About The Islander. (St. Simons Island, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 4, 2019)
Page 16, November 4, 2019, The Islander Publisher The Islander EDIT0EIAL BACK I nr aii k I What's next for college football? Before I get to the heart of this week’s Back Talk, I want to say con gratulations to the University of Georgia Bulldogs and all their fans, myself included, for a great win over Florida on Saturday. As they say, the Dawgs now “con trol their own destiny” with two more testers coming up - Auburn in two weeks and Texas A&M in three - leav ing Missouri and Georgia Tech on the schedule, both of whom we should be able to handle. Of course, we were supposed to beat South Carolina by three touch downs... so there’s that. At 6-4 A&M has played a much tougher schedule than we have. They’ve already played Alabama, Clemson, UCLA and Auburn and face LSU the week after they play us. Auburn on the other hand is a real big question mark. They beat a good Oregon team, but lost to Florida, so who knows how that will come out. It still comes down to us and Flor ida for the SEC East. If Florida wins the rest of their games, we can still lose one and win the East because of our win over them. So Georgia is in the catbird seat provided we win at least 2 of our 3 re maining SEC games. California and the NCAA Now to the heart of the matter... Once the California legislature passed a law earlier this year allow ing college athletes to profit from the sport - and several other states began considering similar legislation - it didn’t take long for the NCAA to read the writing on the wall and follow suit saying college players can now profit from their name, image and etc. This means college athletes can now endorse products like athletic footwear and appear in TV com mercials for local car dealers and plumbers. There’s been some hand wringing over this on the side of those who want “amateur athletics” to remain pure. Frankly, I’m not 100% sure how I feel. Basically, I don’t care, but I won der if there’s potential for long term harmful change to the college game. One sports writer, who was against the idea, said that the companies that will pay college athletes for their name, like Nike® and Under Ar mour®, also currently provide money to colleges’ general athletic scholar ship funds. He said paying individual athletes may deprive those scholarship funds, which support all college sports pro grams, of needed funding and short change things like baseball, softball, volleyball, rowing and whatever. Another point that seems obvious to me, is that these companies, espe cially major ones with big advertising dollars, are going to focus on high pro file athletes. Sure, Alabama has Tua Tagovailoa, Najee Harris, Henry Ruggs, Devon- ta Smith and Jalen Waddle, among others, who will all most assuredly be playing on Sundays and I can see these five getting big time Nike® con tracts, maybe even a big money group deal, but what about their teammates like Skylar DeLong, Nigel Knott, Scooby Carter and Mac Jones? Do you think Under Armour® or Coke® is interesting in using Nigel Knott in a TV commercial, even if he does play for the Tide? I don’t. Clemson’s QB, Trevor ‘Sunshine’ Lawrence would likely get all kinds of offers, especially from hair care com panies. But I’d bet no one, other than Clemson alumni and devout fans, could name any current players. Georgia’s Fromm and Swift would likely get deals, but from what Geor gia’s Speaker of the House David Ralston said last week, it doesn’t seem likely our state will be taking up this legislation before these two sign up for the draft. Fromm is a junior, so he’ll likely go pro next year, unless he stays one more year to try and pick up the ever- so-elusive National Championship. Alabama, Clemson and Georgia are currently some of the top programs in the country right now and I don’t see more than a dozen guys among them getting paid to endorse anything. I think this new rule, for the most part, will only benefit a handful of players in a few big time programs. And interestingly, almost assur edly, this money will go exclusively to players already getting full ride schol arships. The lesser scholarship guys, who could actually use the money won’t get a shot. I think many more colleges won’t get a dime of this money. The fact is, college players have received remuneration in various forms for years, at least they used to. If you doubt this, read former Okla homa cum Seattle Seahawk lineback er Brian Bosworth’s autobiography, “The Boz.” My memory is he makes the claim in the book that he received payments for playing at Oklahoma, maybe not from the college but from Oklahoma boosters. Ironically, he came out last month in opposition to the move to pay col lege players. He said players are in college to get an education. Odd words from the man who took a shot at the NCAA when he wore a “National Communists Against Athletes” shirt at the 1987 Orange Bowl. Anyway, I’m still on the fence about this... I hope it doesn’t have a drastic impact on college football. Of course I can always switch over to soccer.... Nah. Proudly Serving the Golden Isles Independent Living • Assisted Living • Memory Care • Skilled Nursing • Rehab ~ l '^' 136 Marsh’s Edge Lane • St. Simons Island, GA 31522 MARSH’S EDGE (912) 324-3028 • Marshs-Edge.com ON ST. SIMONS ISLAND
