The President said new rules for College Athletics would be done “,,,early next week.”
That was March 13.
Head knockin starts this week.
The NCAA Rulebook is about reliable as the above mentioned promise.
Nevertheless some semblance of control is needed urgently. Since no one has a clue, here is an interim proposal :
PLAY BY “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM RULES (Below ).
Until the Tech Billionaires decide to contest the Oil barons, no body else should ante up.
The problem to solve is–How MUCH do we pay them?
| More institutions are dipping into their endowments — and alienating donors at the worst possible moment. |
Higher Education taping Endowments to “survive”?
A LINKEDIN article today sites this as a real problem.
Is money being siphoned off to pay new Athletics demands?
As the world turns !
(From—ESPN Wimbledon broadcast of the Ben Shelton–Otto Virtanen first-round match yesterday, the commentators had a brief discussion about the changing path from college tennis to the ATP Tour.
The main points they made were:
This wasn’t presented as a formal statistic but rather as commentary on how the landscape has changed, with Shelton serving as an example of a player who successfully used college tennis as a springboard to the top of the professional game.
From today’s THE ATHLETIC (by Austin Meek), a comment on the current state of college athletics:
” By now, it should be obvious that “equitable reform” and “competitive advantage” don’t fit neatly in the same box. In trying to have it both ways, leaders in college sports sound a lot like St. Augustine: God, grant me chastity, but just not yet.”
JUSTIFIED’S Raylan: “It is hard to imagine the wonderful things that might happen if you can plant the seeds of distrust among a garden of assholes.”
Winston Churchill: “When you are going through hell, keep going.”
“The secret to management is to keep the guys who hate you from the undecided.” Casey Stengel.
One golfer said another was even tempered on the golf course: “He was an asshole the whole round.”
•Tom Brokaw concluded: “For parents, bribery is a white collar crime. For grandparents, it’s a business plan.”
At a recent post-golfing social event, I overheard one wife chastise another. “Alice, you’ve got the wrong name tag on.” Alice: “… I’m much too drunk to wear my own name tag.”
JAMES ALLEN ROSE
•A local high school running back was extremely quick and agile. A zig-zagging touchdown kickoff return brought this comment from an admiring hoi toiler coach: “My lord Son, you run ‘er like a hard crab”.
Unrelated favorites:
1. Women and cats will do as they wish. Men and dogs should get used to this fact.
2. The game film looks suspiciously like the game. Coach Bum Phillips
3. On Coach Landry of the Dallas Cowboys: “Does the coach ever smile? Player (Walt
Garrison) “I don’t know, I’ve only been here three years”.
t know, I’ve only been here three years”.
4. “…if you could have a conversation with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?”
Response: “Living—-you think I am stupid?” From Jim Hightower.
5. Eulogy at “Curly’s funeral. “God, we give you Curly. Don’t piss him off!”
From “City Slickers 2”.
6. From Coach Darrell Royal
A: …faster than small town gossip”.
B…”I had hoped God would be neutral”.
C ”You are “what-iffing”. Anybody can “what- if”.
7. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. W.B Yeats.
8. Every harlot was a virgin once. W. Blake
9. Courage is fear, holding on a minute longer. G. Patton
10. Buy the ticket, take the ride. Hunter Thompson
11. Don’t go around thinking the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. M. Twain
12. If today was a fish, I’d throw it back in.
13. Jesus was a Jew, yes, but only on his mother’s side. Stanley Ralph Ross.
14. It is better to be a coward for a minute than dead for the rest of your life. Irish Proverb.
15. Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life a champion. Muhammad Ali
16. Expect problems and eat them for breakfast.
7. He that hath no children brings them up well.
18. A good scare is better than good advice.
19. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.
20. For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off. Johnny Carson
21. Diplomacy is the art of saying “Nice doggie” until you can find a rock. Will Rogers. •22. One Father is worth more than a hundred schoolmasters. George Herbert
23. Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable. Plato
24.”…he that is without sin…Pick some up”. Barry Saunders
25. “I graduated with a 4.0, but it was my blood alcohol level.” James Carville.
26. “I cussed him out in Spanish, and he threw me out in English”. Lou Pinella, on being
thrown out of a game by umpire Armando Rodriguez.
27. “I can’t believe that out of 100,000 sperm, you were the quickest. Steven Pearl.
28. “All pro athletes are bilingual. They speak English and profanity.” Gordie Howe
29. “Thank you from the heart of my bottom”. Nick Faldo.
30. “I’ve been around since “Preparation A”. Jack McKeon
31. “Think you are a leader? Turn around and look back: if no one is following, you are just taking a walk.”
32. “It’s hard to kiss the lips at night that chew your ass out all day long”. Vince Gill in drag (You Tube)
33. I used to be Snow White, but I drifted. Mae West
34. I’ve been in more laps than a napkin. Mae West
35. I have a rock garden. Last week three of them died. Richard Diran •
COMEDIC HISTORY
Salvation for College sports?
FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTLESS
I chose the history of football for my first term paper topic. Early 1950’s.
FOOTBALL by Chuck Klosterman (2026 ) is available. He adds a lot to “kicking the head of the Dane.”
Mr. Klosterman’s work is unique, well written, thorough, and entertaining. And frightening.
He covers sports history, great players and coaches, teams, and fans.
He covers controversial topics (CTE and injury, Gambling, NIL and PORTAL dangers, Salary, owners, TV limits. Plus others. )
Here are some samples:
HIS GOAL ( page 11 )
*“This is an expository obituary, published before the subject has died, delivered by someone who wants to explain why the victim mattered so much to so many, despite so much evidence to the contrary.”
On the future of football: People will always need to watch football.
*“This, I must concede is true—if the scenario I described were happening today. But it is not happening today. It is something that will happen in the future, to different people, and those future people will not be like you. They will live in a version of society where football stops and no one cares. And that is inevitably why I wrote this book.”
NOTE–Klosterman describes this “future scenario” in detail, later in the chapter entitled NUCLEAR FOOTBALL.
CHILDHOOD ( page 57)
*“ In the summer after fifth grade, I spent a lot of time imagining me and my friends playing football and winning championships. These daydreams were not just mental visions”
Deja Vu. *My small high school played 6 man football. Mr. Klosterman comments on this
wide open variation of a game that was fun. ( Page 77 )
“But 6-man is its own animal, too arcane to be seen as the bastardized version of anything else. It’s structured bedlam with jankier rules….
EDUCATION/TEACHERS (page 120 )
**Here’s what I mean;Let’s say the salary of every public school teacher was tripled over night. A third grade teacher making $45,000.00 a year on Monday is now making $135,000.00 on Tuesday. In the short term, that change would make little difference in how well third graders are educated. A teacher doesn’t become a different person just because their paycheck changes. But the long-term impact this would have on education would be seismic. The realization that becoming a public school teacher was now a six-figure profession would change the type of person who decides to pursue teaching as a vocation.
*Every member of society would live a life conditioned to believe that becoming a public school teacher was a rarefied human experience, reserved for the elite and worth whatever sacrifice was necessary in exchange.”
*Triple the average U.S. teaching salary and the public education system is reinvented within ten or twenty years.”
CANADIAN FOOTBALL (page 208,209 )
*“ I Love the people of Canada. They are self-deprecating, well informed, and open to drinking in the afternoon.” See Joke by Donald Sutherland.
2040 -THE FUTURE (page 246-249)
*So this is how the future will go….
For the next 5-15 years, football becomes eleven more dominant than it is right now. This, incongruously, results from the mismanagement of college football. ( i.e. the Portal /NIL impact).
*Football is now an exclusively professional pursuit, watched and supported by millions of fans who have no personal relationship to the game itself.The sport has progressed to its social and economic end point. This is where the plane hits the mountain.
Economic escalation has made pro sports fragile.
The NFL’s total revenue hit one billion dollars for the first time in 1988. By 2065 the number will be two hundred billion, and the face value for a ticket will exceed $3000.00 .
*For more than a hundred years the NFL only got bigger and richer. It was designed only for imperial expansion, which is the only thing it did. But now it has to somehow get smaller, and that is something it cannot do..
This is a timely book.
The round of 16 in Men’s NCAA Division I tennis, play today. A quick survey of the team’s starting lineups, excepting Ohio State, feature about 90% international players. Assuming the ones who are starters get the scholarsips, they also get 90% of the grants. And NIL/Portal cash.
This announcement from THE NORTH CAROLINA HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION :
Boys’ volleyball, like girls’ flag football, is rapidly increasing in popularity in some parts of the state. The board voted 10-7 to add the sport in the spring of 2027. Tyson said Queen’s University in Charlotte has been reserved by the N.C. Volleyball Coaches Association to host a championship with proceeds benefitting the NCHSAA.
Ten years ago, there were four boys teams playing, according to Sarah Conklin, the Weddington High club coach and a longtime organizer of the sport in North Carolina. Today, there are more than 120 schools playing, or about a quarter of the NCHSAA’s membership.
Last year, 36 states sanctioned boys’ volleyball, according to the American Volleyball Coaches Association, and the NFHS reports that participation in the sport has grown — from 43,000 athletes nationally in 2005-06 to nearly 96,000 in the 2024-25 school year.
***************************
Great Decision
The Little Green Book of Tennis 