THOUGHTS FROM A SEPTUGENARIAN. Did I ever think that on my 72 plus years on Planet Earth that I would ever see legalized “play for pay” in collegiate sports? Not a chance.

Back in the 50s and 60s and 70s when this dinosaur was roaming the gridirons and hardwood and diamonds as a player and as a coach all a university could offer you “legally” was a scholarship. Don’t insinuate for one second that there wasn’t some “shenanigans” being perpetrated to entice athletes to bring their services to a particular institution of higher learning.

How do I know? Because I was on the receiving end as an athlete as well as on the giving end as a recruiter. Now, the NIL simply stands for Now It’s Legal.

The ONLY group to blame for this turning into a massive cluster you know what is the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The fact that after losing the O’Bannon case that someone in the NCAA ivory tower in Indianapolis didn’t bring up in a closed-door conversation this simple question which is “How do we get ahead of the game because this idea of paying athletes isn’t going to go away.”

The NCAA counted on Congress to regulate this. That as John McCane said in Die Hard “wrong answer Hans” as they learned a hard lesson. That was the national legislative body of the USA was staying away from this issue like Superman avoids Kryptonite.

So, the NIL genie is out of the bottle and isn’t going back. I never conceived of this scenario in my formative years but to say it’s here to stay is an understatement.

The NCAA needs to show some leadership and create some hard and fast rules for the NIL and if some lawyer wants to sue just say to that person “bring it on.” You’re Goliath and a David with a bagful of rocks only works in the Bible.

You crush that lawsuit like a bug. That will send a message to other barristers that the NCAA is done rolling over and playing dead in court. We make the rules and if you don’t like them that’s just too bad.

Book it Dano!