thing about the black uniforms is that they are not the gray uniforms. I didn’t care for those.
Regarding “titch,” Seth, my uncle, and another mid-Michigander are the only three people I’ve ever heard use this word. According to:
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/titch_n1?tl=true
it’s not very common, being used once every 100 million written words. Unless you’re my uncle, who used it on a daily basis.
I just hope he doesn’t suffer from migraines like his dad.
/not so subtle dig
Congress has the authority to regulate interstate trade. Now that we all agree that intercollegiate, revenue sports are businesses, Congress should authorize the creation of an FDCS (Federal Department of College Sports) akin to the FDIC, FDA, FAA, etc. Would something like that be any better or worse than the NCAA? I have no idea, but at least the regulators/administrators would be indirectly accountable to the voter/sports fan through their elected officials.
The alternative is Congress gives college sports an antitrust exemption and the colleges band together to hire a commissioner, a la Roger Goodell or Gary Bettman. I’m pretty sure that is an awful idea. How does Commissioner Petitti sound to you? Ugh. So I don’t know what the answer is, but the wild, Wild West era we’re in now isn’t working so well.
RE: Jersey sales, we already do that. The university doesn’t sell the jersey, they only license the apparel companies to use their logos and trademarks and whatnot. There’s actually a lot of people taking their cut of the cost of a jersey. I read somewhere that UofM gets like $3 per shirt in license fees. To find out what the players are making, look at the cost of the generic jersey versus the custom jersey and deduct whatever you think is reasonable to customize a jersey. The players aren’t getting rich off of uniforms. It’s a bit of a canard that the university was getting rich selling Fab 5 stuff while Webber was struggling to buy pizza. Things are a lot better now, but no one is retiring based on jersey sales.
That’s not at all my point. My point is that generally speaking, people learn a trade. As they gain experience and abilities, their earning potential increases. That’s true almost across the board.
But the folks on the other side of the argument want to pay freshmen 6 figures because they dominated the AAU circuit against other 18 year olds. Prove it at the college level and earn your money.
How many people pay to watch freshmen sit on the bench?
The only Jay-Z songs I like are the ones where someone else is the primary vocalist, e.g. Empire State of Mind.
How about going old-school and getting a Max Bredeson jersey?
He has off the charts ability, but he needs a year in a program like UConn to break his bad habits. He could be a monster for them in ‘25-‘26.
NOA is notice of allegations, I think. Whomp whomp is Michigan throwing Harbaugh under the bus.
To White Sox fans, that’s blasphemy. Now if only I could find my Roger Bossard bobblehead.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Bossard
Siri tells me that the average hourly wage for an apprentice in the United States is $19. Let’s round that up to $20/hr. The NCAA limits sports related activities to 20 hours per week. That works out to $20k per year. BTW, I would love it if someone paid me to workout for 5-10 hours per week in UofM football’s weight room.
The full cost of attendance for out of state students at the University of Michigan is $76K.
I made $3.50 an hour for my first job. I made $1k per month as an undergrad at UofM. In grad school, I made $15k annually. After I graduated, I got a job making $70k/year. I have no problem with freshmen proving themselves first, and making a name for themselves, before making 6 figures.
In his case, it’s more appropriately described as “hairist”. He and Sparky had the whitest hair I ever saw.
Speaking of Raines, I saw the Expos play the Cubs in Wrigley. Raines was playing center (or left?) and Andre Dawson was playing RF. It was towards the end of Dawson’s career and you could see what a toll playing on Montreal’s turf had taken on his knees. It was like every step was torture for him.
I saw Wolf play a couple games for Yale. He could be a stretch 4, but I wouldn’t play him many minutes with Goldin. It’s just that we’ve been so thin depth-wise at center ever since Austin Davis graduated that our centers play really tentatively on defense, afraid of getting in foul trouble. It would be nice to have 2 solid 5s to share ~45-50 minutes per game.
I saw a game between his Cardinals and the Phillies in the mid-80s. I was eagerly anticipating seeing Vince Coleman, Willie McGee and Ozzie Smith in person. I much preferred the base stealers (Rickey Henderson, Coleman) to the home run hitters. Alas, it was a hot Sunday in August, over 100 degrees on the carpet, so only Ozzie played.
The game was in Philadelphia and Mike Schmidt, only - arguably - the greatest 3B of all time, got booed by the Philly faithful because he was having a mediocre season after signing a huge contract in the offseason.
RIP, Whitey.
I take it this is the hammer that was dropping. If so, is it like a Fisher-Price, hollow, plastic hammer?
I blame Jack Klompas for that one
Their orange dreamsicle frosty is delicious. It’s only available for a limited time and I’m worried that if it doesn’t sell well, they’ll never bring it back. So do me a favor and buy one or a dozen. Thanks.
He’s going to go blind with all that self-up-votation.
You really don’t understand how supply chains work, do you?
Full of half truths and outright lies.
For example, the most popular sitcom is Mom. Mom is produced by Chuck Lorre and Warner Brothers and airs on CBS. CBS doesn’t pay the actors ANYTHING. They buy episodes of the show from Chuck Lorre who pays the actors. This is completely analogous to ESPN paying universities for rights to football games.
I believe that money is involved in providing education (professors are paid in money,) room and board, access to training facilities (how much does access to a top notch gym cost?) and full cost of attendance stipends. Is it what the OP thinks is fair? I don’t know, because they only claim that the athletes are getting no money from the universities (which is false) or the networks. They provide an analogy to sitcoms that I disproved with a one minute google search.
I only get stuff from Fanatics when they offer free shipping (usually for minimum order of $24,) I find an item on sale and I can use FanCash. Every now and then they drop $10 fancash into my account. My most recent purchase was a pair of slippers for $5 all in. Living in SoCal, it’s recommended to keep footwear near your bed in case there’s an earthquake overnight and broken glass ends up everywhere. Anyway, I have the opposite problem. Despite what you have read here, not all weight gain is good weight gain.
“both entities are profiting billions”
Just because ESPN made $2.9B of profit, that doesn’t necessarily mean they made billions from college football. When you exaggerate or dissemble to make your point, your argument loses weight.
The players are earning a lot more than ZERO. I’m spending $150K over 4 years for my son’s college education, room and board. Scholarship players receive tuition, room and board, training for the next level, access to weight rooms, tutoring support, and full cost of attendance stipends.
Players are working ~20 hours per week. That equates to $35/hour for my son’s situation, or $90/hour for USC. And here’s the major problem for your argument, if the individual player decides to go elsewhere, there’s no shortage of players that would gladly take their place. That’s how the marketplace works. Supply and demand.
The fact that the OP keeps bringing up revenue shows they don’t understand the first thing about business. ESPN’s $2.9B profit is brought up ad nauseum, as if college football is the sole contributor to that. That ignores the fact that ESPN shows college football on Saturdays and a few weeknights in the fall. How much of the $2.9B is attributable to college football? We don’t know.
The fact is, ESPN is a business. ESPN takes a risk in purchasing broadcast rights to college football games. They have every right to expect to make a profit. If they aren’t getting a ROI better than a low risk mutual fund, they’d be better off closing shop and passively investing their capital.
So the real question is, are the Universities exploiting the players (for playing a game). It’s obvious that the Universities are not sharing the revenues with the players comparably to the professional leagues. If that were so, the universities wouldn’t have enough leftover to support the 20-30 non-revenue sports.
So what is the college football player to do? How does one exploit this market inefficiency? If there is this major profit opportunity, then the players should form their own league and sell the rights to the TV networks. But this hasn’t happened. It’s been attempted to some level (spring football,) but it has failed. Why? Because I don’t care to watch the Michigan Panthers. I do care to watch the Michigan Wolverines, both during times of greatness (2023) and during times of struggle (2008). Sad to say for the OP’s POV, the value proposition lies with the universities, not the players, because every season there’s a new cast of players but the same maize and blue winged helmets, the same Big House, and the same fight song. We’re consuming the traditions of college football.
If you want to pay the players for playing a game (and practice, etc.) I think you have to consider all forms of payment. Education, room and board, access to training facilities, etc. I guarantee, even with how little OP seems to value a college education*, the rest of the benefits amount to significantly more than minimum wage. So, sorry, I’m not nearly as offended by the current state of things as the OP appears to be.
*Average new college graduates make $22K more per year than new high school graduates. That’s why they charge what they do.
The cost of attendance at our new big ten brethren USC is $95k annually. I think the universities are contributing something.
https://admission.usc.edu/cost-and-financial-aid/financial-aid/
He is serious, and don’t call him Shirley
Or look at Will T, 0.250 from 3 as a frosh, 0.519 as a soph.
The problem with juniors is that they still need to get 60 credits at UofM to get a UofM degree. So even if all of their credits transfer over, they still need 60 credits (2 years worth) to graduate. That’s like giving up a whole year of college. Some guys want the degree to have something to fall back on, but don’t want to give up a year towards the degree.
For the naive, Pollyanna sorts like myself, NIL was the answer to 3 problems.
I still think this version of NIL works, but it requires a regulatory body that gives a 💩.
I have one slight pushback to Seth’s, “they’ve earned it” comments regarding NIL. (I don’t know if he made that comment here, but he’s voiced it before.) Players are worth what someone is willing to pay them. In that sense, they’ve earned the “NIL” (booster $, formerly under the table inducements). A monopoly - the NCAA- stands in the way of that. But the incoming freshmen haven’t earned any of the three NIL sources I mentioned. No one buys incoming freshman X’s uniform before they sign. How many Semaj Morgan jerseys were sold last season compared to JJ jerseys? If Semaj has a huge year, his jersey will sell and he will have earned a portion of the sales. I dare say no one would buy a video game to play with a bunch of almost completely unknown freshmen. Would you buy a car from Columbus Honda because some 5* safety leans against an Accord and smiles? So go to the University, earn your starting position and then start making actual NIL money. But no one wants to accept that because the cat is out of the bag. (Or maybe the cat is in the bag with the $$$?)
OK, here’s my James Garner story. The President of a company I worked for was a member of the Bel-Air Country Club. Every year at Christmas time, the company would have our holiday party at the club. The view was spectacular. As part of the celebration, employees from the different departments would plan a skit for entertainment. My first year, our group dressed up like The Beach Boys and performed a medley of Beach Boys songs. The Department Head was the nicest, most Mr. Rogers-like guy I’ve ever met. So before the entertainment part of the night started, we went to the locker room to change into our Beach Boys Hawaiian shirts. The boss pulls out a bottle of Jack and we all do shots to lighten up. I down my shot, and I’m just soaking this in. Then I look at the lockers and see one with a nameplate that says, “James Garner.”
We performed our show, had a blast and that was that. Shortly afterwards, the President got divorced and rumor has it that his wife got the country club membership in the settlement and that was the one and only time I’ve ever been to the Bel Air Country Club.