Isaiah Washington to play in Ballslife All American game, Big time competition!


Wow, I make people's asses itch!

The Full games look a lot better than the highlight reels. Thanks for posting them.

I'll just shush and be happy the Gophers are improving.

You have no impact, whatsoever, on my ass
 

I'm saying that allowing people to make money from their celebrity is the antithesis of amateurism. There's no way for the two to co-exist. If the NCAA wants to allow that, fine, but then they aren't amateur athletes anymore.

Aside from that, I don't understand the incessant push so many have to force the NCAA to change their model. Once again, for the nth time, if there were a better model in the US, someone would put capital behind it. They don't because there isn't. If someone doesn't like what the NCAA is offering, go play overseas. Stop trying to force them because you think it's "unfair." If it were truly so "unfair," people wouldn't be killing themselves to score a scholarship.

I just don’t get why you’re so fixated on amateurism. Out of curiosity, do you also support the NCAA’s use of the term “student-athlete” for legal/economic/manipulative purposes? Are we really going to pretend they’re truly students first when they’re really more like employees? Do you want them to just play “for the love of the game” as if that and earning some money to help provide some financial opportunity and security for themselves and their families can’t coexist? For football in particular, look at the life-long physical and mental health consequences that players risk but aren’t fully warned about because these huge money-makers like the NCAA and NFL want it that way.

I’m actually curious to know your answers to these questions, because although I quite often disagree with you, I can generally somewhat respect your logic. In this case, however, you seem to think that because the current model is the best available in the world that it means we shouldn’t attempt to improve any issues. It reminds me of the racist, ignorant hatred directed toward Colin Kaepernick with absurd statements like, “If you have issues with the greatest country in the world than you can get the hell out and see how much worse off you are elsewhere.” With this logic, we should just ignore the systemic and overt discrimination in our country because after all, USA is still the best country overall.

There is plenty of great commentary and analysis out there highlighting how absurd the arguments are against allowing kids to profit off their own brand. Have you watched the John Oliver segment or any of the pieces on ESPN or Netflix? Jay Bilas has great insight on these topics as well. I can respect some arguments about why players should not be paid more directly (even though I think the stipends should be larger), there simply isn’t a legitimate reason to not allow them to profit off their own brand like you can do in just about everything else in society. It’s unfortunate the NCAA effectively has a monopoly in the US. If you’re so concerned about players being paid crazy amounts to attend certain programs out of HS, don’t allow players to profit off their brand until they’ve completed freshmen year (which would also help reduce the number of 1 & dones).

I just don’t understand what concerns you (and others) so much about very select players being able to profit more off their demand/brand for being exceptionally talented and hard-working. Seriously though, what would be so bad about that? That certain programs would have huge advantages based on financial resources? So . . . kind of like how it currently is in college athletics and the world in general? If there are going to potentially be new obstacles, does that mean we just shouldn’t even try? If some rich person wants to throw money at a player, I just don’t see why it’s so important that we stop them at the expense of these players we love to watch, not to mention most want to help out their families and they could really use the assistance. Let’s also not forget how bad luck (e.g., injuries, lack of opportunity for deserving players) can completely derail a once very promising career, or how certain exceptional college players just don’t translate at the NBA-level (e.g., due to height). If you’re a player like Jimmer Fredette, for example, why shouldn’t he have been allowed to accept a gift or sign autographs while bringing millions and millions of dollars to his university? Or someone like Isaiah Austin of Baylor—would it have been so terrible had he been able to earn money from signing autographs?

I’m sure the NCAA loves that certain fans are helping spread nonsense that helps maintain the status quo of old, rich white dudes making more money than they should because they have all the power. I suspect that if you polled white and black people in our country, a much larger percentage of white people think these (predominantly black) athletes shouldn’t be able to pocket more from their talents. I’m sure the older, white generations also tend to favor this viewpoint more than younger white ones—those same people who have benefited from the status quo of white male privilege their whole lives at the expense of all other groups. In fairness to them, far more blame for inequality should be placed on our government and those knowingly exploiting disadvantaged groups.
 

In better news, our guy Dimes has added 20,000 Instagram followers in 1 week. Up to 182,000. According to my math, he has added 2 followers per minute over the past 7 days.

Maybe they should let him run the team social media accounts to help boost their numbers?
 







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