Fleck on legalizing sports gambling: "brings out even more termites in the wood"

Fleck on legalizing sports gambling: "brings out even more termites in the wood"

per the Quad City Times:

Coaches and Delany see a need for changes extending beyond announcing a list of players who are available to participate each week.

They see a need for greater education for their players and staff members.

Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck sees that as a necessity.

"Any time you legalize something like that, it brings out even more termites in the wood," Fleck said.

The Golden Gophers coach said his players can expect to hear from plenty of speakers, including FBI agents, about how to avoid potential problems.

"First and foremost, we need to educate our guys on the issue," Fitzgerald said. "We need to make them, players and staff, aware about how far people will go to get information. Do people ask questions that they have never asked before? Guys need to be in tune with those types of things."

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh has his own solution for players who find themselves being asked about health situations of teammates.

"Turn and run," Harbaugh said. "Run fast and avoid that situation. Say nothing to anybody, especially the people you really don’t know. That’s what we’ll tell our staff and players."

https://qctimes.com/sports/college/...cle_c9504370-1ca7-5ad2-ab81-ee0e5d9a1b81.html

Go Gophers!!

I disagree -- things have been fine under quasi-legal sports betting for years, and the rest of the world seems to manage just fine betting on soccer and such.

I can see how it's more of a risk for mostly broke college student athletes to be bought or corrupted, and I would have understood if sports betting were opened to professional contests only. Even the mob would have to roll pretty big to pay off someone like Steph Curry or Tom Brady.

I think there will absolutely be people out there that will try to target college football players and try to offer *cash* to them, in exchange for "inside info" about what's going on in the locker room, at practice, etc. Which of course is a major NCAA violation, and likely to get the player kicked off the team, get the coach fired, get the school penalized/sanctioned, etc.

Some wise guy comes up to a third year player on the bench and says "hey look ... just tell me if Morgan or Annexstad is taking reps with the #1 offense this week ... and here's a couple hundred for your troubles. Capisce?"

Boom. Just that quick, just like that ....

"Turn and run," Harbaugh said. "Run fast and avoid that situation. Say nothing to anybody, especially the people you really don’t know. That’s what we’ll tell our staff and players."

Unfortunately for Goofy Jim McKhakipants, Forrest Gump used up all his eligibility.

Without doing extensive research, my impression is that most of the major betting scandals in college sports have involved basketball. the football betting scandals I remember involved pro football. I remember as a kid when Paul Hornung and Alex Karras were suspended for a year by the NFL over betting on NFL games.

stating the obvious - paying a FB player for information is one thing. point-shaving is a whole different level. of course, point-shaving is a lot easier to pull off in basketball. miss a couple FT's, commit a foul at the wrong time, etc. In FB, point-shaving would be a lot more difficult - unless the QB or the PK were involved.