(03-28-2014 09:08 PM)Rube Dali Wrote:  Sorry if this has been brought up in this thread, but by my not-so-perfect legal reasoning, having thought out the legal ramifications, any student that participates in any sport offered by a school, whether it be varsity, club or intramural, must be considered an employee, whether the NCAA or the schools like it or not. Given that there will be several years passing before any judgment is rendered, does anyone here think that the schools just drop athletics altogether?

I don't think so. We are a long way from this panel decision being the law.

It will take years to wind its way through the NLRB appeals process and then the court system.

Why give up all those millions in the meantime?

(03-28-2014 09:02 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(03-28-2014 08:52 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-28-2014 08:42 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(03-28-2014 07:54 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-28-2014 07:22 PM)TerryD Wrote:  Many people are ok with paying head coaches up to $3-4 million a year and assistant coaches $500-750,000 a year more.

But we have a system that most people agree:

--- was largely a farce (amateurism, "student-athletes"),

--- involved kids at a number of schools who were not there for academics...i.e. the "student" part of the "student-athlete".

--- involved cheating and $1,000 handshakes on the side or fake jobs, etc...

---resulted in low graduation rates at a number of universities and involved academic fraud at places like North Carolina just to keep athletes eligible.

When that system is finally seriously challenged, everyone thinks it is a bad thing to pay the individuals who actually produce the product on the field that everyone pays to see.

I think that a system which cannot make a profit (which I don't really believe) unless relatively underpaid labor is required is a bad system in at least a major need of serious reform.

People should have reformed it years ago before it got to this point.

I have seen lots of posts on this and other boards talking about realignment and the "inevitability" of turning college football into something resembling the NFL.

Those people may get their wish, though not in the manner they thought they had foreseen.

Yeah Terry, it makes you long for the good old days when Northeastern sportswriters were always sure to rank you high enough that you got to play for more than others, who were more deserving, but unfortunate enough to be in part of the country where the population didn't merit the largest number of voters in the AP. It makes you pine for the good old days of over signing and stockpiling of players who would never see the sainted turf at South Bend and for the fun times of playing Michigan, Purdue and U.S.C. along with a couple of service academies and a bunch of other out-manned and out spent schools so that a major bowl was assured at the least and a shot at the championship could be assured with moderate success against the first three listed. It makes you long for the days when a number of sexual assaults against coeds would go unreported, charges against the players involved swept aside, or discouraged as being in the victims best interest. Notre Dame is not without its hypocrisy as well and the legendary stories of mythological status rank right up their Teo's girlfriend, mostly imaginary.

The desire for a playoff where the champions are decided by on field play rather than by a biased poll, biased computer programming, or biased committees is just too much to ask for I suppose. I guess that is why folks like you call it NFL lite when all it really is is an attempt to bring things out of the dark ages of college football's smoke filled rooms and into to something resembling an actual championship.

I don't disagree with you about the what has happened with the proliferation of money and salaries and boosters and the win at all cost mentality, but that is quite different from those who desire a legitimate playoff free of most corrupting factors that have plagued the history of the game.

They are two distinct issues which you have managed to blur into one rant.

Let's clean up things for the athletes, lets address the chicanery, but let's not regress to the favoritism which some schools, including yours, has relied upon from the 1920's until now to be able to claim championships over schools that were never given a chance to compete. The movement to a playoff I hope will address things for schools like Oregon and Oklahoma State and even my Tigers in 2004 all of whom were snubbed by something beyond their control.

You seriously misunderstood my post. I don't long for any return to anything. The past is the past, never to return.

I don't have any objections for the playoffs, so your anti-ND rant was totally wasted. I would think that an Auburn fan would think about glass houses.

I did not mention an individual school (unlike you) in any of my posts about the problems with the current system.

(In fact, I never mentioned ND in my post)

I merely point out that those who wanted things to change and spent time confidently predicting the future of college sports got surprised and didn't see this one coming.

I used the analogy of "looking like the NFL" because, ironically, that may be how the system ends up.

If college football becomes a true minor league, so be it.

If that means ND drops sports, so be it. Everything changes, nothing lasts forever. Empires have risen and fallen, so college football may likewise disappear.

Who knows?

But the current college football model of pretend amateurism and "student-athletes" with athletic department revenues of up to, what, $100 million a year may be going the way of the blacksmith.

P.S Just about every human institution in history involves some degree of corruption and bias. I imagine the playoff committee will be no exception.

Reform is on the way. What form it takes who knows. Some of it is overdue but the pendulum is liable to swing too far before its through. Even then concussions may end the game. As long as there is any committee instead of a format that yields the playoff teams we will have bias in the selection. Here's to a new format!

I didn't misread your comment, I just remember most of them and replied to the general tenor expressed in a compilation of them across several threads. I've got nothing against N.D., but they are no different than other power teams and have played the system as well as anyone.

Absolutely, ND is no different in a number of respects (except maybe their grad rates and some admissions standards).


I don't recall any posts of mine (unlike yours) critical of any individual school about internal issues or scandals, recruiting or otherwise.

My "general tenor" that you detect may be more my pro-employee stance rather than my ND fan affiliation.

I would feel the same way if I were a fan of Pitt or Penn State, for instance.

Fair enough! I had perceived some of it as being somewhat sanctimonious and coupled with your disdain for all things conference it hit me the wrong way and that is what had prompted my response. Apparently I misperceived your political stance for more of an "Irish get it right" one. JR

(03-28-2014 09:15 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-28-2014 09:02 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(03-28-2014 08:52 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-28-2014 08:42 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(03-28-2014 07:54 PM)JRsec Wrote:  Yeah Terry, it makes you long for the good old days when Northeastern sportswriters were always sure to rank you high enough that you got to play for more than others, who were more deserving, but unfortunate enough to be in part of the country where the population didn't merit the largest number of voters in the AP. It makes you pine for the good old days of over signing and stockpiling of players who would never see the sainted turf at South Bend and for the fun times of playing Michigan, Purdue and U.S.C. along with a couple of service academies and a bunch of other out-manned and out spent schools so that a major bowl was assured at the least and a shot at the championship could be assured with moderate success against the first three listed. It makes you long for the days when a number of sexual assaults against coeds would go unreported, charges against the players involved swept aside, or discouraged as being in the victims best interest. Notre Dame is not without its hypocrisy as well and the legendary stories of mythological status rank right up their Teo's girlfriend, mostly imaginary.

The desire for a playoff where the champions are decided by on field play rather than by a biased poll, biased computer programming, or biased committees is just too much to ask for I suppose. I guess that is why folks like you call it NFL lite when all it really is is an attempt to bring things out of the dark ages of college football's smoke filled rooms and into to something resembling an actual championship.

I don't disagree with you about the what has happened with the proliferation of money and salaries and boosters and the win at all cost mentality, but that is quite different from those who desire a legitimate playoff free of most corrupting factors that have plagued the history of the game.

They are two distinct issues which you have managed to blur into one rant.

Let's clean up things for the athletes, lets address the chicanery, but let's not regress to the favoritism which some schools, including yours, has relied upon from the 1920's until now to be able to claim championships over schools that were never given a chance to compete. The movement to a playoff I hope will address things for schools like Oregon and Oklahoma State and even my Tigers in 2004 all of whom were snubbed by something beyond their control.

You seriously misunderstood my post. I don't long for any return to anything. The past is the past, never to return.

I don't have any objections for the playoffs, so your anti-ND rant was totally wasted. I would think that an Auburn fan would think about glass houses.

I did not mention an individual school (unlike you) in any of my posts about the problems with the current system.

(In fact, I never mentioned ND in my post)

I merely point out that those who wanted things to change and spent time confidently predicting the future of college sports got surprised and didn't see this one coming.

I used the analogy of "looking like the NFL" because, ironically, that may be how the system ends up.

If college football becomes a true minor league, so be it.

If that means ND drops sports, so be it. Everything changes, nothing lasts forever. Empires have risen and fallen, so college football may likewise disappear.

Who knows?

But the current college football model of pretend amateurism and "student-athletes" with athletic department revenues of up to, what, $100 million a year may be going the way of the blacksmith.

P.S Just about every human institution in history involves some degree of corruption and bias. I imagine the playoff committee will be no exception.

Reform is on the way. What form it takes who knows. Some of it is overdue but the pendulum is liable to swing too far before its through. Even then concussions may end the game. As long as there is any committee instead of a format that yields the playoff teams we will have bias in the selection. Here's to a new format!

I didn't misread your comment, I just remember most of them and replied to the general tenor expressed in a compilation of them across several threads. I've got nothing against N.D., but they are no different than other power teams and have played the system as well as anyone.

Absolutely, ND is no different in a number of respects (except maybe their grad rates and some admissions standards).


I don't recall any posts of mine (unlike yours) critical of any individual school about internal issues or scandals, recruiting or otherwise.

My "general tenor" that you detect may be more my pro-employee stance rather than my ND fan affiliation.

I would feel the same way if I were a fan of Pitt or Penn State, for instance.

Fair enough! I had perceived some of it as being somewhat sanctimonious and coupled with your disdain for all things conference it hit me the wrong way and that is what had prompted my response. Apparently I misperceived your political stance for more of an "Irish get it right" one. JR

I told you that you completely misunderstood my post. :)

Take care, JR.

(03-28-2014 09:10 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(03-28-2014 09:08 PM)Rube Dali Wrote:  Sorry if this has been brought up in this thread, but by my not-so-perfect legal reasoning, having thought out the legal ramifications, any student that participates in any sport offered by a school, whether it be varsity, club or intramural, must be considered an employee, whether the NCAA or the schools like it or not. Given that there will be several years passing before any judgment is rendered, does anyone here think that the schools just drop athletics altogether?

I don't think so. We are a long way from this panel decision being the law.

It will take years to wind its way through the NLRB appeals process and then the court system.

Why give up all those millions in the meantime?

I should've said that if unionization was permitted, wouldn't it be simpler for schools, if they're so against this, to simply drop athletics. Sorry if I was a bit too brusque in my reasoning.