Pac Tracks: California Law A Huge Win for "Dumb, Fat, Happy and Entitled"
Some people question why college athletes are supporting legislation to protect their imagines and filing lawsuits to protect their arms, legs, heads and futures.
“They’re fat, dumb, happy and entitled,” one Pac 12 football coach said publicly this weekend about his own players.
Oh…
The Pac 12 coach who publicly slammed his own guys never played college football and has never even won a conference title. He takes in $3.75 million from the state of Washington for 13 days of work per year.
Maybe this is why the kids are riled up?
The California law everyone knew was going be signed into law, SB 206, was signed Monday by Gov. Gavin Newsom to the high-pitched wails of counter attacks and disinformation.
The conference most impacted, run by a commissioner making $5 million a year, which is $4.5 million more than the commissioner he replaced 10 years ago, put out a decrying statement.
“The Pac-12 is disappointed in the passage of SB 206 and believes it will have very significant negative consequences for our student-athletes and broader universities in California. This legislation will lead to the professionalization of college sports and many unintended consequences related to this professionalism...”
The conference that opposes this bill is literally a farm system for U.S. Olympic teams. For years these stars were prohibited, by the NCAA-like International Olympic Committee, from taking money for their services. The IOC preached like Elmer Gantry that professionalism would ruin the sacred amateur model.
No it didn't.
Jim Thorpe, maybe the greatest athlete of the 20th Century, was stripped of his 1912 gold medals for making money in summer league baseball. He was shamed and humiliated and scarred for life.
And now we have the U.S Dream Team!
Thorpe eventually got his medals returned...posthumously.
The Fair Play To Play Act was born in liberal California, but it is not really political. The bill was signed by a lefty, sure, yet sailed through both state houses with unanimous, bipartisan support.
That means Republicans signed it.
The fat-cat NCAA president\multi-millionaire, running a socialist-inspired association, has threatened banning California schools from competing for future NCAA championships.
This is, frankly, terrific news for Texas Tech men’s water polo.
Fat-cat Athletic Directors from war-chest Ohio State and Wisconsin--whose summer homes are paid for with revenue garnered by shop workers—are saying now they won’t schedule games in California.
If only top-ranked Ohio State had thought of that before playing UCLA in the 1976 Rose Bowl.
That trip cost Woody Hayes the national title.
The wind and spin being spewed in opposition of Fair Pay for Play could power Hoover Dam. When, in fact, similar bills are popping up all over the nation. The blow-back blowhards need a better sense of the gravitational pull.
“Your old road is rapidly aging, please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand…”
The bill passed in California is a road map, not a paycheck.
It is not NOT a pay-for-play bill that deposits money into the USC quarterback’s checking account.
It is a reasonable first-step measure to fairly compensate student-athletes for use of their likenesses and images.
The bill is not, either, an ultimatum and is probably negotiable.
It does not go into effect until 2023 for the express purpose of giving the NCAA time to work through its history of entrenchment.
Remember the NCAA’s stance on refusing to hold championship events in Nevada because it had legalized gambling?
“They’re fat, dumb, happy and entitled…”
And getting injured, for stipends and scholarships, at an alarming rate.
Quarterback J.T. Daniels tore his ACL in USC’s opener and was replaced by Kedon Slovis who, in week two, was knocked out of the Utah game with a concussion.
Stanford quarterback K.J. Costello went straight to concussion protocol after taking a vicious hit to the head in the opener against Northwestern.
California’s dreams of reaching its first Rose Bowl since 1959 were severely impaired last Friday night when quarterback Chase Garbers was injured in a home loss to Arizona State.
Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News noted Monday that 34 projected starters in the Pac 12 have either: not played this year due to injury, didn’t play last weekend, or are questionable to play this weekend.
Thirty-four.
Fat, dumb, happy?
That Pac 12 coach who publicly savaged his players on Saturday was right about one thing.
Lawmakers confirmed Monday that student-athletes in California were, indeed, entitled.
Entitled to their fair share.