My Response to Pat Forde's Article: Either Bill Self is an Idiot or Clean. You can't Have Both.
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dylans said:
@Statmachine Replacement players are waiting in the wings. The NCAA is old, athletes are only effective while young. Who can wait longer? A rich organization or athletes that are yet to be paid?
Its real simple the NCAA makes most of its money from a hand full of teams. These teams rely on the top recruits to preform. I will use Duke, UK, and Alabama as a reference. If you took those 3 schools top athletes off of their roster how much would these schools and the NCAA lose? UK and Duke for example. Their season depends on these kids suiting up next year. How much money do they lose if they have a really bad year? Not only the students but the Schools associated with these players would be putting pressure on the NCAA. Does the NCAA commissioner lose his job if they take a nose dive financially? The NCAA would have to take action.
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@HighEliteMajor I’m surprised that someone who prides himself on crafting an argument and using logic is so quick to revert to slippery slope fallacies. Surely you know of the existence of the term but boldly use it in your own argument as if it’s a logical consequence instead of a well known fallacy. What ifs and slippery slopes are simplistic tactics to scare someone into inaction. You like the status quo, that’s fine. But if you are trying to make an argument for the status quo, do better.
Personally, if there are 100s of millions of dollars floating around, I’d rather distribute that money more evenly to the people I care about more, the players, instead of network execs, head coaches, and NCAA executives. Further, it appears, there is even MORE money out there the NCAA is trying to prevent others from making based on decades old rules based on decades older perceptions. I don’t have a perfect solution, but change is needed and can continue to be implemented to make the system better. If one change doesn’t work, or has unintended consequences, change it or close the loop hole or whatever. Progress and continual improvement is what sport is all about. Even the rules of basketball are in constant flux and rules are adjusted, abandoned, or changed nearly every year. The game survives and may even get better.
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@JayHawkFanToo I’m sorry, but you know nothing about social media, much less advertising on it.
My numbers weren’t pulled out of the air.
“An Instagram user with 100,000 followers can command $5,000 for a post made in partnership with a company or brand.”
But continue to assume that nobody would pay thousands of these college athletes.
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Here’s the thing, we don’t have to assume nobody would pay these athletes. They already are just secretly. We all knew it before, but it has been very loudly confirmed recently.
The real question isn’t about whether or not these athletes can or should be paid; it’s would you rather the payments be open and legal or hidden and possibly illegal? I say possibly because methods of payment seems to be part of how the feds have gotten involved.
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I think that the power 5 should step up and make their own paid league!
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If a kid has 100k followers on Instagram and wants to advertise bottled butt toots then he or she should be able to capitalize on that!
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@Statmachine Right? People talk about how great capitalism is and how free markets are so great, but then only for SOME people. These other people shouldn’t be allowed to participate because they can make all the money they want after they wait 9 months. Athletes are held to a completely different standard than the rest of the student body.
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@benshawks08 What difference does it make if Gatorade wants to pay Wiggins a million to advertise? So remove his scholarship but not his remaining eligibility and let him play. As long as he meets the minimum requirements to be considered full time student and meets the grade requirements who gives a cats banana?
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@Statmachine You have to be careful giving young black men that kind of money at that age. They might do weed or eat crack. It’s a slippery slope.
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@Kcmatt7 It will be the end of the privileged elite making all the rules, and then the earth will spiral into the sun.
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We have a very tenuous system balanced carefully on the backs of certain individuals. To upend this system would be a catastrophe (for those currently benefiting from it financially).
Great point. Or they might turn that into something that benefits everyone in their community (the horror). I know your comment was tongue in cheek. It made me laugh at work.
One of the things I respect most about Lebron James is that he used his immense talent not just to help himself and his family, but also his friends. Maverick Carter, James’ best friend, is a millionaire now. He runs a lot of James’ businesses. While Lebron himself is probably going to be a billionaire, he has helped several of his friends become millionaires. Rich Paul runs a sports agency and is probably worth $20M. Randy Mims also runs some of Lebron’s business interests and is a millionaire himself. That’s four friends that all became extremely wealthy even though only one was actually an elite athlete. While all were good HS athletes, only Lebron was ever going to the pros. But because James was able to capitalize on his talent financially, the other three were able to start and build their own businesses as well. Instead of one kid making it out of a run down area of Akron, three did, and another kid from east Cleveland made it as well. They started a marketing agency in 2006, when James otherwise would have been just leaving college. But since he was already a pro, James was signing a big extension in the NBA.
Lebron James has completely flipped everything. He skipped college. He got rich. He stayed out of trouble. He got his friends rich. They have built their own business/sports/media empire. And he did it all outside the usual channels. That’s what it means when an athlete has a chance to capitalize on their marketability from the beginning. Not one life changed. Not one family changed. Several. Dozens. Maybe hundreds before its all said and done. And that’s just directly. Who knows how many will indirectly benefit.
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Great post as usual
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Kcmatt7 said:
@Statmachine You have to be careful giving young black men that kind of money at that age. They might do weed or eat crack. It’s a slippery slope.
You mean like Michael Phelps? Oh wait he is not black!
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@justanotherfan Great point about Lebron. I don’t want to get into it much and stir things up but I very much agree with you.
A great movie I watched not too long ago from the 70s called Being There touched on these subjects somewhat. Basically if you are white, wear a nice suit and speak in platitudes you can succeed in American politics, almost no matter how dumb you are…
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Statmachine said:
Kcmatt7 said:
@Statmachine You have to be careful giving young black men that kind of money at that age. They might do weed or eat crack. It’s a slippery slope.
You mean like Michael Phelps? Oh wait he is not black!
Just making sure you understand he was joking.
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I caught that. I am just joking around.
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Also LOL at Michael Phelps.
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Interesting rumor going around here in TX. UT is not accepting college applications from the state of Colorado? Supposedly its because they are all high on the Devils Lettuce?
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@justanotherfan Remember, unionization was going to result in the death of professional sports. Instead, players have earned millions while owners’ franchises have become valued as high as 2 billion.
Does anyone else remember the haberdashery sign at old Municipal Stadium where a player could win a free suit if he hit the sign with HR? Quaint! Now the Cavs show up to games in matching $5,000 ($10,000?) suits. It was to symbolize their team unity but in a larger sense also symbolizes players’ new power. Too bad the sport is dead, and all that other stuff.
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@mayjay You are just crushing it today. Two great examples of how empowering athletes is only making sports get better.
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@Kcmatt7 Ya ain’t doin’ so shabby yourself, young man!
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Lots of good posts popping up today. I think I have upvoted more posts today than in any single day every. Tons of thought provoking stuff. Great to see, even when we don’t all agree on something that good points can be made here.
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The NCAA commission released its findings today.
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Lifting the OAD rule or making freshmen ineligible to play in college is a good start. Like I have said before it would stop most of the dirty dirty that is going down right now… Recruiting would change a lot! The top recruits would be signing really late! The “way too early top 25” would be hard to do until after NBA combine. UK and Duke would be sweating bullets all year wondering if their verbal commitments are going to go pro before ever stepping foot on campus? I like it a lot!
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@BeddieKU23 Far better than any solutions I’ve read elsewhere. Hope they implement the harsher punishments and clean up the OAD junk. This should allow the college game to continue to be great. Another version of the NBA is just another league I wouldn’t watch.
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This is a political discussion. That’s all this is. If one reads the commentary of @Kcmatt7 @mayjay and @justanotherfan, this is the leftist mantra.
Today, we see the reference to race by @Kcmatt7 and the “privileged elite” by @mayjay, and the 'benefit(ting) everyone in the community" from @justanotherfan – That’s what this is. The leftist dogma that overwhelms any real perspective on the college basketball discussion.
It is very simple. Leftists, in the big picture, want to redistribute wealth. They want to take what someone else owns and earns, and give it to others.
It’s the infamous social justice arguments. Everything is so unfair. Find someone, call them evil because they have more, and whatever follows is justified. It’s easy to join the arguments, it’s easy “feel” bad because something is “unfair.” It’s easy to say that someone is privileged to make you feel better because you (or others) are relative failures, or not as smart, or not as motivated, or not as hard working. It’s an ignorant pursuit. The “x” factors are ignored. That is all this is.
No one in the NCAA or CBB is stopping a college basketball player from making a living. All they are saying is that if you play under our umbrella, there are rules. Our rules. It’s really that simply. The crying and whining is about an organization’s rules – rules no one is forced to be a part of.
Ah, but that would invoke a phrase that leftists hate – personal responsibility.
It drives the leftists mad. How dare the NCAA and universities construct rules that the leftists see as unfair? They demand to change the rules.
Instead of making your own business, and earning your own money, the preference of the leftist is to take what another has made and earned, and give it someone else. Here, they want to take money that is not the players’ money to begin with, and give it to the players.
It doesn’t matter that the player coming into CBB doesn’t own the product, doesn’t own the facilities, doesn’t own the TV and shoe contracts, and did nothing to build the product. It doesn’t matter that the player enters CBB and the rules of CBB voluntarily. That is all ignored by the leftist.
And, again, that goes to the leftists core beliefs. Just let the player and parents off the hook for entering the contract. Abdicate personal responsibility. Blame others for your lot in life. Blame others for failures. Heck, blame inanimate objects. That’s the left.
Oh, I know. It’s tugs at the heart strings. These poor players. Many have nothing. Many have one parent. Many families have nothing. So, it’s easy, pay them. Oh, and it’s easy to pay them so they won’t cheat. Right.
It is a much greater intellectual exercise to resist the urge of “feelings” and what is “fair.”
As I referred to quite a ways up in this thread, it’s no different than stupidity of insisting on an artificial $15 an hour wage when the skill set and market won’t support it, and then bemoaning the evil business owner that trims his staff. To be an owner, it has to be worthwhile. The risk/reward has to be there. That is ignored.
Anytime there is money, the leftists will want to take it. Doesn’t matter whose money it is. That’s all this is, just in another package.
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@HighEliteMajor That entire piece you just wrote would have been a great response to people saying that Universities and the NCAA should pay the players themselves. Great response.
Not what I or others have been saying though. There is free money on the table from outside sources, and legally, the NCAA or Universities can’t capitalize on that money ever since the O’Bannon case. But, they won’t let the players capitalize on it. The market WOULD support this. This IS NOT people saying the owners of the company should pay more. Simply that the owners of the company shouldn’t restrict their employees from other sources.
I don’t want to take money from the NCAA, or the schools, or anyone not willing to GIVE money to the players. And, if the NCAA didn’t want this to be an issue, they would have had the commission that released its findings this morning, a long, long time ago. The only reason they did this in the first place was because of the FBI findings. Nothing else. They would have continued to let players get paid under the table for forever if the FBI never got involved.
Again, I think you just can’t wrap your head around the endorsement piece of the argument. For some reason… Other than argue “its a slippery slope” with no ACTUAL reasoning behind your feelings.
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BShark said:
All I’m really saying is the players have more value than what the NCAA provides.
The top 1% do, the rest do not. Go look at the G-league attendance.
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@HighEliteMajor You define the voice of unreasoned privilege that has its own mantra, “I love things the way they are so long as I get to keep mine.”
I am sure you struggled hard and long to be white and middle class, and that you carefully chose your SM school district. You have no clue about the world that doesn’t look like you, talk like you, or think like you. Your response to people with opposing opinions is invariably to lump them into some group you see as inherently incapable of thought. It is an old, and pathetic, ritual of yours.
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We are probably working pretty hard on locking this bad boy up. Good posts everyone.
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Gosh… just look at the suggestions of that basketball panel. Basically, they advise for so much clean up… clean up the NCAA should have done decades ago. As @HighEliteMajor said… the real problem is in enforcement.
What we really need is a deep investigation into the NCAA. It isn’t enough to just say they lacked the ability to enforce. They have been exposed to all those lose shoeco dollars just like schools and athletes are.
Anyone in here think the NCAA is squeaky clean and not taking donations/kickbacks/freebies/kickbacks? It could be done on an institutional level and/or within individuals. I guess the NCAA only has saintly staff members… yeah, right!
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@HighEliteMajor Ah yes, the ever leftist goal to deregulate a market. Clearly political.
Am I to understand that you are arguing that when discussing the financial dealings of college basketball we should “resist the urge” to do what “feels” right or what is “fair”?
It always strikes me as odd when people resist changing a system. Why not try to make it better? And if we are going to make it better, who should we make it better for? For me, my priorities would be the kids, then the schools, then the fans, and last the execs. I guess that could be construed as trying to redistribute wealth, but really I haven’t even been arguing in this scenario that anyone should make less or give up anything.
One intellectual exercise I like to engage in is thinking about who wrote the rules? Why did they write them? Can they be improved? Are there any unintended consequences the authors of the rules didn’t anticipate? If you are so inclined to care, you might even evaluate if the rules are equally enforced to all stake holders. Are actors at all levels of the system held accountable to the same degree? And remember during this process resist your OWN “feelings” and why not try to make it fair?
Now as a leftist by your definition I’m going to argue that instead of any money going to the players, instead all money that has been flowing their direction should instead be redirected to me. I’m stupid, unintelligent, and lazy and therefore need other people to do things for me. Please give me all of your money as well. I assume you are richer than me because you are smart enough to write so many words.
I also do not own the facility where I work around 50 hours a week, or any of the contracts, nor did I build it. Because of this I am paid no money and therefore need yours.
Thanks in advance for all the consideration and thought I’m sure you will give this post.
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I have a bright idea…
I’ve always felt that the players should receive more $ in college basketball.
But I’m okay for keeping that part as it is… room, board and education. However… Why don’t we have a structure within college basketball to help promote/develop players? Make it attractive for the players to stay in college if they are sitting on the fence on whether to jump. Create an incentive system to help keep players in school. Money flows through college basketball like water… create NCAA developmental centers (with the best coaches) only for use by current student athletes. In off-seasons… summers… Christmas break… open the doors for players to hone their game. Obviously, not every college player could go… but something could be figured out that is fair.
In some ways, my idea almost sounds more like something for the pros… but so does so many of the ideas proposed for solving college basketball. The big bucks are there, so it is hard to keep it “amateur.” And it is pro basketball that is the enticement for players to leave school early.
All new solutions should put the student-athletes first. Put that at the top of the list and then there are great solutions everywhere.
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@drgnslayr People have floated the idea of compensation to the kids that increases for each year they stay in school. You could couple it with increases for higher grades, or even make it dependent on a certain GPA. Incentivize staying in school.
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@mayjay Privilege. What a joke. It’s the refrain of the loser. You are a deep blue leftist, aren’t you? Everyone has challenges. Height, weight, health, brains, looks, dexterity, eye sight, strength, coordination, finances, ability to articulate, etc. The one thing that is undeniable is that if you fixate on your challenges, you cannot achieve. It’s easy to hold on to that because it gives one a built in excuse for failure. There is nothing in this country that anyone is prohibited from achieving. Chew on that. The “privilege” whiners want to take, not earn. I challenge anyone to compete with me, and beat me. But when folks with your un-American mindset want to take what I have, uh, yea, I think I’ll challenge that.
What you and others clearly ignore is that my approach is what made this country great. It isn’t fair. But it created the greatest country on earth. Folks like you ignore history, ignore the rest of the world, and ignore the alternative. There is no better alternative anywhere on earth. I laugh when folks point to a few European countries – that wouldn’t exist (vs. Nazis or Soviets) if America didn’t step in, and continue through today to provide the free world safety.
Of course, everything I’ve ever said on this topic is encouraging of players earning whatever then can. Free market. Go do it. Someone mentioned Lebron. Terrific. Well earned. Not a jealous bone in my body. Do I wish I had his talent? Of course. I don’t. But I utilize my skills to make money, best I can.
But do I fixate on the physical “privilege” that God gave Lebron? Nope. Why did he deserve that? How did he earn his genetics? Anymore than why did Chelsea Clinton or George W. Bush deserve their place in life? Basketball is just a game. But our system puts value on what Lebron does. More value than on what Chelsea or George W. does/did. It’s not fair, though, right? Lebron, Chelsea, or George W.
Nothing in life is fair. Someone’s always got it better, and someone’s always got it worse. The best solution is to permit folks avenues to compete and achieve. And in America, everyone can do that.
@benshawks08 No, telling an organization how to run it’s business is what we’re discussing. You’re reference to “deregulation” is wildly misplaced. I’m for a free market that competes with the NCAA. And if the free market beats the NCAA, then that’s how it goes. It won’t. The product is too good, and the opportunity is too good. Top players play CBB. The total package is too good.
And fair? Fair is taking someone’s money and giving to someone else. Hmmm. Interesting. Your priority would be the kids. Sounds admirable. If that’s the case, I suggest you donate half your earnings to a charity supporting kids, I mean, since that’s your priority. You can live more frugally I assume, since kids are your priority. Is it easier to give away someone else’s money?
I want players to earn millions. But unlike @mayjay, I don’t begrudge rich people, or institutions, for being rich and wanting to keep their money.
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The more I read, the more this really is like when the Olympics switched from pure amateurism to letting athletes get paid through endorsements. It only made the IOC more money because it drew better athletes.
In the NCAAs case, it would actually improve the product to let the players fetch endorsements as there would be no rush to try to go pro.
It didn’t ruin the Olympics or get out of control. Endorsements only go to those athletes with market value. The same would go for any of the NCAA athletes.
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@HighEliteMajor I don’t begrudge rich people. I hope like you suggest they give as high a percentage of their income to charity as I do, maybe even more since they have more disposable income. I have a hard time begrudging institutions because they are generally set up for a specific purpose and generally do their best to achieve that purpose. I do however, begrudge systems that you say “permit folks avenues to compete and achieve” but don’t provide an even playing field for that competition. I imagine you might protest if certain teams started basketball games with more points because they were favored to win. Or even if certain players are allowed more steps between dribbles because it looks like they have talent.
Also, where have I or anyone else genuinely argued that anyone should take someone’s money and give it to someone else. I hope you weren’t reading my last “argument” literally.
I work every day with kids from underprivileged backgrounds. Kids that have only one parent and multiple siblings. Kids who will be the first in their family to go to college. Kids who are learning their second or sometimes third language. Kids with disabilities. Kids who care for their siblings all evening because their parents are working 2-3 jobs. If you want to see what privilege looks like, come talk to my kids. Realize just how much where they are born, who their parents are, how much money their parents make, how much education their parents have, put them at a disadvantage to kids with different circumstances. Privilege is anything but a joke.
You know what else is a joke? The guy who focuses on every negative aspect of every game then spouting that “the one thing that is undeniable is that if you fixate on your challenges, you cannot achieve.” Can more be accomplished by focusing on strengths? Sure. Scientific research says so. But we already know your opinion on “science.”
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@HighEliteMajor Again, spoken from a position of privilege. Don’t get me wrong, I have the same privilege you do: white, middle class, parents who chose the SM school district, and parents who instilled a great set of values.
Unlike you, I don’t think I got to where I am solely due to competing more successfully on a level field. That field is tilted heavily in my direction. The difference is that I encourage efforts to recognize that tilt and to find ways for everyone to have my same advantages. You resent those efforts and decry people like me as unAmerican.
No, you are the one with unAmerican values. While you claim to be so patriotic, you ignore the true lesson of America: the constant striving for freedom and equality for everybody regardless of the circumstances of birth. I, the unAmerican, took an oath to defend the country and the constitution, and then spent my professional life working to help people obtain justice. I have not heard of any public service you have performed–other than your constant refrain whining about people who do not see the world through your warped eyes.
I am done with you, because you are just an endless recital of the same BS contributing nothing to civility, discourse, or community information. Unless, as you did before, you want to threaten me again and then we can arrange insults at 10 yards or something.
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Offseason is off to a hot start.
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This isn’t leftist mantra. What I talked about was straight up capitalism. The players have a skill. That skill has value. People are willing to pay for that value. The only issue is that the NCAA has decided to cut the players out of that deal. Not because players can’t make money. If they couldn’t, these companies wouldn’t be throwing money at them.
If the NCAA wants to clean things up, that’s perfectly fine. But they won’t. Why? Because the only way to clean up college hoops is to push the money out of the game. If the TV and apparel and sports drink contracts go away, the money to pay illegally goes away. The corruption goes away. You can’t have that much money and keep it out of the hands of the people generating the revenue (nobody’s paying to see Bill Self and Jay Wright shoot jump shots) without creating a situation that invites corruption.
Corruption. There’s something interesting about it. Places with the highest corruption tend to have very low paid public servants. Why? Because its worth the risk to take a little money on the side if you have the power to approve this permit or that license. Same thing applies here. It’s worth getting $100,000 for a kid, regardless of whether he plays NCAA hoops or not. That’s not leftist. That’s capitalism.
Your argument is that only certain people should be able to benefit from capitalism. Except that’s not how capitalism works. The NCAA system is draconian. The rules were written when the only money flowing into the system was from illegal gambling. Now the NCAA is taking money on top of the table from ShoeCos and others, and those same entities are paying players under the table. The only way the NCAA can fix this is to turn off the faucet. Stop the flow of money. They can’t accept the money on one hand and then make the players the villains for taking the same money.
Except that would end it all because if the NCAA turns off the faucet, somebody else will turn it on…
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I will just put this here…
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Do all high school graduates have to go to college? No.
Then explain to me why it is legal to force our youngsters to go to college for one year or sit out and twiddle their thumbs for one year before pursuing their dream of professional basketball.
Then explain to me how it is legal to have different eligibility requirements for different sports.
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@HighEliteMajor , you say the system isn’t broken. I want to introduce a thought experiment. Let’s say De Sousa’s guardian took cash money from an Addidas agent to pay off an earlier payment from UA that was intended to steer De Sousa to Maryland. De Sousa doesn’t know about the money and signs an affidavit of his amatuer status with the NCAA. No one from KU was involved and had any knowledge. Later, the NCAA finds out that the guardian took money and declares that Silvio was ineligible for the past season. The NCAA then vacates every game that Silvio played in and as a result, KU’s Big 12 conference championship, tourney championship, and Final Four are vacated. If that were to happen, is that fair? Is that fair to Bill Self, Devonte Graham and Svi? Is that fair to De Sousa? Is that fair to the fans? No one is going to jail. It’s just a vacated season. Bill Self is still in the Hall of Fame and players may have earned themselves a shot at the NBA. But those achievements matter to people, don’t they? Don’t they matter to you?
How do you stop players or parents or guardians from taking money? Do you think it’s possible to stop people from accepting money? Do you think it’s possible to know about every such transaction? Is KU supposed to audit every single financial transaction of all family members and any other connections to a player? Is that even possible? How can you punish a player or an organization for what a family member did in secret? What would have happened if Billy Preston didn’t get in a one car accident before the season?
I personally think the players deserve more compensation. The schools and organizations may own the courts and the TV rights, but I’m not tuning in to see a Jayhawk on a court. I’m tuning in to see the players. Billions of dollars are being made from these kids. But I don’t know how you would do it, and no one cares about my opinion anyways. Furthermore, even if I were to make suggestions, that is not the same as telling someone what to do. I like the idea of allowing endorsements, but I’m not eager to read about Romeo Langford getting paid $250k from a booster to go to KU. And if you allowed endorsements, I acknowledge that it may be great for KU basketball but horrible for KU football. Not my call though to say a kid can’t make money by posting a few things on Instagram every month. That’s money that could lift a family out of poverty, and the opportunity could be taken away in just one bad fall.
I don’t know what the answer is. Doesn’t really affect me either way. But I would sure hate to see KU get a Final Four and a conference championship streak vacated because a family member took money in secret.
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Kcmatt7 said:
Offseason is off to a hot start.
Only 7 more months as well. Not that I’m counting
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Then you just compete “amateur” dollars with pro dollars.
What these kids need in college isn’t money. They need the best coaching and environment to develop into being the best.
That is worth far more than a few bucks. And paying them more money in college just makes them feel that much more likely to turn pro sooner because they think they are missing much bigger cash.
College is their last amateur world. It should be all about lifting their game instead of dropping a few bucks in their wallet.
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One word… corruption!
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@Gunman By some twisted logic, the antitrust laws involving concerted labor practices that create a bar to entry do not apply when the workforce already in the industry has agreed to the barriers under a collective bargaining agreement.
That is the technical reason. The real reason is that the owners give more money in the CBA to the players to extract the agreement to disallow the youngsters. And that is crap. Or, as @drgnslayr says, corruption.
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This conversation has gone ugly.
Everyone take a deep breath and look outside at the world. Do you see the spring flowers blossoming? Or do you see the neighbor’s fighting?
Our social climate has become ripe for giving people the opportunity to unload baggage on others. So much of this is politics, and the corruption from both sides to appear “superior” by painting the other side negatively. And that negativity is built through generalizations and distortions… anything to “win.”
Look… this forum is shared by many. And many people don’t appreciate this going negative, especially negative and personal. This should be the place where people of all colors and political ideas come together to talk Hawk ball. In that one area we all become equals… brothers and sisters of Lawrence!
I’m a person of color. And I can identify with racism and inequality. But I can also identify with putting those things behind me so I can strive and be happy in this world. I don’t feel like I’m a victim, because I have decided I’m not one. Have I been discriminated against? Heck yes. But I don’t harp on it because I’m too busy creating fruit for life and my family’s life.
I’ve recently been attacked for not being PC enough. Yikes! My goal is peace on this earth, meaning… I don’t want to offend anyone. Yet… a few of my old words don’t sound right today. What happened to being understood for intent?
The world is one big, dry batch of kindling and anything can be used as a match.
Time to bring out the hoses! Let’s all strive to be the best people we can. That usually means accepting imperfections in others first. Learn to laugh with others (and not at them)… start by accepting funny things about yourself! Smiles and positivity go along ways.
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I don’t take the racist rantings of progressives very seriously. I understand they are clueless to their sordid history. They don’t realize their movement was founded on the blood of the Native Americans in what is known as the Trail of tears. They don’t know their founder was a slave owner, or that the entire confederate army was made up of democrats. They don’t know they fought a war in order to enslave the black man, and when that didn’t work out, then the democrats founded the KKK in order to terrorize blacks all over this country. They don’t know that every Jim Crow law was written by a democrat- that the “deep racist south” was really the deep racist democrats who controlled the south for well over 100 years, and set up a palatable racist state where blacks were scorned for everything, and anything to “keep them in their place”. They don’t know the US Military was segregated by color by democrats. They don’t know that US Japanese citizens were segregated by democrats. So, I realize that many lightweight progressives that are now spouting the same racist chants against whites today are using the same racist tactics used against blacks during and after the civil war. Hypocritical? Absolutely. The biggest racists in the history of this country are now mindlessly picking out another group to savage, demean, and run into the ground, as they did against Native Americans, and blacks. So, when you bring up “white privilege”… to me, the voice I am hearing is an echo of other racists of the past spewing hateful rhetoric as part of a hateful, demonic entity that has been an evil presence in America since the early 1800s. How dare you lecture us about racism. When will you ever adopt what MLK said about race…about the content of a man’s character instead of the color of his skin? You’d never do that though, would you, Lefty?You can’t morally preen around if you can’t look down your nose at somebody, right?
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Until the late 1950’s, African Americans in this country primarily voted Republican because, as you correctly observe, Democrats had until that time historically been oppressive not just to African Americans, but all people of color.
If you had written your comment in 1956, I would be wholeheartedly applauding every word.
But something happened along the way. There was a civil rights movement. Nationally, Democrats largely supported this movement, and suddenly the Democratic party welcomed people of color, while the Republican party ended up implementing the Nixon Southern Strategy, which was basically strategic fearmongering in white areas in the south - opposing integration and the civil rights movement by preaching “law and order”, telling white citizens that integration and civil rights would threaten and in fact upend their way of life.
Almost overnight, African Americans went from voting about 90% Republican to about 90% Democrat.
Its no mistake that while the founding members of the KKK were Democrats, the members of today’s KKK, neo-Nazi and White Nationalist movement are almost exclusively Republican.
That is not to say that all Republicans are a part of those groups, or ascribe to the beliefs of those groups. That would be a foolishly overbroad generalization. But it is a fact that while those individuals were at one time aligned with the Democratic party, after the civil rights movement they left the party en masse and joined the Republican party.
Yes, the people that perpetrated the atrocities you noted were Democrats, but their descendants today are not. You cannot just ignore the last 50 years of American political history.
