Blowing off some steam on a frigid winter afternoon:
“Can you imagine,” a friend asked, “if there was a professional portal for the best educators? Absolutely illogical if one looks at this objectively and what’s the true mission of a university.”
We all know how crazy it is that college athletes now – not just major college coaches – make millions more than professors and instructors at the same schools. This is because of a 2021 Supreme Court ruling that allows NCAA athletes – mostly at the top-tier levels — to profit from their name, image and likeness (NIL). They can get endorsement deals, sponsorships, and direct compensation, mostly in football and basketball and some high-profile individual sports.
It changed big-time college sports into a minor league sports conglomerate fueled by wealthy donors, massive TV deals, and brand partnerships.
And, yes, this is illogical if one considers the mission of a university.
LSU’s mission statement, for example: “To cultivate transformational leaders and generate impactful research that enhances individual, organizational, and societal well-being through excellence in teaching, scholarship, and community engagement.”
Maybe we should edit or translate that to: “To do whatever it takes financially to hire successful coaches and talented portal athletes who project to becoming All-Americans and social media stars, thereby generating more revenue and a broader fan base and interest in the university.”
For some perspective as to how we got here, recall the comment legendary Alabama football coach Bear Bryant said many years ago when asked by a school professor why Coach Bryant made so much more ($200,000/year) than he did.
“If you got 50,000 people to watch your math class,” Bryant reportedly said, “you’d get $200,000, too.”
On other things …
“The only thing I can talk about is the cold,” wrote William Saroyan in his popular short story, “A Cold Day,” “because it is the only thing going on today.”
That’s the way I feel working on this column at a time when most of our state and the Southern region is enduring a severe winter attack, with some quipping it might’ve been launched this way by Greenland.
“If you can’t write a decent short story because of the cold,” wrote Saroyan, “write something else. Write anything. Write a long letter to somebody.”
My hands and feet are cold and my breath is cold, so maybe I can write about things that raise the temp.
Sunday’s AFC Championship game was a low-scoring, miserable game in the driving Denver snow. That was not a test of talent as much as it was a test of grit and survival. There were four missed field goals in the game, two by each team. Former Saints kicker Wil Lutz missed two for Denver, with one, from 45 yards, being blocked. Andy Borregales missed two for the New England Patriots from 46 and 63 yards.
Watching that snow-slog made an already cold day seem colder.
Louisiana Super connections …
LSU will have five former players in the Super Bowl on Sunday, Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium in presumably balmy Santa Clara, California.
Four will play for the New England Patriots: offensive tackle Will Campbell, wide receiver Kayshon Boutte and pass rushers K’Lavon Chaisson and Bradyn Swinson. One will play for the Seattle Seahawks: guard Anthony Bradford.
Bradford, 24, is a 6-4, 355-pound native of Muskegon, Michigan who played at LSU from 2019-22. He helped the Tigers rebound from a down season in 2021 with a 10-win season in ’22 and a berth in the Southeastern Conference championship game.
The 6-6, 319-pound Campbell, the fourth overall NFL Draft pick from Monroe/Neville High School in last year’s NFL Draft, has lived up to his billing in his rookie NFL season. He is an offensive line legacy, being the son of Brian “Bull” Campbell, who played on the offensive line for East Texas State, which now goes by East Texas A&M University, still located in Commerce.
Boutte, from New Iberia, didn’t get drafted until the sixth round of the 2023 draft. He’s had a solid season for the Patriots with 33 catches for 551 yards and 6 touchdowns. He may be best remembered at LSU for setting an SEC record for receiving yards in a game, with 308 yards on 14 catches, with three touchdowns, against Ole Miss in 2020.
Swinson, 21, is a 6-4, 255-pound native of Douglasville, Georgia, who was a 5th-round pick in last year’s draft, and the 6-3, 255-pound Chaisson is a Houston native who was the 20th overall first-round pick (Jacksonville) in the 2020 draft. He wore the prestigious No. 18 jersey at LSU, being recognized as a special team leader. Chaisson rose to legendary status as a senior at Houston’s North Grove High School, when he was named the defensive MVP of Texas’ Class 6A state championship game against Austin’s Westlake High School. He had 2 sacks, 4 tackles behind the line, a blocked kick, a forced fumble and a game-saving tackle on 4th-and-goal in a 21-14 victory.
Former Louisiana Tech star Milton Williams is hoping to extend his Super Bowl LIX luck from last year, when the 6-3, 290-pound defensive tackle from Crowley, Texas played for the winning Philadelphia Eagles at the Superdome. Williams, who had two sacks and forced and recovered a fumble in the Eagles’ Super Bowl victory over the Chiefs, signed with New England as a free agent after last season.
‘As well’ …
Finally, since weather has been on the minds of so many of late, brace yourself — in any town in the state or country — for hearing many, many times on the TV weather report two words from the meteorologists or weather readers – “as well.”
It’s as if they are instructed to say “as well” – at a bare minimum — a half-dozen times in each broadcast. Or be fired.
Personally, I much prefer when they report “all is well” with the weather.
