Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[The Oracle]

Agree, Tony.

[Tony G]

BTW, They lost one game last year with the new coach.

Hoffner was 34-13 over 4 years

[hack]

34-13 over four years? Maybe Michigan should take a look.

[Jeff Buchanan]

On a follow-up note, there was a story in Sunday's USA Today about Hoffner. Apparently, he met with the players, listened to what they had to say, made some remarks and the players decided to play with Hoffner as the HC and Keen, the guy who replaced him when all this child pornography thing was going down, moving back to OC.

I'm glad this seems to have had a decent ending. The story reports there's still some awkwardness, but it's a good thing that all the parties are trying to make this work for Hoffner who, it appears, got badly screwed.

Life doesn't usually work that way. You get labeled something unfairly and it often sticks no matter what the evidence shows after the fact. It's life. Seems this time life turned out to actually be fair. That's unusual.

[Wild Hoss]

I mean, in truth the players should be told to STFU and get to practice.

Y'know, usually I am all for sticking up for players, but this is an example of a behavioral change which is, IMO, becoming more prevalent and exacerbated by the goings-on at Northwestern. Players are spoiled, and have developed a victim groupthink which convinces them the opposite is true.

Refuse to practice? Then pack up your shit and hit the road, leaving your free college education behind for somebody else.

[hack]

I don't necessarily see how Northwestern is involved -- I support players feeling like they are entitled to fair compensation, in particular given the high chance of lasting physical damage to their bodies and the increased amount of money on the table. In the same way that I support grad students who should be paid a living wage for the time they spend doing work for their professors. Universities have an increasing number of people they benefit from that don't get fair compensation in return. If I were an executive, I would not bother having a company with employees. I would have a ``university'', with ``grad students'' and ``scholar athletes'' and adjuncts and all that.

[Wild Hoss]

Northwestern provides an example of athletes standing up against what they view as unfair authority. The attitude has already spread to NU to some degree for example, even though the NW ruling doesn't apply.

[Jeff Buchanan]

..... Refuse to practice? Then pack up your shit and hit the road, leaving your free college education behind for somebody else.

That sentiment certainly resonates with me ..... but, it's not where things are trending.

The cat's out of the bag. Big time programs and even some of the smaller one's that have latched on to the media gravy train are getting rich. While the players, who are busting their asses for glory, their coaches and administrators buy million dollar homes and with interest free loans form their employers and bank huge sums of money securing their work free futures.

That situation is totally wrong on so many levels. It is no longer defensible and this notion of satisfying athletes with $2500 annual stipends is laughable.

Market forces intertwined with labor economics and the courts are going to force a reasonable outcome. It's just going to take a while.

I would think conferences would be much better off and shorten the process by quitting the NCAA, dumping the anachronistic concept of amateurism in college sports and forming some other national level association to provide guidance. The NCAA is a huge albatross just getting in the way. The Presidents have the power. Someone or some group of them just needs to step up to the plate.

[hack]

Yes. Probably easier to dump the NCAA than to reform it. Which probably comes with its own set of problems anyhow.

[Hannibal]

I don't necessarily see how Northwestern is involved -- I support players feeling like they are entitled to fair compensation, in particular given the high chance of lasting physical damage to their bodies and the increased amount of money on the table. In the same way that I support grad students who should be paid a living wage for the time they spend doing work for their professors. Universities have an increasing number of people they benefit from that don't get fair compensation in return. If I were an executive, I would not bother having a company with employees. I would have a ``university'', with ``grad students'' and ``scholar athletes'' and adjuncts and all that.

I am all for fair compensation, but every discussion about this topic needs to include the fact that the players already get a ton of compensation in the form of a ridiculously expensive education. They also get preferential admission into a lot of highly selective universities. Even for an upper middle class working stiff like myself, college is insanely costly. My kids' undergrad education is probably the difference between my wife and I retiring at age 55 vs. age 60. That is, unless, we don't mind them having $100,000-$200,000 of debt when they are 22 years old (and those numbers keep escalating). A lot of guys piss away that opportunity but that's not the coach's fault.

[Ghengis Jon]

Take the heroin, er money, out of the equation and the problems disappear.

"Any college or university that accepts state or federal aid, or has students accepting state or federal aid, may have their athletic teams televised only on PBS. Public broadcast networks/stations may in turn sell feeds to other non-PBS networks."

Let the money go to Nova or Big Bird. Let the Brand-On!s of the world sputter and spew.

[hack]

Ha! Perfect.

[hack]

I am all for fair compensation, but every discussion about this topic needs to include the fact that the players already get a ton of compensation in the form of a ridiculously expensive education. They also get preferential admission into a lot of highly selective universities. Even for an upper middle class working stiff like myself, college is insanely costly. My kids' undergrad education is probably the difference between my wife and I retiring at age 55 vs. age 60. That is, unless, we don't mind them having $100,000-$200,000 of debt when they are 22 years old (and those numbers keep escalating). A lot of guys piss away that opportunity but that's not the coach's fault.

There's plenty of room to note the difference between the price tag and the actual value. But overall if you are for fair compensation then you are by definition in support of a market-based mechanism for determining what's fair.

[lineygoblue]

"Any college or university that accepts state or federal aid, or has students accepting state or federal aid, may have their athletic teams televised only on PBS. Public broadcast networks/stations may in turn sell feeds to other non-PBS networks."

I remember when I used to have to watch Flint's PBS station to watch replays of Michigan road games that were not televised on commercial TV. I'd listen to them on WJR, and watch them later on WFUM Channel 28 in Flint.

[Hannibal]

There's plenty of room to note the difference between the price tag and the actual value. But overall if you are for fair compensation then you are by definition in support of a market-based mechanism for determining what's fair.

Correct. But can we do this without the slavery/plantation rhetoric please?