Isn’t college football wonderful?
Within the next week or two, student-athletes from all over the country will be gathering on college campuses to prepare for another football season.
At least one of them will have a big, fat insurance policy paid for out of the Student Assistant Fund. That’s the fund that schools use to help kids who may need money to fly home for a funeral or to visit a sick relative. You would think that an organization like the NCAA, which, until this year actually had rules against giving football players cream cheese for their bagels, would have a big problem with that.
Texas A&M’s problem was that its All-Everything offensive tackle, Cedric Ogbuehi, was thinking about declaring for the NFL draft after it was presumed that he would be a No. 1 draft pick.
How do you prevent a kid from signing up for the mulit-million dollar signing bonuses that number one picks get?
You insure him for a few million dollars against a career-ending injury. The associate AD for football, Justin Moore, told Bruce Feldman of Fox Sports that it’s a loophole in the NCAA rules that, “I don’t think many schools know about it. It’s a game changer.”
Keep in mind that it’s the NCAA, and its member institutions of higher learning that recoil at any mention of paying athletes anymore than tuition, room and board. How is giving a kid a $60,000 insurance policy any different from giving him $60,000 in cash?
There were lots of coaches’ ears perking up when they heard that news. Expect lots of highly insured football players in the future and a lot more players sticking around for that extra year.
Not for anything related to academics, of course, but to enhance their draft status.
The NCAA is a corrupt, bloated, obsolete, useless bureaucracy that needs to go away. And, it just may be going before too long.
The Ed O’Bannon class action lawsuit just wrapped up last week, and if O’Bannon wins, the NCAA will never be the same. He sued on behalf of players who, among other things, had their likenesses used to sell billions of dollars worth of video games without being compensated.
An attorney who has worked in the highest levels of professional sports (who spoke on condition of anonymity) said this about the lawsuit: “I haven’t followed the testimony closely enough to predict the outcome, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. [NCAA President Mark] Emmert and his cohorts are like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in the final scene where they think they fought off their pursuers, not realizing there are scores more awaiting them. The NCAA as we know it is dead. It’s just a matter of who and what, individually or collectively delivers the kill shot.”
“The five big conferences will have complete authority and the NCAA will be figuring out how to fund the millions of dollars of judgments against it that await.”
He had told me before the trial that I should expect “a crater in Indianapolis where the NCAA sits.”
The judge is expected to rule next month.
Can’t wait to see the crater and the chaos that will follow.
`The chaos will ultimately make more sense than the NCAA has made in the last 40 years.
Pittsburgh ex-TV sportscaster, columnist and talk show host John Steigerwald is the author of the Pittsburgh sports memoir, Just Watch The Game. Follow him on Twitter.