One would think the NCAA would throw the book at him and not let him buy the rims until after the first game.
One would think the NCAA would throw the book at him and not let him buy the rims until after the first game.
File this one away. The next time someone gets suspended for a similar situation they will sue the NCAA or the school that hands down the sentence.
Johnny Football is now Johnny Hancock. His signatures were in-your-face to the NCAA.
Louisiana Tech University
Flagship of the University of Louisiana System
This kid (Manziel) and his family are very, very wealthy. He comes fom very old oil money in east Texas. And his father was recently quoted saying, "yeah, we're still drawing money off those family wells. It ain't Garth Brooks money, but it's still a lot of money."
It's for this reason that I never believed Manziel took money for autographs anyway. He didn't need the money. Autograph money is child's play compared to the money this kid has access to .
''Don't be a bad dagh..."
It's the end of the issue unless the IRS finds something.
IRS has one tool that the NCAA doesn't...subpeona power. The autograph dealers who wouldn't spill to the NCAA might spill to the IRS if they are at risk of facing punishment themselves.
Obviously Republicans. Democrats wouldn't be proud of such stuff. And would likely be poor people from Bienville Parish or maybe downtown Zwolle or some other progressive city even nearer the Sabine River.
The NCAA is a complete and utter joke. It takes them a week to decide to suspend Johnny Manziel for half a game for "not doing anything", but it took them MONTHS to decide that Andrew Guillot who's had 3, (not 1, not 2) but THREE, knee surgeries that he could play one more year of college football. He had to go through a whole spring, summer, and half of fall camp to get approved to play this year!! Are you kidding me?!? Also, what about Ahmad Paige a few years ago? Kid takes something from GNC, checks the label to make sure nothing in it is bad, takes the supplement, then gets asked to take an NCAA drug test. 2 months later it comes up there is an illegal substance in there that wasn't on the label, and he gets suspended for a full year and loses his last year of college eligibility. Really? Can't play his final year because of something he didn't even do? Insane...
Or even me. I didn't get an athletic scholarship when I first came out of high school, but I did get college academic scholarships. I walk on to the football team, happen to be good at football so they give me a scholarship in that too. But the NCAA's rules are so ridiculously hard to understand and comply with, that I had to pay back thousands of dollars before I could play my junior year or I'd be ineligible because I had been "over-rewarded" and I "owed" the university money. How am I supposed to know how much money I'm allowed to get in scholarships? I thought the goal was to just be a good student and if you can, be a good athlete and everything would work out. Ridiculous...
This crap like this just blows my mind. The NCAA claims that college sports are "all about the student-athlete." RIIIIIIIIGHHTTT. That's why the biggest money maker in the sport gets a half game suspension for making thousands of dollars off of his autograph, but the kid just trying to play one more year of college sports gets suspended a whole year for a company lying to him about what's in their product. The whole system is a scam and a joke and a complete SLAP in the face to the athletes that work so hard to just play every year. The NCAA has done too much of this over the years and it's time for a change. I hope beyond hope that they get RUINED in this player lawsuit over money owed to players and a new system is born that is more efficient and gets rid of this blatant HYPOCRISY that is the NCAA.
Apparently he was suspended for actions that led to someone profiting off of him. A&M profits off him every Saturday, but apparently no one else can. He should have known that signing that many autographs for someone was for them to resell. That's a risky one for the NCAA because there are many college athletes with thousands of autographs out there. So if Johnny should be suspended, then a whole lot of other ones should too. There's no way the NCAA wants Manziel, Clowney, Bridgewater, McCarron and the other big stars all sitting out, so I'm sure it's hoping no one will really push this.
I think it should have been a full game or nothing. I rarely think half a game is an appropriate suspension. That seems more patronizing, shady and insulting (to everyone - A&M and non-Aggies) than a real punishment.
I've always heard about the hypocrisy and pain in the butt the NCAA is just figured it was typical bureaucracy inefficiency, that most of the players who just played straight out (i.e. no waivers needed, etc) wouldn't have to deal with, but this makes me think it's just a huge institutional failure top-to-bottom and gets me more on the side of starting over.