Sidebar: Quick Takes (v60)

In my Quick Takes post yesterday, I expressed concern over the new NCAA Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) program, which allows college athletes to be paid directly by corporations through sponsorships and whatnot. I proposed a different solution to paying athletes for the work they do for their schools - an equally imperfect solution, truth be told, but one that's more equitable, in my eyes. 

The announcement of these changes came at the same time as a legendary figure in high school lacrosse, locally and nationally, did an interview with a local media outlet here in my neck of the woods. The interview wasn't about the NIL changes, but it touched on some of the things that I can see being exacerbated by them. 

Retired West Genesee Coach Mike Messere talked with Lindsey Kramer of Syracuse.com/The Post Standard. Messere retired three years ago, after coaching the Wildcats to 15 state championships and 30 conference championships in his 40-odd-year career. By all accounts, he was a tough and demanding coach; his retirement was accompanied by scathing comments about his team's performance in their 2018 state championship loss, after all. 

The impetus for the interview was news that the coaches for both the West Genny boys and girls teams had stepped down. As Kramer notes in the interview, Messere "has clearly fought off the mellowing impacts of time and distance."

Among other things, he said "It's a tough time right now to be a coach or a teacher. Everything's changing and it's not for the best." In part, he points to discipline, and parents, and demands on the kids.

The parents want the kid to be more free to do their thing. Score, and be fancy, and shine, and make a show of themselves and stuff like that... They want their kid to get a scholarship so they’ve got to be in a certain spot, they’ve got to play a certain way. Before, years ago when they didn’t know much about the game of lacrosse it was a lot better. They couldn’t say too much. But now they learn the word “faceoff” and they think they know it all. They have their ideas, too.

Ours was tried and proven and true the way we were doing it. But it takes discipline, learning a lot of basic skills. Nothing fancy. They’re not jumping up and down and spinning around and making a show of yourself. And the parents don’t like that. They want their kid to do all that stuff to get attention.

And there's more - he's definitely not shy. In some respects, it sounds like he ran his program the way Steinbrenner ran the Yankees. 

The kind of quitting, how do I explain it? They gave up on the West Genny way. Kids weren’t keeping their socks up; they were kicking them down. All the stuff that made you that little bit, not that it made you a better player. It made you different than the other kids. A little more special. I don’t know if they got that or understood that. When they see you come, they know who you are, and you’re something special just by the looks of those socks. It’s a discipline thing. Everybody dresses the same, we play the same, everybody respects everybody else the same way.

And when you think of NIL, can you see what Messere's talking about coming into play? I sure can.

Look at me! I'm the funny socks guy, and I'm getting $1oK for that! Check out my on Insta and TikTok - I'm getting paid for clicks! My team? Losing record, but I'm getting paid! Woo hoo, look at me!

In a lot of ways, I agree with Messere on the importance of team, discipline, and uniformity, especially before the kids get into college. That is not the way of the world now, with competitive teams - travel teams - for kids as young as five or six in some sports. That's a lot of years to learn how to wear your socks just right to get noticed. I've seen myself how kids even that young are being encouraged by parents to star as individuals, rather than as team players.

In addition to being ripe for encouraging selfish behavior on the part of the kids (and their parents) the NIL program also seems ripe for a lot of other stuff, such as illegal payments to players before they get into college, payments to families or coaches to nudge their kids to choose this sponsorship deal over that one, and so on. You know: all the stuff the NCAA has been punishing for years, and which colleges are sometimes willing to turn a blind eye to, if it helps them get a high-powered coach who can recruit great players and bring in the bucks. 

With the new rules, will we eventually see a game where the players are all decked out like NASCAR drivers, proudly touting their sponsors, with maybe a little space saved for their team's name? 

I'm old - or, at least, old school. Shine through your play, not your 'style.' Be part of a unit, not an attention-grabber. Play for the team, not for individual glory. Pull up your socks. Tell your Mom and Dad to take a seat.

Oh - and get off my lawn.

Wondering on Wednesday (v119)

Another Wednesday upon us - and a ton of wondering going on.

We know there are any number of things wrong with disgraced doctor/serial abuser/child porn aficionado Larry Nassar, but even given everything we've heard about him and what he did, I wonder for the life of me what he thought he would accomplish by suggesting, in his letter to the judge in his current case, that his victims were lying and were 'scorned women' in the process?

I was a good doctor because my treatments worked, and those patients that are now speaking out are the same ones that came back over and over. The media convinced them that everything I did was wrong and bad. They feel I broke their trust. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Or, no fury like over 150 women abused by beastly man who took advantage of his position, and the fear of the athletes, and their trust in authority, when no one - not even their parents, in some cases - would believe them.

Staying with USA gymnastics, are companies doing the right thing by pulling their sponsorship from the organization? Does that serve the program, or hurt it?  I wonder if they couldn't do a whole lot more to have a positive impact by demanding change -- real change-- in the leadership, policies and procedures of the national program , and pulling their dollars only if the changes being sought were not realized? Seems we're hurting future champions because prior ones were failed. 

I heard that White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said today that local law enforcement officials can't pick and choose what laws they enforce. Her comments were in relation to so-called 'sanctuary cities' but I found them relevant here in New York, where another provision of the NY SAFE Act is coming into effect. I have to wonder whether anyone in the NY State Police or say, the Cayuga County sheriff's office, has heard about that, since they're not going to be enforcing the latest provision, the one requiring renewal of  pistol permits?

And, speaking of  crime, why did it take the president so long to talk about the shooting in Kentucky? I really don't understand that one at all. He is much quicker to talk about attacks in foreign countries than he is to talk about bad acts here in America, at least, when they're committed by plain old ordinary (white) Americans -- what happened to America first?   If the shooting had been committed by an immigrant - any immigrant, legal or not -- I wouldn't be wondering about how long it took him to comment, I'm sure.