Bobref

I’m curious where you stand on a school corporation restricting students” food choices to “healthy” options. That seems sort of “woke” to me, so I assumed initially you’d be against it. But then I remembered your posts on the transfer portal issue, and how we had to restrict transfers to prevent the student-athletes from making “mistakes.” I’m on pins and needles waiting for you to pick a side.

I find myself agreeing with you on all counts. Be back soon. I’m going to lie down until the feeling passes. 🤪

Now that we’ve had a week to digest this bizarre event, I’d like to know how the GIDers feel about what happened. People everywhere expressing shock and outrage. Also, I’m sure there are some people who will see some sort of conspiracy here — they see them everywhere — and believe it was staged as a publicity stunt. Love to hear everyone’s take on it …. But first you have to hear mine. I know that if my wife had gone through what Jada has and then had to sit there and hear some guy make fun of that in front of millions of people, I would not take that sitting down. I’d like to think I could wait until we all got backstage, but maybe not. The thing is, it’s like civil disobedience: there’s a principle worth defending, but there is a cost you have to be prepared to pay. Will Smith stood up for his wife like a man. Then apologized like a man, and is prepared to take his punishment like a man. I admire him. And to all my friends who were shocked and horrified at this outrage in the 21st century, I am well aware of the legal definition of battery. I did learn something in law school and 45 yrs. of practicing law. But sometimes we can be just a little too civilized for our own good.

Does anyone see the NCAA ever going back to the “sit out a year” rule? Pretty hard to get the lid closed on Pandora’s Box.

I find it ironic that you guys support taking away free transferability because it allows kids to make bad choices about their future, and they need to be protected from that. “It’s for their own good.” What about the choice they made as to what scholarship to accept? Don’t they need to be protected from the consequences of a bad decision, made for the wrong reasons, there? Doesn’t transferability do that? You know there is a word for the taking away of individual decision-making by a dictatorial central authority: fascism.

Again, I agree. But what you or I believe is the right choice for a kid to make is completely irrelevant.

I happen to agree with you. I just don’t believe in imposing my beliefs on others, taking away choices they have every right to make, even if you think they’re wrong.

Bernie who?

Maybe the funniest thing I’ve read on the GID this year.

Nice. Where’s that thick skin now? Education was the most important for me. But I’m not a kid from the inner city, a single parent family, who thinks he has a chance to monetize the fact that he can run a 4.3 40 and help his family, maybe tap into generational, life-changing wealth. You going to decide what’s most important for that kid?

Isn’t it a bit presumptuous for you to be deciding what’s most important for someone else? Someone whose circumstances may be radically different from what you view as the norm? Somehow, I just can’t square that with the philosophy of personal liberty and individual freedom of choice you’ve espoused when pushing your right wing political agenda over on the OOB. It’s quite the paradox.

We’ll see, Carnack.

Having a surplus of top flight talent at the position would be a nice problem to have.

So, we need to protect these kids from themselves … even though they are free to monetize their athletic prowess. That sort of paternalism doesn’t fly in 2021. Sounds a bit like a restraint of trade to me.

If college — including athletics — is intended to prepare young people for life after college, why shouldn’t student athletes have the same mobility options as people out in the world? It’s all about self-determination. If you’re going to try and keep athletics separate from real life, well … you should change your screen name to Sisyphus. 😉

Cue the music from “The Twilight Zone.”

Definitely agree. My question is why is the transfer portal considered so revolutionary, when it simply goes along with what is happening in our society in general?

Is this also the case in other sports, I wonder?

I’m glad he stayed at Michigan. College football is more interesting with him in it.

Sometimes I wonder if Harbaugh doesn’t actually relish his reputation as “quirky,” and do some things just because he can. I think he revels in his “differentness.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Missing the point, which is: whatever the reason, he can transfer and it would not be viewed the same way as an athlete entering the transfer portal .. even though the reasons may be very similar.

Athletics reflect society in microcosm. In general, the paradigm is different for young people today than it was for our generation. When I got out of law school, the paradigm in private practice was find a firm you liked, and that liked you. Work hard as an associate so you can make partner. Once you do, you’re invested in the firm, and the track was to stay there until you were ready to retire. Today, however, it is extremely rare to find a young lawyer who has been out of law school for 5 years and hadn’t had a couple of jobs. Our society is at an unprecedented time in terms of access to information and mobility. Why shouldn’t athletics be the same way? No one would bat an eye if the smartest student in the math program decided to transfer to MIT because their math department was better. What’s the difference?

I guess it is a question of expectations. Anyone who expected political leaders to be able to deal efficiently with a virus never seen before, let alone studied, amidst a global pandemic in the 21st Century, was always being unrealistic. Too many people think real life is like TV: “A global pandemic, but don’t worry, we’ll figure it out and have it handled by the next commercial break.” Science doesn’t work that way. It especially doesn’t when you add in all the politicos who sought to make political hay out of the pandemic.

Don’t forget the Trilateral Commission, and I’m sure the Pope is somehow involved, too.

The smartest QB in NFL history was likely Dr. Frank Ryan, who was the QB for the Browns in the ‘60s, including guiding them to the NFL championship in 1964. He was a Ph.D. and taught university mathematics courses at Case in the morning while also going to practice with the Browns in the afternoon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Ryan_(American_football)#Academic_career