The U in the NCAA's Scopes

• Scarlet_Fever

  

  Scarlet_Buckeye;867298 wrote:Hilarious!

  
  
  Yes it was. I was watching an episode of swamp people while I typed that. Maybe I had alligators on my mind.
• JerseyBuck

  

  Here is a great read by a former Cane
  

  There is an awful lot of righteous indignation floating around college football lately. A man spending the next 20 years of his life in federal prison for fleecing investors out of more than $900 million says he gave some money and benefits to some Miami Hurricanes over the last 10 years. I’m not interested in talking about what did or didn’t happen. I’m not interested in confirming or denying the spiteful ramblings of an insecure snitch with an inferiority complex. I’m interested in talking about hypocrisy.
  
  I want to talk about the hypocrisy of the NCAA and, by extension, its constituent school administrations; the very people that have enriched themselves so shamelessly on the backs of the kids they’re soon to righteously delight in punishing.
  
  First, a little background: I had it easy at the University of Miami, and it often felt like it was too much to bear. I had an easier time in class than most of my teammates, and far less was expected of me on the football field. I went to school on academic money and I played football because I wanted to and because I had played my whole life, not because it was the only way for me to get through school or make a better life for myself and my family. I can’t speak about what it’s like to be a high profile recruit, an All-American, or a future NFL star and the pressures such statuses entail. But I can tell you this: college football is a grind.
  
  The NCAA says players put in twenty hours a week. Anybody who has spent any time around a college program knows that sixty is a better number. Then add twelve to fifteen hours a week of class on top of that. Seventy-five hours a week, in exchange for a stipend mathematically designed to make your ends almost meet.
  
  The president of the NCAA makes more than $1 million a year. Any head coach worth his salt is making two or three times that. Talking heads at ESPN/ABC/CBS and the presidents of most major institutions join them in the seven digit salary club.
  
  That’s what this is really about, and people have to understand that. Why is it a problem for AJ Green to sell his jersey when the NCAA sells 22 variations of the very same jersey ([url]http://sportsillustr…sion/index.html)?[/url] Why can’t Terrelle Pryor get some free ink from a fan? Why don’t people react the same way to that as they do to hearing that Peyton Manning is selling phones for Sprint or that Tiger Woods gets paid $100m to wear Nike gear? What’s the difference?
  
  The difference, as far as I can tell, is that the NCAA has done a wonderful job duping people into believing this multi-billion dollar a year industry is pursued for the sake of amateurism. It’s a total sham. The coaches aren’t amateurs, the administrators aren’t amateurs, the corporate sponsors and media companies that make hundreds of millions of dollars a year on the backs of these players aren’t amateurs. The only “amateurs” involved are the guys doing all the work. Pretty nice racket if you can get it.
  
  The NCAA and ESPN are going to be telling you that some great kids are scumbags because they allegedly broke rules designed to keep them poor and implemented by people making money hand over fist. An ESPN shill in a $5,000 suit is going to ask you to morally condemn the kids who provide the framework for said shill to make enough money to afford that suit because those kids might have taken some free food and drinks. They’re going to be called “cheaters” despite the obvious fact that boat trips don’t make you run any faster or hit any harder.
  
  Oklahoma gives Bob Stoops $3 million a year and nobody blinks. A car dealership in Norman gives Rhett Bomar a couple hundred bucks and everyone wets themselves. Urban Meyer sat on TV this very day, making approximately $1,500 an hour to sit there and flap his lips, and was asked to judged a bunch of 20 year old kids for allegedly accepting free food and drinks and party invites.
  
  Is that immense delusion intentional or do people actually not realize the hypocrisy they perpetuate?
  
  What’s that you say? The rules are the rules? I call bullshit. When the rules are propagated by the very same people they’re designed to benefit, I say the rules must be independently justifiable. What is the justification for saying that AJ Green can’t sell his jersey? That he won’t be an “amateur” anymore? Doesn’t the scholarship itself render him no longer an amateur by any objective definition? Doesn’t the fact that Georgia spent hundreds of millions of dollars advertising itself to AJ Green render him no longer an amateur? Doesn’t he stop being an amateur when UGA promises him that his career at Georgia will net him NFL millions? Doesn’t the fact that millions of dollars change hands thanks to the service he provides make him not an amateur?
  
  Is it because athletes should be treated like other students, lest they not appreciate the “college experience?” Other kids get to sell their belongings, don’t they? They get to go to parties and drink and throw themselves at women, don’t they? They get to have jobs and earn their worth, don’t they? And other kids don’t spend sixty hours a week having their bodies broken or their spring mornings running themselves to death in the dew in the dark.
  
  It’s nonsense. Unmitigated, indefensible nonsense. The players are “amateurs” for the simple reason that they’re cheaper to employ that way. What is bad about giving a poor kid some money to spend? What is wrong with showing your appreciation for the service someone provides by giving them some benefit of their own? I’m supposed to believe it’s wrong because the NCAA says it is?
  
  These players are worth far more than a free trip to the strip club and a trip around the bay on a yacht. AJ Green is worth more to the NCAA and the University of Georgia than the cost of his jersey, and Terrelle Pryor is worth more than the value of a tattoo.
  
  I don’t know much about players taking “illegal benefits,” and if I did I wouldn’t be snitching about it like a lowlife, but I can tell you this: I hope to the bottom of my soul that every player in America is on the take, because they’re getting shafted. The powers that be make too much money this way to ever change, and the rest of the country seems far too committed to delusions, institutional partisanship, and jealousy to see their own glass houses, so take what you can get while you can get it, youngbloods. You earned it.

  http://ncaastrategies.com/2011/ncaafootball12/on-snakes-rats-weasels-and-hurricanes/
• Manhattan Buckeye

  WebFire;867294 wrote:Well it's awfully funny that today, everyone seems to be talking about what I was yesterday. But I got raked over coals and called a troll. :rolleyes:

  
  You'll have to forgive me, the website championing the idea that Miami is being targeted either doesn't exist, or isn't available where I live.
  
  Then again we have a porn ban here, did Uncle Luke start the site?
• WebFire

  There is so much wrong with that...not even sure where to start.
  
  Edit: that was meant for the article posted, not Manhattan.
• WebFire

  Manhattan Buckeye;867413 wrote:You'll have to forgive me, the website championing the idea that Miami is being targeted either doesn't exist, or isn't available where I live.
  
  Then again we have a porn ban here, did Uncle Luke start the site?

  
  Yesterday you wouldn't even allow it to be mentioned. Today I come on and there is a 1/2 page of discussion about it. Why are you not calling them names?
• NNN

  

  
• OhioStatePride2003

  WebFire;867440 wrote:Yesterday you wouldn't even allow it to be mentioned. Today I come on and there is a 1/2 page of discussion about it. Why are you not calling them names?

  
  To be fair, it wasn't I that said it. Someone else did and I shared it. I don't think I deserve to be called a name in this case. Did you read the article?
• vball10set

  NNN;867510 wrote:

  the paper the guy in the suit's holding reminded me of something I just saw on a Buckeye blog:

  Seantrel Henderson is a walking curse. His top three during recruitment? USC, Ohio State and Miami

• WebFire

  OhioStatePride2003;867515 wrote:To be fair, it wasn't I that said it. Someone else did and I shared it. I don't think I deserve to be called a name in this case. Did you read the article?

  
  Yes I read it. I'm not sure you are following what I am saying. I brought the point up about how much would be legit with evidence and how much wouldn't. That was all. And I got attacked and called a troll. Yet the next day, it was the topic everyone was discussing. Just proved that certain posters were being aholes.
• karen lotz

  

  WebFire;867558 wrote:Yes I read it. I'm not sure you are following what I am saying. I brought the point up about how much would be legit with evidence and how much wouldn't. That was all. And I got attacked and called a troll. Yet the next day, it was the topic everyone was discussing. Just proved that certain posters were being aholes.

  
  [video=youtube;9jUjA5eJdpU][/video]
• vball10set

  ^^^LOL--wtf was that???
• karen lotz

  

  You've never seen trolololo?
  
  http://trololololololololololo.com/
  
  So awkward, yet so great.
• jhay78

  

  JerseyBuck;867412 wrote:Here is a great read by a former Cane
  
  http://ncaastrategies.com/2011/ncaafootball12/on-snakes-rats-weasels-and-hurricanes/

  
  Is that really a former Cane player? Or someone with a masters in journalism from Columbia?
  

  NNN;867510 wrote:

  
  That's funny- LSU freek strikes again.
• Writerbuckeye

  

  jhay78;867710 wrote:Is that really a former Cane player? Or someone with a masters in journalism from Columbia?
  
  
  
  That's funny- LSU freek strikes again.

  
  Does this guy run the Obama campaign? It's nothing but a class warfare rant against the "haves" on behalf of the "have nots".
  
  While I am somewhat sympathetic to players being caught at the bottom of the multi-billion dollar industry known as the NCAA, that screed does not make them more sympathetic to their plight. It just makes me think of them as major whiners, too.
  
  Guess what? I had to actually PAY for my education out of my own pocket. Not only that, I had to take out multi-year loans in order to do it -- loans that took me 10 years to pay completely back. On top of that, I had to work a part-time job most of the time I was in school, and a full-time one during summers JUST TO GET BY.
  
  And guess what else?
  
  I'm glad I went through it, because it taught me to value the education I got more.
  
  Players crying because the system is unfair and others urging them to take what they can get (illegally or not) make me want to puke. It's must one more symptom that we've become a society of "victims" who are unwilling and unable to be responsible for ourselves, and unwilling to accept the idea that life is hard, sometimes, and often you have to work harder to keep the bad things at bay.
  
  The system may be broken, but there's something far worse wrong with people like this author.
• j_crazy

  

  sports by brooks supposedly has more "heavy stuff" on shapiro that we haven't seen heard. said it will be up tonight.
  
  don't know what that means, but it's part of the reason i hate him. cryptic shit that tends to be nothin/someone else's work.
• Speedofsand

  

  this is from a year ago.
  
  http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/29/v-fullstory/1797096/new-book-to-allege-violations.html
  New book to allege violations made by University of Miami football
  
  ``I want to make the average fan aware of what really exists under that uniform,'' he said. ``They might be great players, but they're certainly not great people. I'm speaking of no less than 100 former players.''
  
  Shapiro, 41, is angry because ``once the players became pros, they turned their back on me. It made me feel like a used friend.'' He was motivated by ``heartbreak and disappointment on behalf of the university, which I considered to be an extended part of my family.''
  
  He said the heartbreak was caused by ``former players mostly'' and ``some administrative staff and coaches. I've always had the utmost respect for Donna Shalala, Kirby Hocutt and Paul Dee.''
• enigmaax

  Speedofsand;867903 wrote:I want to make the average fan aware of what really exists under that uniform,'' he said. ``They might be great players, but they're certainly not great people. I'm speaking of no less than 100 former players.''
  
  Shapiro, 41, is angry because ``once the players became pros, they turned their back on me. It made me feel like a used friend.'' He was motivated by ``heartbreak and disappointment on behalf of the university, which I considered to be an extended part of my family.''
  
  He said the heartbreak was caused by ``former players mostly'' and ``some administrative staff and coaches. I've always had the utmost respect for Donna Shalala, Kirby Hocutt and Paul Dee.''

  
  Awww...I feel bad for the guy. It is a shame that he trusted so many people and all they did was turn around and steal $930 million dollars from.....oh wait...
  
  I'm glad he's ratting on Miami, but does he really think he's a sympathetic character in all of this?
• Speedofsand

  

  Listening to his audio stories were interesting. You can tell what a great con man he is, and what a small mind he has. Your typical Cane fan. His step father was arrested in '97 for a $6million business scam. He must be so proud.
• WebFire

  Writerbuckeye;867749 wrote:Does this guy run the Obama campaign? It's nothing but a class warfare rant against the "haves" on behalf of the "have nots".
  
  While I am somewhat sympathetic to players being caught at the bottom of the multi-billion dollar industry known as the NCAA, that screed does not make them more sympathetic to their plight. It just makes me think of them as major whiners, too.
  
  Guess what? I had to actually PAY for my education out of my own pocket. Not only that, I had to take out multi-year loans in order to do it -- loans that took me 10 years to pay completely back. On top of that, I had to work a part-time job most of the time I was in school, and a full-time one during summers JUST TO GET BY.
  
  And guess what else?
  
  I'm glad I went through it, because it taught me to value the education I got more.
  
  Players crying because the system is unfair and others urging them to take what they can get (illegally or not) make me want to puke. It's must one more symptom that we've become a society of "victims" who are unwilling and unable to be responsible for ourselves, and unwilling to accept the idea that life is hard, sometimes, and often you have to work harder to keep the bad things at bay.
  
  The system may be broken, but there's something far worse wrong with people like this author.

  
  Exactly what I thought when I read it.
• WebFire

  j_crazy;867794 wrote:sports by brooks supposedly has more "heavy stuff" on shapiro that we haven't seen heard. said it will be up tonight.
  
  don't know what that means, but it's part of the reason i hate him. cryptic shit that tends to be nothin/someone else's work.

  
  The Yahoo guy also said there was much more, and they only printed what they could corroborate.
• Scooter1369

  

  jhay78;867710 wrote:Is that really a former Cane player? Or someone with a masters in journalism from Columbia?

  
  The short answer is "yes". I've been a member of that site for quite a few years (back when it was NCAAUtopia) and Mak is the real deal.
• stroups

  

  j_crazy;867794 wrote:sports by brooks supposedly has more "heavy stuff" on shapiro that we haven't seen heard. said it will be up tonight.
  
  don't know what that means, but it's part of the reason i hate him. cryptic **** that tends to be nothin/someone else's work.

  
  stopped reading there
• Scooter1369

  

  stroups;869261 wrote:stopped reading there

  
  Yup. Might as well as said "Weekly World News" or the "National Enquirer". Maybe Cracked Magazine
• jordo212000

  

  "The U" was on ESPNU earlier. Some of the guys talked about how they were able to get into clubs while the Dolphins players had to wait in line. Kind of funny to hear that now. I didn't think much about it the first time I watched it
• karen lotz

  

  Pony Exce$$ is on now. I wonder if those two were supposed to be on back to back today before the Miami stuff came out.