Jaybate the Wise one
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Over the past couple years @jaybate-1.0 definitely educated me on shoeco influences. It makes sense. Just too much money in it to not become a major factor in D1. And I believe there is major corruption involved because that is what you always find when big money is involved.
I’ll go ahead and put my neck out on this one:
“It won’t be long before a situation is exposed, involving crazy money and big time corruption. It wouldn’t surprise me if lives were threatened or even taken in the struggle for power and money.”
The NCAA, once again, will remain the reactive governing body.
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@drgnslayr Yikes…the elephant in the room. I’m almost afraid to share my opinion on it: Calimari is the flagship for Nike, and we are the flagship for Adidas. Jaybate got me interested in looking into the relationship between the shoe companies and recruiting, The more I looked, the worse it got. Was it simply recruiting brilliance that ensures that Coach Squid gets 5 or 6 MCAAs every year? Did Coach Self go from hardly being able to land 1 top 10-20 recruit every couple of years to all of sudden having the pick of the litter every year? We went from the Brady Morningstars and Kevin Youngs to 2 of the top 3 picks in the NBA almost overnight. Is it no longer Kansas versus Kensucky - it’s now Nike versus Adidas? How much help has Adidas been to vault us up in the recruiting process? Feel free to disagree with me because I hope I’m wrong.
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My Adidas walked through concert doors and roamed all over coliseum floors I stepped on stage, at Live Aid All the people gave and the poor got paid And out of speakers I did speak I wore my sneakers but I’m not a sneak My Adidas cuts the sand of a foreign land with mic in hand I cold took command my Adidas and me, close as can be we make a mean team, my Adidas and me we get around together, rhyme forever and we won’t be mad when worn in bad weather My Adidas… My Adidas… My Adidas
standin on 2 Fifth St. funky fresh and yes cold on my feet with no shoe string in em, I did not win em I bought em off the Ave with the black Lee denim I like to sport em that’s why I bought em a sucker tried to steal em so I caught em and I fought em and I walk down the street and I bop to the beat with Lee on my legs and adidas on my feet and now I just standin here shooting the gif me and D and my Adidas standing on 2 Fifth My Adidas… My Adidas…
Now me and my Adidas do the illest things we like to stomp out pimps with diamond rings we slay all suckers who perpetrate and lay down law from state to state we travel on gravel, dirt road or street I wear my Adidas when I rock the beat on stage front page every show I go it’s Adidas on my feet high top or low My Adidas… My Adidas…
Now the Adidas I possess for one man is rare myself homeboy got 50 pair got blue and black cause I like to chill and yellow and green when it’s time to get ill got a pair that I wear when I’m playin ball with the heal inside make me 10 feet tall my Adidas only bring good news and they are not used as selling shoes they’re black and white, white with black stripe the ones I like to wear when I rock the mic on the strength of our famous university we took the beat from the street and put it on TV my Adidas are seen on the movie screen Hollywood knows we’re good if you know what I mean we started in the alley, now we chill in Cali and I won’t trade my Adidas for no beat up Bally’s My Adidas…
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I think the biggest change for Self in his recruiting catches was the change in philosophy he took towards recruiting. He became frustrated just a few years ago… at that time many said he was in a recruiting slump. I know it hit him hard when we missed on Tarc. He spoke out a little bit about it and how he was going to adapt his recruiting style.
His old recruiting style was all about “team play” and no recruit getting guaranteed minutes and every recruit having to fight hard for minutes, and those minutes come tough for freshman… all the stuff OADs weren’t interested in.
I think the final blow came when we lost to Kentucky in the finals with a good team of seasoned players from a lower tier. That game proved to him that freshmen talent can go all the way and in the future will become even more dominant… even though the real answer is to get the OAD star talent to stick around for one more year.
My comment wasn’t directed towards the idea that something bad will happen at Kansas or Kentucky… or any D1 school. But dip down into AAU ball and it is a different world. There are all kinds of riffraff floating around that world and let’s face it, it is a place where recruiting is taking place.
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@JRyman Wow! My man is JRyman, he go from tired to inspired. My JRyman…
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PHOF!
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I really hope it doesn’t come to what you suggest, 'slayr.
It would be such a terrible thing for basketball.
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YES
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Who’s house?!?!
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@jaybate-1.0 – so, are you the “wise one?”
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"I really hope it doesn’t come to what you suggest, 'slayr.
It would be such a terrible thing for basketball."
Yes it would be… but what will change until something like that happens? There really isn’t a way to change things until something horrible happens and the entire country jumps on the bandwagon to revamp amateur sports.
I didn’t mean to paint a portrait of doom and gloom… but when so much money is being thrown out there you know eventually something crazy has to happen especially with all those treasure-seekers surrounding HS and AAU ball. It is even dipping down lower now, to junior high bb.
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I know you didn’t mean to.
I haven’t meant to either.
It is just how things appear to be, when you get down to brass tacks.
And it is never fun (or rewarding) to be the messenger of such things.
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You know better. I am just a board rat with a keyboard and love of the greatest game ever invented. And I owed 100. And there is. nothing wrong with big time sponsorship. It just needs to be instituted to reduce recruiting asymmetries and protect the young men from hard ball. And this will happen if cool heads prevai on all sides and everyone recognizes the long term dynamics of oligopolistic competition. It may even be happening already without our knowledge. Nothing has to end terribly. No one has to lose. Rock Chalk!
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@jaybate-1.0 Well, I think you’re the wise one. The unfortunate path of college athletics will ruin what we love. Commentators whining about the money that players should get, a flippant attitude regarding the necessity of rules, the demonization of the NCAA, and blatant disregard for the true value of a college education and college experience – we’re not headed down the right path.
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We should all be looking at the NFL and what’s happening there.
We can now easily see how money sugar-coats many issues the league refused to deal with.
Nothing happened in the league until a woman getting knocked out in an elevator went viral. Then a kid being beat with a switch. Then this, then that.
I believe in the American way. I love our free enterprise system of capitalism. But I also realize how “money corrupts.”
Drop your wallet with a dollar in it. Chances are you’ll get it back, with dollar intact.
Drop your wallet stuffed with $10k in it. Think you have the same chance it will be returned with the dollars intact?
We are watching a train wreck happen in slo-mo. It’s the same train wreck that is happening in the NFL, but this time it will be tougher to straighten out. The NCAA only has powers to tamper with a player’s eligibility. It doesn’t have powers to stop shoecos and coaches (etc) from trading favors. It seems a bit like big time drug trafficking…
What is the answer?
The popularity of sports only seems to be increasing.
Sports sponsorship is proven as the very best marketing model.
Kids in the wrong area can’t wear certain shoes or risk being x’d for their shoes.
Does anyone else see this is a train wreck happening in slow motion?
Imagine 10,000 years from now… when archeologists dig up our bones and piece together the story. Imagine how strange we will appear when they discover how much status, wealth and power we have put in silly shoes?
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@VailHawk Run DMC’s It is their song
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The value of education, at least in the top schools, is no longer an issue because kids come to school to jump to the pros and not to get an education. The smart, borderline players get a degree they can fall back on but most of the better players do not, and let’s be honest, we as fans do not expect them either.
The term student-athlete, as used for top players, is an oxymoron. Once in while you hear from players, such as Aldrich, that take the needed courses after going pro and get their degree; McLemore has also been going to summer school and nothing would please me more than to see him eventually get his degree. But in general, the vast majority of players that leave early and do not make it to the pros do not go back to school. In this regard the baseball rule would be the best option, since it would give kids not good enough to go pro after HS, 3 years to get the majority of their degree requirements out of the way and, if things do not work at the next level, they can also go back and finish their degree,…but this approach is very unlikely to happen.
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@JayHawkFanToo Your point that the education itself doesn’t mean much to the top guys is correct. It doesn’t. But that’s part of the consideration for the deal.
Ok, then, why play college ball? It’s because college ball puts them in the best position to succeed in their profession. It’s the best option.
Why don’t these supposedly great players skip college?
It seems that everyone that demonizes the NCAA and colleges (I know you don’t do this) wants these athletes to have their cake and eat it too. If they are so great, go play pro in Europe or China and make money, and sell their “likeness”, get $25 for a signature, and sign shoe deals. Do it. Or if they want to work while in school, then skip basketball and work. It’s a free country.
But interestingly, they don’t. Interestingly, college does mean something. Interestingly, college does have much more value than the cost of the education. College hoops puts a player in the best position to earn a living. It is training. All they have to do is wait, just like most every college student.
Johnny Manziel’s likeness and signature wouldn’t be worth squat w/o Texas A&M. But Texas A&M would make milllions w/o Johnny Manziel.
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Abso-frigging-lutely. College Basketball provide the greatest exposure a player could want. I am always amazed how people that feel college athletes should get paid, do not consider the exposure players get or the personalized coaching and access to state of the art facility and top trainers a form of payment; it definitely is is and high valued one at that…in addition to the full ride they also get.
Also, the rest of the world is catching up with us ins basketball. While a few years ago washed up NBA players and a couple of prospect could go and dominate play in the Euro Leagues, that is no longer the case; Europe is producing top players…San Antonio just lost a game to a German pro team, granted it was an exhibition game, but Germany is not even close to being one of the top basketball markets or leagues in Europe. Currently, China is the most likely destination and if you read the stories coming from there, not a place where you want to play.
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Just because persons and peoples do things for a time does not mean it is necessarily sensible, or wise, or in their best interests. Some times persons and peoples are in periods of being bumfuzzled by certain authority acting against their best interest and successfully obscuring doing so. It can take those persons and peoples awhile sometimes to figure out what is really going on. And it can take quite a while when certain authority is investing heavily in technologies to bumbuzzle them. This is a frequent phenomenon observable in recorded history, so I am not really opining here.
Players, parents and player handlers apparently deciding not to value a college education probably says more about the values of the players, parents and player handlers presently than it does about the utility of the college education. Why do I say this?
Well, first, independently wealthy persons from around the world with fortunes great enough to ensure that their children never need work a day in their lives nevertheless continue to send their children to colleges for educations, socialization and social networking. From this we can infer that many in a position to very objectively and knowledgeably judge the value of a college education decide it is worth pursuing despite vast, almost incomprehensible levels of wealth.
We also know that many persons in the middle and lower classes seeking upward economic and social mobility sacrifice greatly to get their children university educations at the best schools they can afford and aim for then to attain the highest levels of degrees that their wealth and intelligence levels permit them to attain.
So two questions arise related to current athletes essentially turning their backs on the chance of a university education.
1.) Why don’t they recognize the benefit that independently wealthy and upwardly mobile middle and lower class persons recognize; and
2.) Is everyone else wrong about the benefits of a university education and these athletes are right that the educations and the alleged benefits are not worth pursuing?
Let’s answer the second one first. The richer these players stand to become, it would seem that these players would stand to reason that they would benefit from university educations more on a utility function increasingly similar to those persons of independent wealth seeking such educations. From this, we have to infer that these players are either wrong, or are simply not recognizing the value that millions of others richer, as rich and less rich than then are recognizing. These millions could be wrong, but the probabilities of it seem very slim indeed.
This leads us to the first question: why aren’t these athletes recognizing what millions of others are recognizing regarding the net benefits of getting university educations?
Well, there is what I call the Gates/Jobs/Ellison/Ford Syndrome. This refers to brilliant persons with such extremely monoscopic focus and high confidence of success, plus a streak of resentment of any need for compliance with any organizational culture they are not the head of, that they insist on proving to the world that they do not need university education to be successful. These persons invariably place a phenomenal value on the worth and desirability of success achieved via independence from legacy organizations. They like to start their own organizations. They find most organizations that they might join in a subordinate function to be run by incompetents, parasitical types, and consider these organizations unnecessary and obstructive to the attainment of their own goals and look condescendingly on those organizations and on those persons that feel a need to be a part of them. Ironically, these persons typically then immediately dedicate their lives monomaniacally to creating and becoming the heads of organizations they would themselves never want to be a subordinate part of. These persons are typically pretty dysfunctional in many common regards (e.g., abandon women they get pregnant and deny having impregnated them as in Steve Jobs’ case), have rumored anomalous prior associations (e.g., Larry Ellison of Oracle and the founders of Google rumored, reputed connections with intelligence organizations; Bill Gates father reputedly an attorney with reputed connections with Boeing which reputedly had a rumored long complicated relationship with IBM, etc.) and are typically saved from their own abrasive personalities, and oblivion by a combination of extraordinary luck in timing and/or reputed anomalous associations. They often drop out of schools, sometimes impressive ones, and take a considerable, often seemingly irrational pride in not having needed the imprimatur of such schools to actually succeed, as if others needed such imprimatur to succeed. Who ever needed college degrees to succeed? Can’t many be successful, if they are driven and ruthless enough? Al Capone was phenomenally successful… But never possessed even an ounce of civility, of depth of understanding about the richness of humanity and culture and fragility. I needed my degrees to lead a civilized, enriched life to what extent I have struggled to. And they didn’t let me down,
But there are far, far more persons with Gate/Jobs/Ellison/Ford Syndrome that are not geniuses than are. By this I mean that there are far, far more of those with the Syndrome that lack both the genius and luck needed to excel and these fall into oblivion in large numbers. And it is often a culturally starved oblivion, at that, unless they invest heavily in themselves and in their reading to achieve over the course of a long life what could have been largely gotten within four short years had they not been so shallow and pigheadedly stubborn.
I suspect some of these OADs that turn their backs on university educations fall into the category of persons with the syndrome but without genius or luck. These are the ones that typically lose what they win in the lottery that is their getting selected as a high draft choice. A very few probably possess some genius and luck and do parlay their lottery win to much greater financial success and finance their own civilizing with travel and reading and art. But how many really?
But because of the XTreme youth and XTReme poverty that many of these young men come from, one also gets the impression that many of them are being manipulated by unethical handlers that simply do not have the players’ best interests at heart. They just don’t care enough about the players, because the net benefits of college educations would not accrue to the handlers. In fact, a proper college education might very likely cause the players to flush their handlers and get more skillful and more professional advisors in place of handlers. This is what reputedly goes on in the bottomlessly corrupt sport of boxing.
For persons that care about the game of college basketball and about the great contributions it has made toward lessening fears and segregation in our society, about giving all kinds of boys from all levels and regions of society joy, purpose and a sense of individual and team accomplishment, and to providing many young men with college educations that they would never have gotten otherwise, it is critical that the value of a college educated not be permitted to be devalued by a bunch of opportunistic handlers, sports pimps, and flesh pedaling hustlers operating inside and outside the universities for individual gain alone.
Our young men and women can no longer turn to film and television and fiction to find role models. They are not there. Film, television and fiction have devoted themselves to show us how rotten we can be, as if we all weren’t swimming in the sewerage every day and so at least as knowledgeable as any screen writer, novelist, TV director working out their particular set of fears and prejudices for monies.
Many of our politicians have been reduced largely to either pragmatists, or ideologues. What most of them call principle is just close minded ideology, shameless compromise at the expense of the unsuspecting that discover the compromises to late to avoid the cost shifting.
Our teachers are so limited in what they can teach and so overloaded with standards testing and required content to meet questions on standardized testing that they may only teach from their inspiration intermittently.
Our ministers are so tainted in media, our priests so tainted in media, our rabbi’s so tainted in media, that we actually may say a prayer BEFORE going to see them fearing they might turn out sickeningly dysfunctional hypocrite lecteurs.
But a coach can still be a coach, if he wants to be.
Sure, many of them sent at times little more than car salesmen with a whistle in recruiting; getting ready to make the next motion play.
But they don’t have to be.
A coach may have to take the modern, super hyped, and soon to be rich version of the age old tramp athlete–the OADs, to keep the PetroShoeCo contracts coming in order to keep his contract being renewed and in order to keep the lights on in the minor sports, but he can still insist they play hard, or withhold from them the role of go-to-guy.
The coach can still insist players pursue master craftsmanship in their games, and expect them to be on time, and make them run stairs if they aren’t.
The coach can still mold young men into teams in which the whole exceeds the sum of the parts, rather than just parts seeking untraceable bailouts.
He can still require they go to class and study and make their grades. Many don’t, but Self and some others prove it can still be done.
There is so much that can still be done by the coach and by the game for the good of young men, and so for the good of community and culture.
Some players can become coaches.
Others can get degrees and find their ways in our economy.
We are not talking about angels here. Cheating is reputedly rampant. Corruption is reputedly deep. But some are still trying to do it the “right way.”
And we fans can spend a few hours a week with our children, maybe for the rest of our and their lives together, and say, “See, there, that is still how it is done the right way. That is how substance trumps hype with ten to go. That is what young men can do when they are confronted with a team with superior talent that does not play as well together as it should. That is a connection between now and then that the hype artists and the propagandists and ideologues and the liars and the spineless opportunists cannot deceive us about, if we just exercise our common sense and a little dedication.”
“See, here, the game that started in a Springfield, MA gym now is played round the world and new people’s around the world are learning THE PEOPLE’S GAME and they are learning to play with and against each other without the object being beating the brains of the opponent out on the floor.”
“See, here, watch that young man, young as I once was, see that young man slide across the lane and double back side on the man that is too big for his teammate to guard alone. See the help. See one man can help another and both benefit.”
“See, here, look at these young men many generations removed from those that played for Doc Allen still reaching for the best they can be, whilst drug wars rage on borders, and nations are bombed remotely, and our economic indicators sag beyond what apparently altered statistical standards can obscure and apparently floated markets can tolerate.”
“See, here, the game goes on taming the wildness in young men without killing their spirit and joy of competition, as it always has.”
“See, here, greed and corruption and vulgarity of once incomprehensible degrees are normalized, but the challenge of Saturday-Monday games goes on and that rarest of all sunlights, that yellow Saturday afternoon that comes In through the field house windows at the south end of Allen Field House, see, here, it is the same color it was last season, and every season since 1957.”
“See, here, the living myth continues another season, despite all the human error and all the corruption and all of the ignorance, and all of the deception that we are now heirs to.”
“See, here, it is basketball season again and there are players going to college again. All is not well, but all is not lost yet either. Rock Chalk!”
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We live in a different world today compared to the world in my youth and many of you in here.
I’m going to spell this out in generalities as I’m not saying all the kids are like this today… but I speak of the majority.
Read this segment from the post on Wilt and about his taste for cars going back to his days in college:
““I explained how cars have always been a hobby,” he said in the article. “Back in my junior year at Overbrook [High School], in '53, I bought a '49 Olds for about $700 from what I’d saved…In '54, I bought a '51 Buick for $600 and my turn-in. In '56, I bought a '53 Olds for $900 and my turn-in. I saved the money from summer jobs. I got my present car last year, and I’m still making payments on it.””
This story is a typical one from my era. When I was about 8 yrs old I visited my local bank with my parents and they helped me start my first savings account. I mowed lawns, shoveled snow, trimmed bushes, cleaned out garages and did whatever jobs I could do to make money. I’d usually make about $2 per lawn, and a huge corner lawn might earn me $5 if I had to do extra work like rake up leaves. When I turned 16 I had $3500 saved in my “car fund” and I carefully bought the car I wanted (used) and then proceeded to rebuild it the way I wanted it. Custom rims, metallic paint… hot rod engine. I had the sweetest ride at school and I cleaned and polished that car almost every single day. $3500 was a small fortune back then.
Most of the kids today have never had jobs to save money. For some reason our society thinks it is wrong for kids under 18 to do any kind of work. That is pathetic.
We live in a world of “instant gratification.” Instead of working on the side of their studies, kids today play computer games. Read it in here. Our players and recruits spend their extra time playing games. What a waste.
These kids have no concept of the real world. None whatsoever. And it isn’t all their fault. They have enough talent to play at KU and so they get treated like Gods. Even Wilt didn’t receive 1/100th of the attention our players receive today.
So how do you get these kids interested in reading and studying? How do you get them to value an education? Many of these kids come from neighborhoods where their peers didn’t make it to college. What example is there for them to follow?
I feel really sorry for most kids today because they were not given the right direction to help put them on the right path.
There are no kids mowing lawns in my neighborhood.
I know there are millions of exceptions to what I say here. Again, it’s just a generalization.
I know there is not enough money in this world that could ever compensate me in trade for my education. It is an achievement that I’m most proud of. Somewhere in my last move my entire trophy collection from playing ball for about 30 years “showed up missing.” I didn’t even realize it until I had my first son and thought it would be a good visual to encourage him in sports. Oh well. I guess I’ll send him out to mow lawns in our neighborhood… after he finishes his studies!
The real prize in life isn’t hitting the financial jackpot, especially early in life. The real prize is to live a full, rich life with a healthy dose of hard work, struggle and then the rewards coming eventually. And if you proceed in that lifestyle, you are likely to find a partner that is on the same path.
I think if I was a basketball recruiter my first assessment of a player’s character would come from asking this question:
“Is this recruit playing for the love of the game or playing for the gold and fame at the end of the tunnel?”
I’m not saying it is wrong for these guys to pursue a well-paid career playing ball. But what drives them most?
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A two-stroke lawn boy turned out to be part of my ticket to my future.
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Please read “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid” by Bill Bryson. It may be about growing up before the time of your growing up, but you will be glad you did.
@drgnslayr and @ HEM and @globaljaybird and @ everyone else here that loves our language…
Read Bill Bryson’s tour de force " Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in America and How It Got that Way."
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To whom it may concern. As a man that has bounced around in his life and worked in many different fields. I can tell you a college education is more than just the paper it’s wrote on. It’s hard to explain but it’s like a brotherhood, and brothers help each other out.
Yes the education is one thing but the experience, the sense you belong to something bigger than yourself can’t be bought with all the lottery money the NBA, MLB, and NFL offers.
A college education is priceless.
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@JRyman said:
@VailHawk Run DMC’s It is their song
Love em! Saw DMC and the Beastie Boys at Kemper in 87 or 88…
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Thanks! I’ll check it out.
