GP1

Some might say they are thoughtful and some might say they are down right moronic. Without careful analysis of every letter written can we never really come to a conclusion.

Marquette Law Review Article Almost as boring as reading about average minutes played for basketball players, but it illustrates the point. Basically, when the term "student-athlete" had legal precedent put around it, it was in the 1950s. Legal precedent is hard to overturn but not impossible. Especially if the court sees past rulings not serving a purpose in modern times. I would argue that the 1950s were before the NCAA members realized they could use television to back up the Brinks truck to their schools and rake in the cash. The players today really shouldn't have to live under the now outdated court rulings. I have a solution. Work frequently involves creating a product. I argue that there is a product being created (a game) and paid for in terms of tickets, television, etc. It's simple, make it so the product is free. Make it free to attend games and put the games on PBS. If nobody wants to do that, then they have to admit the players are employees producing a revenue producing product. If it makes it hard to pay coaches and ADs, then they can go get jobs making millions of dollars somewhere else in another industry.

This is no different than going to work somewhere and later unionizing.

@zen, Good angle on the 1st Amendment. I think the key to this case will be simple...Are the players performing work? If you look at what they do, it sure looks like work...They are required to show up on time to perform their tasks...They create a product (a football game)......People pay for the product (tickets, ads, etc.)...They have supervisors (coaches)....Here is the big one, Are they compensated for what they do? Interesting...Are they compensated? Very interesting indeed. Those who are against paying college athletes say they are already compensated for what they do with a free scholarship. Those who are for them getting paid say, rightly so, the scholarship is easily absorbed into the schools budget and not of the value said to be in reality. So, in reality, those in favor don't believe the scholarship is enough and the players should be compensated. If those against it say they are receiving compensation, doesn't that make the players employees given everything they have to do to receive the money and since they are receiving compensation, they have the right to unionize as any American worker does? Unbeknownst to them, those who have argued for years against paying athletes have been making the case for them. Either way, they have a right to organize.

Link Interesting. One of the comments in the comments section makes a good point. Northwestern is a private school and unionization at a private entity is different than at a public institution. Most D1 schools are public. I have a question for those who would oppose this. If unionization of college athletes is a stupid idea, why are they attempting to unionize at one of America's great academic institutions?

Just a couple of thoughts on this. If you divide 200 by 2, you get 100 minutes. If you divide 100 by five, you get 20 and ironically, that's the exact number of minutes in the first half of a basketball game. Additionally, the closest prime numbers to 200 are 199 and 211. Interestingly, if you round Treadwell's average minutes per game down to 31, you would have a prime number, but if you round it up to 32, you no longer have a prime number.

My guess is nobody has tried. The lack of original thought across the spectrum in the college athletics administration is appalling at best. Once someone actually thinks about it, the immediate concern in their mind will be how it would impact their chances to one day get a job at a BCS level school. If there is a 1% chance that it would, they would never bring the idea up. Fear will be the ultimate motivation and at the end of the day, the non BCS schools will suffer from their fear.

Very simple, he has 20 years in the Ohio retirement system working for various public institutions. He is padding his retirement. At this point, the salary is insignificant as he will get a percent of an average of X years of service. The more he works in Ohio, the more the percent of the average goes up. I'm sure he made a decent income at YSU so his average salary for 2-4 years is probably real high. Bio Sometimes, things are not as complicated as they appear.

I like the work Kest has done with the WBB program. They are playing a very entertaining brand of basketball as they average over eighty points. After a glimpse of their schedule, it looks like they either kick butt or get their butts kicked. Almost every game, win or lose, is decided by ten points or more....very unusual. Not even sure how something like that happens.

I'm not promoting Star Trek TNG reruns on BBC.

Soccer has committed fans, but they don't seem to have casual fans. If it is the only sports on and there isn't a Star Trek: The Next Generation marathon on BBC, I'll watch it.

Source The total US population is approximately 316 million. 35% of responses in the source say professional football is their favorite sport, most popular sport in USA. 11% say college football is their favorite sport, third most popular sport in USA (approximately 34.7 million people). Baseball is second at 14%. Simple math says 46% of Americans (approximately 145.4 million) say football of some sort is their favorite sport. While I'm not certain, I would bet those that say professional football is their favorite have college football very close to the top if not in second place. Why do we continue to play our games at a time when the NFL and BCS schools take up all of the oxygen? There is a huge market for football in the USA and we don't take care advantage of a vacuum when it exists. What would a network pay to have access to 145 million people who say football is their favorite sport when the only real competition is baseball at 44.2 million saying it is their favorite sport? Why isn't spring football financially viable again? PS, nice job soccer. Contrary to what we have to listen to, you are not popular, or even a little popular. In 1985, you got 3% of the vote. Today, you get 2%. Well done.

You are correct. Post changed to "Faustian English".

I figured since there are toxic waste dumps for toxins, we could have a toxic waste dump for the discussion of minutes played. Have fun, but don't let any spill out. Thanks to ZipsWin! for the topic title idea.

Partly agree, partly disagree. I agree that it is out of control, but we can't pretend it just started with this story. The "building process" started to get out of control about 10-15 years ago and nobody ever raised a hand to say, are we going insane? In terms of big donors, it is a Catch 22 and they aren't the primary people we should point a finger. Big donors believe they can make a difference in winning by donating tons of money. Pickens did it at Oklahoma State. ADs are more than willing to take their money and tell them whatever they want to hear in order to get their hands on more so they can build the next arena, pad their resume and leave town before they have to live with their action. The donors are naive and misguided, but that's OK because they are fans and as a fan, we are allowed to think irrationally about things because our opinion really doesn't make a team win or lose or even bankrupt a school. The adults, ADs and Presidents, allowed this to get out of control and were more than willing to sit back and watch it.

By golly, Can we please get a dog gone break from the horse crap of who plays how many minutes please! It isn't complicated. KD took my advice.

Good article and puts some numbers around what everyone already knew. It all smells like the cancerous "building process" to me. ADs must be thinking, "Build new stadiums...check. Create another waste of money....coordinators salaries! Start up the fundraising machine!" They have created a problem out of thin air just like they did the stadium building arms race. This trend is something that could be good for some schools and not so great for others. There are times when fresh blood is needed to freshen up a program, which could mean a coach needs to fire a coordinator. What if the coordinator doesn't want to go? How much are the buyouts? What is the publicity cost to a coach who wants to fire "his guy"? How much are taxpayers going to have to pay for one guy not to work, or worse, get a buy out while working in another state? If I've said it once, I'll say it a thousand times. I don't care what the BCS schools do. Most of what they do is obscene. Maybe it would be nice to have these problems. My guess is for the majority of BCS schools, these problems are more harm than good depending on the money they bring down and how much they need to spend. The bottom line is this. We don't have these problems and the part of me that just wants to talk about football is happy about that. Let's get the Hell away from these BCS schools asap so we don't get caught up in their obscenity. Another question is, what are these schools getting...or worse, not getting for their money? If I remember it correctly from the stroy, Clemson pays their OC $1.2 million.... For what? Seven points against FSU in a home blowout? Not making the ACC Championship game? A win against an average tosu team? $1.2 million for that? Wow, that's money well spent...not! In the insane world of college athletics, the guy will probably get a contract extension. There is an old psychological experiment. A group of 12 people are put in a room and 11 of them are actors told to act like they smell smoke. Eventually, the one non-actor will say he smells smoke also. In extremely small percentages, the non actor refuses to say he smells smoke. I would be one of the small percent who tells everyone in the room they are full of crap and there is no smoke. For those of you who may think this "coordinator salary issue" is a problem, it isn't. MAC schools can play good, entertaining football without coordinators making $1 million a year. Our house is not on fire guys.

My guess is he didn't like the ass kicking they took against Toledo among various other quality teams and he had enough. He saw the light.

I'll add 100 if you don't mind. One for me and 99 for saying what 99 others on this board were thinking about the mindless substituting but didn't have the balls to say.

It's all fundamentals. Get good at the fundamentals of shedding blocks, get good at the fundamentals of good angle pursuit and run as fast as you can to the ball carrier. If you do all of these things and the ball pops loose, the effort might produce a positive outcome. Luck is where effort meets opportunity. Same thing goes for when an offensive lineman recovers a fumbled ball down field on a running play. Come off the ball with good fundamentals: balance and position. Stay on your feet and move them. Get to the second level and do the same thing. When the runner breaks past the second level, run to the ball carrier. The mistake of fundamentals is blocking the guy next to you when the carrier is in the third level. The most important guys to block are those in the closest proximity to the carrier. Run to those guys and block them. Worry about the others later. Ball pops out and the offensive lineman is there to recover. Luck or good fundamentals/effort being rewarded? It all starts with talent. The Zips talent level is vastly improved. The next step is fundamentals and playing the game properly. Coaches have to be good at coaching fundamentals and the players have to be willing to go through the tedious effort of improving fundamentals.

He appears to have a bright future in college athletic after graduation.

This is why a coach needs to decide on who the 2-3 star players are on a team early in the season and play them minutes until they are in physical condition to play a lot of minutes. The reason these guys look tired playing 30+ minutes is they never play 30+ minutes. At this point, I'd like to thank KD for taking my advice from over the weekend on the importance of playing key players for high minute totals. Do I really have to fix EVERYTHING around here all of the time?

It looks like the Browns turned over every stone, researched the best candidates and conducted hard hitting interviews to find the only guy who would want that job. EDIT: Looks like he got the job. His next step should be to rent an apartment on a month-to-month basis.

It's amazing what a team can do when they just maximize their chances by playing the best players as much as possible. This is a wonderfully talented team and should continue this course of action as much as possible.

It looks like he is a completely honest guy without an ounce of self control. It's no wonder he was on the brink of being overweight all the time. KD: "Alex, your overweight again. Have you been eating too much paella?" AA: "I might have." KD: "You might have? Your smell like shrimp and sausage. Are you sure you weren't eating too much paella? AA: "I might have." KD: "There is a family size Doritos bag in your car. Have you been smoking pot again?" AA: "I might have."