OT: Josh Rosen Q&A with Bleacher Report
Bleacher Report does a Q&A with UCLA's Josh Rosen. He makes some of the same points that have been espoused by this site's owner (e.g. players majoring in football, how to spend all the money that is generated, etc.)
The young man clearly is willing to speak his mind, and I respect him for doing so given that the safest thing for his NFL draft position is to say nothing.
FYI - for those of you that don't follow recruiting, Rosen was a former 5-Star QB recruit out of Los Angeles who took an unofficial visit to Michigan when Hoke was the coach. He liked Umich and the program; however, he ultimately decided to stay close to home (not too dissimilar from JT Daniels recently).
I think we were on a different page. Which is fine. But I'll still fight you if you disagree with me!
August 8th, 2017 at 12:39 PM ^
Very impressive kid who seems to have the big picture of life vs. football figured out. I wish him a bunch of success this season...
Good interview. I have no pre-existing feelings about Josh Rosen. Seems like a good dude and everything he says is reasonable. I just don't see anything profound in any of this.
There needs to be a minor league of football to make all of this stop. Please God. If you're a fair and just God, please make this stop.
He says football players shouldn't have to go to school. Playing football and going to school is like "trying to do two full-time jobs". Does he realize how much college costs? And that there are actual humans out there working a full-time job to afford college? How many college kids take their entire summer and go grind out an internship that pays $0 to set up their future? Those kids don't get a stipend.
He talks about these football players who have no business being in school. That they're forced to leave after 3 years because it was NFL or flunk out. Is that bad? A player who otherwise would have no chance to obtain a UCLA degree gets 2+ years of college credits? What's the alternative? He tries to make the NFL and fails WITHOUT college? At least he's got credits he can transfer to a community college or something and get an associates or something. Where is the problem?
He says the university should be helping more than just helping you "stay eligible". I know first hand that colleges have everything set up to assist you in your life. But YOU have to walk through the door and ask for help. They're not going to come grab you by the hand and plot your life course. If players need more from UCLA, I'd be shocked if any school turned their back on a player seeking more.
Yeah, football players can waltz through for 3 years with a general studies degree. Guess what? Anyone can do that. You can do that. I can do that. We can show up at orientation and plot out the easiest course schedule hitting all requirements meeting the minimum credit threshold and blow through it in record time. If that's all you want to accomplish, fine. It's your world. Again, that's not the school's problem. That's the individual not taking advantage of their opportunity.
He wants more for his teammates, and that's great. But he's absolving them of any responsibility.
The girls playing softball have demanding schedules. The olympic sport athletes have demanding schedules. The baseball team has a demanding schedule. This has nothing to do with the tv/gate revenue created by the desire of the American public to watch them perform. Money is not an issue in anything he's talking about, which means this blog's hatred of NCAA amateurism is not an issue in anything he's talking about.
Paying players money will not resolve a single issue he's discussing.
If Rosen or anybody else feels the comination of football and school are too tough a hill to climb, quit football. Or quit school. I don't really care.
I would love to talk to an Ivy League kid, or a guy at Harbaugh's old USD - places where they don't provide scholarships. Let's ask those kids why they're playing football, and if they think it's too much to handle. Just like the millions playing High School ball, or any sport, they can quit at any time. Only at the P5 level of NCAA football and basketball do these kids get it stuck in their heads that this is some right bestowed upon them.
Quit, Josh. 50 kids will line up to fill your spot and take advantage of free UCLA tuition before I type this period.
If the coach is telling a kid he or she is too dumb for a legitimate course load and directs them to follow some sham major so they can use him/her on the field, then that coach is an asshole. And it could happen in any sport where the coach is earning a salary and placing his/her personal well-being ahead of the player's.
That has nothing specifically to do with football. Nothing to do with the NCAA. The only fool-proof remedy is to only allow a volunteer coaching staff in every sport.
really is just the it thing for people to vaguely complain about the state of college athletics. It really is just like default small talk.
"Hey, pretty nice day outside today, huh?
"Oh yeah, that humidity is finally gone. Hey, those college football players really get screwed over, don't they?"
"For sure. Completely agree."
it seems like all anyone from the pay-the-players-crowd can do is spout "pay the players!11!!!". I have yet to hear any one of them come up with a feasible plan to do that.
Sure we have. Some of them would violate Title IX, or irreparably harm the sport and its participants, but they've been floated.
And at least one idea that is feasible and, I believe, not terribly destructive, is well known: Let kids make Name-Image-Likeness income. Currently the NCAA views that as profiting from their role as an athlete, thus making them professional; dropping this restriction would allow athletes to capitalize on their value without requiring schools to violate title IX in paying only the popular sports.
Sure, there would be challenges: Local businesses hiring the entire football team as endorsers, that sort of thing. But the system as it is now isn't exactly fair or free from issues either.
And, importantly to me, it would actually allow some athletes in "less significant" sports to benefit from their prowess. Olympic gymnasts become huge stars and, reasonably, choose to accept NIL money as "professionals" to capitalize on their fame while it still exists. But their athletic prime occurs at a time before they are eligible for college. Altering this rule would allow gymnasts like Simone Biles and Aly Raisman to success AND to then go to college and compete.
And Katie Ledecky would probably be a top-five endorsable athlete in college in any sport. She is fortunate to be able to afford this, but she is turning down millions to compete in college. It should not be so.
It's not hard: "Pay the players."
Problem solved. I'm gonna go grab a Diet Freska? You need anything?
take a Tab, thanks.
You are missing the second part of the solution: sell off the teams (since running professional football teams isn't in the universities' charters).
Profit!
I hear that. Create affiliate relationships between NFL clubs and college programs. I'm almost serious.
for me please.
Thanks.
poster! Excellent fisking.
I'm confused. What exactly did Rosen say that led you to believe he was entitled? His comments and reasoning seem pretty level-headed to me.
See my longer post below. The systems is UNAMERICAN because it refuses to allow someone with an asset (their football skills) to get paid for it.
If a willing buyer (the school) could make a profit by buying a seller's asset (the player's talent), then, they'll do it. ITS CALLED CAPITALISM.
You are advocating a communist system, where players have no right to barter or negotiate, and they have to shut up and take what they are being given. While the schools make BILLIONS in profit.
The girls' softballs teams... they won't make nearly as much money for schools, so, they would never get paid as much. Do MLS players get paid like NFB or NBA players? No, the MLS owner(s) don't make as much as NFL/NBA. So capitalism says, the MLS' players talent is not worth as much (can't be turned into as much profit), so they don't get paid as much.
Players should be paid what they are WORTH. Let the FREE MARKET decide what that is -- schools will pay what they think is the right price for players, depending on the return on investment analysis they do. Apply it to any college team in any college sport that wants to do it; pretty much only football and basketball have enough $$$ at stake, however, to make it worthwhile.
And let's stop acting like Russian economists ok.
UN-American!
Great post. Yay Captalism!
Unfortunately, neither Rosen's interview nor my post in reply to his comments were about paying players. It was about time demands of football players.
I believe this is called a "straw man"?
Since you brought it up, the agreement Rosen entered into was free college education in exchange for quarterbacking the football team. That was the offer. He was under no obligation. He agreed and is free to leave at any time.
Again, if he (or anybody else since Rosen isn't actually asking to be paid here) doesn't feel that's fair, he can go do something more in line with his moral compass. I doubt the school will struggle to find another 18-year-old American male to quarterback the f***ing UCLA Bruins in exchange for free college tuition. Give me a time machine, a plane ticket and a refund of my student loan payments and I'll be there in 4 hours. With bells on.
"The systems is UNAMERICAN because it refuses to allow someone with an asset (their football skills) to get paid for it."
Nope.
They can choose to get compensated in college tuition and training.
They can choose to get paid cash money playing in the CFL or any of the numerous semi-pro leagues that exist in the USA.
The system that prevents them from going straight to the NFL is a private, legal, contract between the NFL players union and the league.
They don't have to go to college to play in the NFL - they have avenues which pay cash... but they CHOOSE the compensation of the NCAA over those other options for a reason.
I cannot believe that anyone would post here the argument that peope who disagree with them are "communist." That red herring hasn't worked, except on morons, in fifty years. Just stop.
trying to restrict his freedom of speech, commy?
August 9th, 2017 at 12:04 AM ^
Nice try, Boris.
"There needs to be a minor league of football..."
is the crux.
While I agree with everything else in principal, when the top high school players have only one path to the NFL that makes it hard to "quit" school when that means giving up your dreams of playing in the NFL. Heck not having that choice seems un-American to me.
The most talented players should be able to "go pro" in something that maximizes their skills. And for those who aren't talented enough they still have the pathway of the scholarship.
That way no one has to "pay" student-athletes just pay the pros.
Baseball and Hockey have it right (or as close to right as any). Draft rights, minor leagues, etc. Let the students develop while continuing school. Let the non-students grind out peanut wages in the minors if that's their wish. Let the cream rise to the top however it wishes to get there.
The NFL and NCAA football monopoly is definitely blocking a better system. I just don't think the answer to that is to destroy collegiate football as we know it and carve it out as an NFL feeder league completely separate from the universities that created it.
Make a new system. Don't murder college football.
You makes great points here. Pepto. I don't even feel the need to argue these points because you are making my points better than I could.
August 9th, 2017 at 12:03 AM ^
that Ivy League football players do not have remotely the time demands of a scholarship Div. IA football player. It's not even close. And if you have to skip a practice at an Ivy League school because of an academic demand, while it won't help you on the field, it's not the laughable impossibility that it is for a big-time football player.
Can't speak to USD, and agree the NFL ought to set up it's own minor league instead of free riding off universities.
Not that he is going to go to Anderson for his MBA necessarily, but there's some irony about a person at UCLA talking about some schools being harder than others, because Anderson doesn't exactly have a "you have to earn it" reputation...
I find it hilarious that football fans don't want to hear about 'entitled' college kinds 'whining' about how they aren't getting paid, and how the schools make all this money, and how they should shut up and take their free education and not say a dang thing else.
We have a word for that kind of economic system: COMMUNISM.
The producers (here, schools) control all of the capital, reap all of the profits. The workers (players) have NO right to bargain, NO right to negotiate, ONLY get paid equally with all other workers, and NONE of the profits. Folks, the USSR used that system for 'bout 70 years. NCAA football and basketball has been using that system for about as long.
I THOUGHT WE LIVE IN AMERICA -- A CAPITALIST COUNTRY.
I thought flag-waving, football-loving Americans believed in capitalism. Right to negotiate. if you have an asset, you sell to the highest bidder. Or, if you're a left-winger, you support the rights of workers to assemble and unionize and negotiate. Either way, the CORE to capitalism is, IF YOU GOT IT AND THEY WANNA PAY FOR IT, THEN BY GOD, SELL TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER!
Yet, the NCAA refuses to acknowledge their un-American system. They don't wanna share the BILLIONS they make, basically.
SHUT UP that the players get paid "enough." Ohreally. If they did, then WHY do SEC schools want to PAY them under the table? LET THE MARKET SPEAK. If you could pay players, then of COURSE they'd get paid -- which is PROOF that they are not getting market value. Maybe Cam Newton did, right. The point is, if you know they could get paid but aren't, then, that means the current 'payment' (free school) is NOT enough, that it is an ARTIFICIAL price and a cap on the actual market.
The NFB will never do a minor league; they get one (the NCAA) for FREE to them. Players get training, it lets them study players for 3-4 years, and players come with build-in fan bases. Like, how many of us own Patriots gear, but have never been a fan of any other Boston teams, right? You think the NFL isn't profiting from this Communism? Of course they are.
RELEASE THE KRAKENS. Take the shackles off. Allow FREEDOM and CAPITALISM back in America. Allow the players to get paid -- if they are good enough, if it makes someone else a profit to pay them, then they WILL get paid, and we will have actual American business taking place. Not a broken Russian system.
National
Communists
Against
Athletes
IS SCORCHING HOT
all that.
Beat the Gators.
You forgot the /s at the end. Without the /s you risk some people taking this silliness as a serious argument on your part.
I know you think that the satire is obvious, but maybe it isn't as obvious as you think.
What part of my rant makes you think I wasn't being serious? I'm dead serious. The system is unAmerican. It's not capitalist. It's not free market. It's completely improper. Which part of my rant do you think is factually incorrect?
Because the man never once said that college football players should be paid. His only reference to NCAA revenue was basically that the schools make too much money not to offer more academic assistance to players. He's talking about the time demands of football players.
He shoulda chose Blue because he wouuld have merged his phenomenal talent with the highest possible NFL preparedness. But, guaranteed start/early playing time, no way he was getting that guarantee from Michigan, not for the QB position. True freshman QB's work out well once every neveruary.
He's entitled to his opinion. But so am I. And my opinion is he needs some fucking perspective. There are plenty of single parents out there working 2-3 jobs and supporting three kids just so they can keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table. You're going to a great public university, on a free ride no less, and you're playing a fucking game on the side. Either one of those things are things that if you don't like, you can walk away from at any time. My former example can not walk away from their situation.
You don't like having to go to school and play football at the same time? Excuse me for not feeling even remotely sorry for you. You live a charmed life compared to most everyone else in this world. Be happy with what you've been given and if you don't like it, then quit. There are hundreds of thousands of kids who will be happy to take your place, put in the same work as you, and they won't complain an ounce about it.
Here is your exact argument in another context: "Hey Lebron, you shouldn't get $30M a year because you already have alot of money and a million people would take your place for free or at least for a lot less money."
So you see the silliness of your point. This isn't about need. We aren't a socialist country. It's capitalism. If you have an asset (here, football talent) that can help others make a profit (the schools, NFL, etc.), then market economics says, you should be allowed to sell that talent to the highest bidder. The fact that other people don't have talent and won't get paid is meaningless.
All college players, any sport, should be allowed to get paid whatever schools are willing to offer them. That others have to work hard and pay for college is beside the point -- no one else is helping schools make money by winning college football / basketball games.
Agree to disagree.
Your education is what you make of it, and if it's a "sham," it's your own fault for not taking it seriously enough. It's not just football players that can take general studies and skim by in three years. I can take it too. So can you. So can anyone. Your education is in your own hands. Some degrees are much harder than others, sure, but there are plenty of football players out there studying nuclear engineering and advanced mathematics. Rudock was our starting QB while simultaneously going to medical school. He did just fine by all accounts, so spare me the bullshit about players not having what they need.
UCLA is an amazing school with resources for it's students to get whatever assistance they need to excel in the classroom, especially with regards to its football players, but it's the student's job to seek that assistance out. It's not going to be handed to them. So Rosen moaning about guys not getting the support they need is bullshit. It's there, but they've got to go after it themselves. And for him to whine about football and school being like two full-time jobs is a slap in the face to everyone who works their ass off to get through school while working two or three jobs, and while simultaneously having to pay off student loans and pay for their own food and housing. Which Rosen will never have to do for college. He makes reasonable arguments in some areas, but I really take issue with this part of his interview.
Lastly, no one forced him to go to UCLA. If he's pissy because other schools like Alabama have lower SAT standards so they can admit better players, and if playing for a championship-caliber team was THAT important to him, then he should've gone to Alabama. He could've gone anywhere he wanted, but he chose a school with great academic standards. Don't know what he was expecting.
August 9th, 2017 at 10:06 AM ^
August 9th, 2017 at 12:56 PM ^
This kid talking like he enjoys school and is trying to accomplish both in the classroom and on the field.
We'll see how much he enjoys school when the NFL underclassman entry deadline approaches.