I guess Iost my cynical “cherry” decades , ago, when my older brother befriended some football and basketball athletes in 1974/75 at UK.
My brother was a decent athlete, and always could find good pot. So, he had lots of athlete friends, and played a pick up game of roundball with Sonny Collins and the Elmore Stephens, the O-lineman who was subsequently convicted of murder, for a killing of a drug dealer three hours after the game. My brother was afraid the prosecutors would go after Sonny Collins and subpoena him to prove that he was with Stephens near the time of the killing.
Sonny was never prosecuted, and I doubt had anything to do with the killing.
I knew the whole illusion of collegiate amateur athleticism was bullsh!t from the age of 12, and that the average college athlete had little to do with the “Rah, Rah,” surroundings and trappings surrounding the sports.
The happenings of the last three years are child’s play compared to the reality I was introduced to very early in life.
I’m glad it’s generally above the table, now, and that the taxes are paid.
Those who feel that much has been lost due to NIL and the portal are like my buds who believed in Santa Clause years after I confronted my parents at the age of 4, pointing out the utter impossibility of the whole North Pole legend. They laughed, and told me to be discreet among my friends.
I was.
Some held to that illusion until age 8.
Hell, the Centre College team of 1921 was filled by HS All-Americans (well, three of them) from Texas, bought and brought initially to Somerset High School, then to Danville. My Dad made sure in the 1970’s that I got to meet some those 1921 folks who stayed local, one running a tobacco warehouse in Danville into his eighties. Old men have no discretion left!!
College sports is to me what it has always been: gathering as much talent as you can, by any means necessary, and beating the boys from Gainesville, Knoxville, Nashville, etc., all of whom have been doing exactly the same damn thing for 80 years.
The fact that the rules have loosened to allow more freedom for the athletes is fine by me.
Kentucky (Stoops and Staff) have maneuvered decently in this strange New World, essentially using the portal in 2021/22 to manufacture a team with talents like Jacques Jones, Dare Rosenthal, Wan Dale Robinson and Will Levis. I attended and enjoyed the Citrus Bowl that year, with hardly a concern regarding the teams those players had left behind, or how much they were earning for their play. At least those players and their sponsors didn’t have to violate tax and other laws to play the game, as had generations of players and “sponsors” prior to them.