Backing off.....just a bit, NBA, NFL

Hello once again

Good to be back after a vacation to South Carolina. I still can't get used to SC's speed limit still stuck at 55, but maybe, someday soon, that will change. Now.....on to the sports.

It has come to light recently that the UNC Tarheel football program was going to be investigated by the NCAA. My first reaction to this story was "What....Butch Davis has another dirty program (Miami)? Give them the death penalty!!!" But, as my partner on the TV show, Tim McMillan said, the death penalty should probably never be used again, and that we should wait to see what the rest of the facts are. Well.....here we go. It has now come to light that Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia have players that are also under scrutiny from the NCAA. Now, there are always 2 sides to an issue like this, and I see both of them. The sides are: 1. These kids are not getting "paid", per se, and that if someone wants to give them a little money to, say, go out to eat, then that's OK. I always thought the NCAA was wrong for hammering Utah's basketball program when former coach Rick Majerus bought a kid a slice of pizza at the airport as the kid was going home to bury his mother (true story). And the other side is: 2. These kids are, in fact, getting paid in the form of a "free" education, with room and board. All they have to do is play a game to get a free education. And, make no mistake about it, college athletics has become a huge business. Look at the money being thrown out by ABC/ESPN, CBS, FOX, and other subsidiaries to broadcast games. And, as such, if everyone is making a ton of money, the athletes feel they should receive some sort of stipend for their efforts. But, old-school as I am, I feel that they should go to class, go to practice, play in their given sport, and zip their mouths closed. The big complaint among athletes is that they see "their" jersey in the college bookstore, but they can't afford to buy it, since they don't get any money. Horse feathers!!! One, it's not "their" jersey, it belongs to the school, and two, once you leave school, you won't have any student loans to pay off.....go buy you a jersey then. But, this whole case has brought to light, once again, the seedy side of sports agents and their minions. Alabama coach Rick Saban likened them to pimps. He's also tossed about the idea of closing off the campus to NFL scouts, something that has the big league scared to death. We really haven't heard any kind of agent contact like this since the UNLV basketball team of the early 1990's. Are any of the athletes at the above mentioned schools guilty? Who knows....but one thing is certain. I'd kind of dismiss it if it were just one school, or one kid. But the fact that it's multiple schools and multiple athletes, it sort of has a ring of truth to it. We'll have to wait and see what the NCAA or the individual schools find out before we can really see how much of a problem there really is.

To the NBA, where New Orleans Hornets guard Chris Paul wants out of the Crescent City, and I can't blame him. The Hornets are in the midst of a huge house-cleaning, and Paul feels that the team is not headed in the right direction anymore. Most people are saying Paul saw all the attention lavished upon LeBron James and Chris Bosh in their recent free-agency, and he wants in on the act. Since James left Cleveland, everyone is saying that he's "tarnished" his legacy, that his "brand" has taken a hit, and that he's just plain greedy. Well......if he wins a title, all of that will be fotgotten. And, if Paul can engineer a way out of New Orleans, then good for him. It doesn't have anything to do with a so-called "LeBron effect", it has everything to do with the fact that soon-to-be former Hornet owner George Shinn has bled the franchise completely dry, and Paul doesn't want to stick around for a rebuilding period.

In the NFL, many teams are getting ready to report to training camp. But, with that as a backdrop, why has nobody really asked the question that teams need to sign their draft picks a bit earlier to avoid any confusion before camp. I mean, the NFL Draft was in April, here we are in July. Was there not enough time to get a deal done in between time? This should be the final year we see rookies get monster deals, too. The owner's side of the table has, for some reason, asked the Player's Association to, once aain, save the owner's from themselves. It's looking like rigiht now, we could be headed for a work stoppage in the NFL next season, and some of it comes from the revenue system. Leave it to 32 spoiled billionaires to kill the golden goose. It makes me love college football all that much more.


Sorry I haven't posted for a bit. High school football starts in 4 1/2 weeks. We'll be back on the radio this fall, with the internet broadcast to be posted the following day. Hope everyone can tune in this season. We'd love to have you on board. That's all for today.

Till next time.............


Patrick