ztexz

And on the practice green, I putt better than Ben Crenshaw. What you see a kid who has never played a down doing in spring practice is just about meaningless. Tommy Rees looked good at Pro Day, too.

Title IX is a great example of the negative effects of good intentions. I could hold forth for quite some time on Title IX and what's wrong with it. That being said, I'm not sure Title IX plays THAT big a role here. The issue with the number of scholarships already exists -- and is exacerbated by the fact that there are now far more women enrolled in college than men. Title IX already requires scholarships to be offered in proportion to enrollment. The unionization ruling has no impact on that dynamic. Where it probably comes in to play is with this issue of stipends. I think a reasonable reading of the law would suggest that if you're going to give a stipend to men's football and basketball, you also need to extend it to women's sports. So while I would love to see athletes get a stipend, I recognize that it's not necessarily possible. Again, to me the simple solution to all of this is to allow athletes to sign endorsement deals, sell autographs, etc. The reason I think players should be allowed to unionize is because the NCAA has unfairly used its monopoly position to restrict the outside business activities of student-athletes.

I think that is completely fair.

Only if the employment is "at will."

It's not like by unionizing the student-athletes will somehow be able to start extracting huge payouts from the universities. Clearly that would, as many here have said, kill college athletics. What you'll see is some negotiated settlement / collective bargaining agreement along the following lines: * 4-year, guaranteed scholarships * Stipend for games played ($500?) * End to restrictions on selling merchandise, autographs, or endorsements * Some paltry amount for using image and likeness, to be paid by video game companies, et al into some sort of player trust fund where each player receives credits based on some criteria Just to put this in perspective, let's say that each player who dresses for a game gets $500. That's $6000 per season, or 3 times what the NCAA has floated. Nowlet's say that 105 players dress -- that only comes out to $630,000 in additional costs per season. Notre Dame spends about $25 million per year on its football team, so that represents about a 2.5% increase in operating expenditures. At Northwestern, they spend about $16 million per year, so that's about a 4% increase. Now, obviously that hurts the bottom line, but that extra expense is hardly something that is going to bankrupt the program.

This is absolutely the right decision. Unless universities guarantee 4-year scholarships regardless of on-field performance and stop prohibiting the outside business activities of student-athletes (e.g. endorsement deals, selling autographs), these athletes should be recognized for what they are: employees of the university. Personally, I think a reasonable compromise is to remove those restrictions regarding endorsements, autographs, and merchandise. The free market will decide adequate compensation for each athlete.

You'd be in pretty serious violation of the National Labor Relations Act. My advice would be to seek legal advice

I don't care if our receivers get called for offensive PI every once in awhile. I'd rather they be overly aggressive trying to get the ball instead of worrying about getting a penalty that, in the grand scheme of things, isn't that big a deal. It's no worse than a holding call. The risk/reward of being aggressive and risking a PI is tilted so far heavily toward "reward" that I'm willing to take the chance.

You saw that we had precisely 3 passing plays in our book last year, right? (Not counting the ol' "Heave and Hope") I don't see how Kelly's comment is any deal at all, much less a big one.

Tommy will get invited to a camp. And then he'll get cut. And then he will start what I believe will be a very successful coaching career.

I have a grapefruit sitting on my kitchen counter that could play safety better than Farley. At least there's the possibility that a receiver might trip over it.

Well, with about 5 minutes to go, this nightmare of a season is almost over. :violin:

I think students should be able to sign in the semester in which they are expected to graduate. In other words, if they graduate a semester early, they can sign in November; if they graduate on time, they can sign in February. I would be leery of pushing the date too far up because then kids are more likely to flip on their commitment. I think it is unrealistic (and unfair) to ask a 16 or 17 year-old to make a commitment to something two years in the future.

Points scored. It's that simple. Everything else is just noise.

Wood has off-field issues. He had them in college and he had them in the NFL. If anything, this is what concerns me the most about BK: for some reason, it seems like our guys are just constantly screwing up under his watch. Most of that is on the players themselves, of course, but at some point you also start looking to the coaching staff to get through to the kids BEFORE they do something stupid.