Does y’all think Cody Campbell will answer me?

[Gerry Hamilton]

 

[Joe Zura]

I may not be a billionaire like him but I did father 

[Hookem72]

I wonder if his skin is as thin as the tortillas they love to throw.  Great post Gerry. 😂😂😂🤘🤘🤘

[Horns91]

Everything runs through Lubbock…..57-7! 

[Bunk Moreland]

I can tell you exactly how he’s going to respond:

Let me be perfectly clear: if college athletics is truly going to survive in the modern era, then we must stop pretending that young athletes should be held to some impossible monastic standard while every other entity in this ecosystem monetizes them from sunrise to sunset. Universities profit. Television networks profit. Conferences profit. Coaches sign contracts worth tens of millions of dollars. Entire media empires are built upon the backs of unpaid or underpaid athletes—and yet the moment a young man makes a mistake, suddenly the same people who turned college sports into a Wall Street commodity rediscover their moral outrage and wave around NCAA rulebooks like they’re carrying tablets down from Mount Sinai.

The American spirit has never been about destroying young people for one error in judgment. It has been about redemption, proportionality, and common sense. The Constitution itself was written by imperfect men who understood that rigid orthodoxy destroys institutions faster than mercy ever could. If we are serious when we say college football belongs to the American people—not to bureaucrats, not to gambling interests, not to television executives—then we ought to remember what the people actually believe in: fairness, opportunity, and second chances. Permanently stripping a student-athlete of eligibility over conduct that harmed nobody, altered no outcome, and occurred inside a system drenched from top to bottom in legalized sports gambling hypocrisy does not protect college football. It weakens it. The true threat to the integrity of the game is not a young quarterback making a mistake. It is a system so blinded by performative sanctimony that it forgets the very values of grace, liberty, and pragmatic justice that made American institutions exceptional in the first place.

[Jbro52]

You tell no lies @Gerry Hamilton, from my point of view Sark wants everyone to follow the rules and sees guys not follow the rules and throws jabs at them. Wasn’t the biggest fan of the comment but I get it and I like it when sark talks smack 

[Paul L]

4 hours ago, Bunk Moreland said:

I can tell you exactly how he’s going to respond:

Let me be perfectly clear: if college athletics is truly going to survive in the modern era, then we must stop pretending that young athletes should be held to some impossible monastic standard while every other entity in this ecosystem monetizes them from sunrise to sunset. Universities profit. Television networks profit. Conferences profit. Coaches sign contracts worth tens of millions of dollars. Entire media empires are built upon the backs of unpaid or underpaid athletes—and yet the moment a young man makes a mistake, suddenly the same people who turned college sports into a Wall Street commodity rediscover their moral outrage and wave around NCAA rulebooks like they’re carrying tablets down from Mount Sinai.

The American spirit has never been about destroying young people for one error in judgment. It has been about redemption, proportionality, and common sense. The Constitution itself was written by imperfect men who understood that rigid orthodoxy destroys institutions faster than mercy ever could. If we are serious when we say college football belongs to the American people—not to bureaucrats, not to gambling interests, not to television executives—then we ought to remember what the people actually believe in: fairness, opportunity, and second chances. Permanently stripping a student-athlete of eligibility over conduct that harmed nobody, altered no outcome, and occurred inside a system drenched from top to bottom in legalized sports gambling hypocrisy does not protect college football. It weakens it. The true threat to the integrity of the game is not a young quarterback making a mistake. It is a system so blinded by performative sanctimony that it forgets the very values of grace, liberty, and pragmatic justice that made American institutions exceptional in the first place.

That is all great but what about the integrity of the game?

[Hix Green made the Catch]

4 hours ago, Bunk Moreland said:

I can tell you exactly how he’s going to respond:

Let me be perfectly clear: if college athletics is truly going to survive in the modern era, then we must stop pretending that young athletes should be held to some impossible monastic standard while every other entity in this ecosystem monetizes them from sunrise to sunset. Universities profit. Television networks profit. Conferences profit. Coaches sign contracts worth tens of millions of dollars. Entire media empires are built upon the backs of unpaid or underpaid athletes—and yet the moment a young man makes a mistake, suddenly the same people who turned college sports into a Wall Street commodity rediscover their moral outrage and wave around NCAA rulebooks like they’re carrying tablets down from Mount Sinai.

The American spirit has never been about destroying young people for one error in judgment. It has been about redemption, proportionality, and common sense. The Constitution itself was written by imperfect men who understood that rigid orthodoxy destroys institutions faster than mercy ever could. If we are serious when we say college football belongs to the American people—not to bureaucrats, not to gambling interests, not to television executives—then we ought to remember what the people actually believe in: fairness, opportunity, and second chances. Permanently stripping a student-athlete of eligibility over conduct that harmed nobody, altered no outcome, and occurred inside a system drenched from top to bottom in legalized sports gambling hypocrisy does not protect college football. It weakens it. The true threat to the integrity of the game is not a young quarterback making a mistake. It is a system so blinded by performative sanctimony that it forgets the very values of grace, liberty, and pragmatic justice that made American institutions exceptional in the first place.

So college sports can't survive unless players can gamble?  Is that what he is saying??  I realize this is your fictional (maybe) hypothesis, but I think it's a darn good one, and it's probably spot on.

Notice in your "reply" there is no mention of accountability as though the "American spirit" doesn't believe in that sort of nonsense.  You nailed it, imo.

Edited 9 hours ago by Hix Green made the Catch

[NothinButDaHorns34]

It’s so funny how cocky they are now after their CFP participation trophy. Forgotten are the days of 8 wins before texas and OU left the little 12 

[taxsaver]

Gerry vs Brad Wesley:

 

Road House 1989 - Ending Fight scene (1080p)

 

 

Edited 2 hours ago by taxsaver
add

[Gerry Hamilton]

1 hour ago, taxsaver said:

Gerry vs Brad Wesley:

 

Road House 1989 - Ending Fight scene (1080p)

 

 

Well played! Haha

[WRNC]

A billionaire does not answer to a millionaire

[MarkInAustin]

I think it is a serious question.  It deserves more analysis than can be applied to it through the media and the public relations machine.  But there is no actual mechanism for in depth analysis available for the sports realm.

Were there such a mechanism one could weigh each case individually.  For instance, one could determine if the player bet on games in which he actually played.  One could determine if the addiction to gambling remained a great future risk for the individual.   One could closely monitor the player going forward.

Without that certainty of investigation, analysis, and surveillance it makes sense to have a one size fits all answer - and that answer must be "No."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I concede that the level of intrusion I imagine above is technologically feasible, so that it may become a reality both in sports and in our daily lives, and not just in the worlds of counter-intelligence and industrial espionage.  We won't like that.