The BJ Report is a free-flowing conversation that sometimes drifts completely off topic because it is dictated by two guys with zero focus.
Jesse: THE DRAFT IS COMING, AHH!!!
Brian: OK, well first, are we agreeing with the rest of the world about the top three prospects?
This doesn’t have much to do with my article, I just think the t-shirt is funny and I needed a picture. When rape culture is at odds with capitalism.
The NCAA is not broken. It’s working exactly how it was designed. As a corporation in a capitalist society, your duty is to accrue as much profit as possible. Make no mistake, despite their non-profit status, both the NCAA and its member institutions are very much corporations. Basic economics would denote that one of the easiest ways to accrue said profit is to reduce labor costs. Luckily, we have this wonderful fallacy called amateurism that reduces labor costs to free. The best thing about amateurism is that the NCAA basically invented its contemporary definition, and exists solely to enforce the integrity of this made-up definition. College sports are dumb. I have a few suggestions to make it better. As always, I don’t consider any of them to be realistic, only correct.
I’m not gonna waste a lot of words on this one because the rule is so dumb that it doesn’t require much critique. Not only are college athletes not paid, but they are FORBIDDEN to receive compensation from anyone in any way, shape, or form. The implications of these restrictions range from the inability to accept a free dinner to the inability to profit off of… their own image. You think Johnny Manziel couldn’t be making bank off of commercial appearances right now? Ohio State football players were villainized for trading jewelry and trophies that THEY WON for tattoos—not even cash!
Objection! But won’t this disproportionately favor large schools with wealthy donors and bigger platforms to showcase athletes
Response: Of course! But how is this ANY different than the way it is now? This will effectively do nothing to parity in college sports because there is very little in the first place
This is actually more on the pro leagues than the NCAA. A player should have the ability to be drafted at any time, at any age. Every person in the world should automatically be eligible to be drafted at any given time. If a drafted player doesn’t want to go pro, then they don’t have to. If they get drafted and make a roster, they lose their NCAA eligibility. The only reason age restrictions exist is so that professional sports leagues can be protected from their own bad investments. College sports serve as a free filter to decrease the likelihood teams waste money, it’s not about what is “best for the athlete” like they claim.
Objection! But most athletes don’t make it on the pros, shouldn’t we be encouraging them to get degrees?
Response: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. You know what the average salary for someone with a bachelor’s degree is? $55,000. The 30th pick in the first round of the NBA draft will make almost $1 million dollars (the top pick will make almost $5 million) during his FIRST YEAR. A 3-year NBA career for an average player likely garners more guap than someone with a bachelor’s degree gets in a lifetime. Even if you don’t make it in the NBA, playing in a European league will still be more financially prosperous than 98% of jobs. Same goes for football without the alternative leagues, but then again far fewer players enter the NFL without a degree.
Bonus Objection! Yeah but I just saw that documentary “Broke” and it says that most athletes blow all that money they make in The League
Bonus Response: Yes, this is unfortunately extremely common, but this isn’t an issue exclusive to pro ball players. A large percentage of major athletes are from working class background, and typically when working class folks get a lot of money at once, they spend it because saving is a foreign concept (see: lottery winners). Plus, you gotta put the whole team on–friends, families, boo thangs and all. Conversely, when working class folks get college degrees, they end up in six-figure debt and spend most of their lives paying it off. Neither of these are absolute outcomes, but if you’re choosing between one or the other, take the millions.
First of all, I want to say up front that I did not come up with this idea, I actually got it from one of my college professors. This might seem like the most radical of my suggestions, but it actually basically exists already. The schedules for major college athletes are so restricted that there are only a certain set of classes one can feasibly take anyway. There is a reason athletes seem to travel in packs around college campuses. The notion that these athletes are “students first” is idiotic when it’s virtually impossible for them to be students in the same way as everyone else. I propose that we just let them come to school and focus entirely on sports. Their academic schedule would consist of working out, going to practice, and gameplanning—in other words, exactly what they do now. You could even incorporate academic courses that increase knowledge of the game and educated around coaching strategies. Design a curriculum that helps these athletes be professionals in the field of their choice. There is no difference between this and what Art and Music students do.
Objection! Ok, I get that it’s more financially prosperous to play pro ball than get a regular job, but that doesn’t change the fact that most college athletes aren’t good enough to make a living in sports.
Response! No problem! I have two great solutions. The most feasible one is to allow athletes to come back and get a non-athletic degree at any time. Universities owe them that, which I’ll get to later. The other option is to allow athletes to get their degree while playing sports, similar to what is possible now. Athletes should have the agency to choose the option is most conducive to their success, just like everyone else.
A lot of people are in favor of paying college athletes, but generally folks are vague about how this would actually happen. I propose that something like a union negotiates a flat rate to be paid for athletes at various levels of competition (based on market value). For example, all Division 1 football and basketball programs would be required to pay each player $50,000 (I pulled this number out of my ass). Division 2 and non-revenue sports programs would not be required to pay their athletes because they generally have no market value, but the programs would still have the OPTION to compensate athletes in any fashion they so desire.
Objection! They already get paid! A four-year scholarship is often worth up to $200,000
Response: Chile, please. It’s hard to calculate the financial impact of the average college football or basketball player at any given school, but the existence of the team most certainly has a positive impact. At a handful of schools, this benefit comes in the form of direct profit, often up to tens of millions of dollars. At most schools however, major college athletics is a key contributor to the brand of the university (and remember, higher ed=corporation). Outside of the Ivy League, the only schools with major college sports whose academic reputations supersede their athletic programs are Stanford, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt. At any other Division 1 school, taking away their basketball and/or football team significantly enhances the perception of the school for the potential student (you know I’m right Michigan, Duke, and Notre Dame). This is not to say these schools are irrelevant without sports, but there is a reason the Student Activities Building at U of M has a Denard Robinson cutout you can take a picture with.
Even were all this not true, saying that a scholarship athlete costs a university the full cost of attendance for four years is not even close to accurate. To say that the University of Michigan loses $200,000 per athlete is to assume that said athlete is taking a place at the school that would otherwise go to a normal student paying the full cost of attendance. For one, because of either financial need of merit-based aid, very few people pay the full cost of attendance at any school. For two, because athletes are nearly always admitted to the school based entirely off of their athletic achievements, they are not even competing with other students because they have a separate admissions process. Assuming they have the space to house them, U of M could easily offset the cost by simply accepting more students.
Bonus Objection! Most schools lose money on athletics as it is, how can they be expected to pay their athletes?
Bonus Response: Two Options: Either don’t be in Division 1, or lower the cost of/drop your other sports. The only reason schools are able to offer a billion sports is because they take the money from exploiting football players. I would like for wrestlers to have the opportunity to wrestle at the college level, but there is no ethical reason a school should have to offer it (where are the positive externalities?). If a school would rather not cut sports, then cut football or drop a division. Limiting the teams who can call themselves Division 1 effectively does little but change the label some schools carry. Just as allowing athlete compensation will favor existing powerhouses, so will consolidating the size of Division 1.
Right now, a coach can take another job whenever he or she wants, even before the season is over (and of course get paid too). A player, on the other hand, must wait a year AFTER the season is over if they want to play at a different school. This is fuckin stupid. Players should be able to leave programs whenever they want and regain eligibility as soon as the semester starts. Y’ALL the ones who created capitalism, I’m just callin it like I see it.
Objection! Athletes make a commitment to the university, and it should not be that easy to dishonor that commitment!
Response: Right now scholarships are already one-year renewable commitments, so schools can renege if they can’t use your body anymore. College athletes are human beings and sometimes they change their minds about things. Their should be no penalty for dipping.
A couple of weeks ago, Grantland ran a series of interactive articles in which readers got to vote on the most hated player in college basketball history in an NCAA tournament style bracket (well, since hatred was invented in the 80s). Duke University appropriately got its own region and former Blue Devil Christian Laettner ultimately emerged as the tournament’s winner, defeating UNC ass hole Tyler Hansbrough in the final. This was pretty much the expected result. The winner had to be from the Duke section of the bracket and Laettner is the posterboy for all things Duke. In fact, if you had to pick a flaw in the bracket, it’s that in my mind JJ Redick was Laettner’s biggest competition, but Redick had to bow out in the Elite 8 because the competition limited Dukie final four participants to one.
People hate Duke for a lot of reasons–they win a lot; Coach K is whiny and annoying; the university itself oozes entitlement; and as the Grantland hateable hoopers bracket displays, they have a long history of players who are pricks. The most important reason to hate Duke, and really the only one that matters, is that Duke is white. When I say they’re white, I’m talking about more than the fact that they’re known for having white players. It’s that even their black players seem to have qualities we associate with whiteness. It seems like Coach K recruits exclusively at prep schools and Jack and Jill chapter meetings.
I like most of the teams in the playoffs (and the league for that matter), but I don’t like the Miami Heat. I can honestly say that the only reason this is the case is because a team with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh are always going to SEEM like favorites to me, and there is no visceral appeal to rooting for favorites. Individually there is not one Heat player I have a problem with, and I have genuine sympathy for the shit LeBron in particular has to go through, but I can still never root for them.
What’s interesting about this series is that by most accounts, the Heat are coming in as genuine underdogs, and rightfully so. The OKC Thunder have beaten better competition and in a more convincing fashion. LeBron is probably a little better than Durant, and Wade is probably a little better than Westbrook, but James Harden is definitely better than a broken Bosh (if Bosh was healthy, it would be a wash for the Heat AT BEST). Past that, Ibaka is about twice as good as the Heat’s fourth best player (probably Chalmers), and to a man, the Thunder role players are pretty much all more consistently useful than the Heat’s (at everything besides dap giving, at which Ronny Turiaf is king).
The good news for the Heat is that the Thunder are not really constructed to exploit the Heat’s weaknesses. Miami has without a doubt the best perimeter defense in the league, but the true post presences on this team are borderline D-League players. Luckily, the Thunder can only counter with Kendrick Perkins and Serge Ibaka. Perk has negative offensive game, and Ibaka is more athletic than deft, getting most of his points off dunks. Occasionally Ibaka can get the jumper going, but if that happens Miami has no shot anyway. The Thunder have two combo guards who get most of the PT in the backcourt, and while both can create to some extent, neither is the Rondo-type (or entire Spurs team) ideal for breaking down the Heat defense. Theoretically LeBron can slow down Durant and some combination of Wade/Battier/Chalmers can take turns harassing Westbrook and Harden. If that happens, the Thunder won’t have anyone else who can create.
On the other hand, the Thunder have their own advantages for the same reasons.Since Miami’s offense operates most effectively with Bosh spreading the floor and knocking down open 18-footers With no one to guard in the post, Ibaka, who is by far the best shot blocker in the league, will have the freedom to roam around and do whatever the hell he wants. I wouldn’t be surprised if he averaged five blocks per game this series (averaged almost four in the regular season, so that’s pretty reasonable). I expect Durant to spend a good deal of time at the 4, allowing the Thunder to get both Harden and Thabo Sefolosha on the floor for large stretches of time. Sefolosha is pretty toothless on offense outside of the occasional trey, but he’s a very good defender who will be called upon to handle both LeBron and Wade at times. While LeBron is almost certainly going to have to spend the entire series guarding Durant, I think Durant is going to end up guarding Bosh, or even Battier for most of the time. This is going to save him a lot of energy, and he already has had more rest during the playoffs than his superstar counterparts. The Thunder aren’t quite the defensive team the Heat are, but they have better matchups and have rim protection that the Heat can’t match. The role players are really going to have to be hitting their open jumpers when Wade or LeBron meet Ibaka or Perkins at the rim and have to kick it out. Non-Bosh’s have not shown the ability to do this consistently to this point.
No matter what happens, this series is going to be fun as hell. I was rooting against the Heat the whole way, but I’m glad they’re here (if that makes sense?). This is the most fun possible finals matchup outside of Spurs vs. Spurs. In my lifetime there has never been this much athleticism on the court, and all the stars in this series give 143% while playing at 476 mph. It’s gonna be a largely center-less small ball series, the likes of which we’ve never seen before. We’re probably gonna see back-to-back cool shit that doesn’t seem possible, about 392584037285 bullshit narratives are gonna form and die between games quarters, and my head is probably gonna explode midway through Game 2.
I have a really bad feeling about this prediction, but I don’t see a way around saying anything other than Thunder in 5. Although the Thunder don’t have the bigs to kill the Heat, on paper nothing seems to FAVOR them besides the fact that LeBron is the best player. The Heat are already tired and bruised, and now they have to take on the most healthy, energetic team in the league. OKC has home-court advantage in more ways than one, because their fans are the best in the league while Miami’s are arguably the worst. No one is going to completely stop the two best players on either team, but a good game from any one of the Thunder role players probably means the Thunder are gonna win that particular game. For the Heat to win, their big three are going to have to trump the Thunder’s AND compensate for OKC’s other advantages–I just don’t see that happening.
By all accounts, the Thunder should win. Popular opinion is that Kevin Durant is at least as good as LeBron, Dwyane Wade isn’t the man he once was, Russell Westbrook is playing at a high level, and Chris Bosh is hobbled at best. Popular opinion is that Miami fades in big moments, that Oklahoma can be propelled to victory on its home floor by the crowd alone, and that Miami gets nothing at home.
And that’s exactly why I think the Heat are going to win this series.
Dear Mr. Romney,
I am contacting you to offer what I think is a mutually beneficial proposition. I am a politically disaffected American who has no stake in the upcoming presidential election. I am quite certain that I do not plan on voting. I have, however, been following the election process out of sheer curiosity. I want to applaud you on the success of your campaign thus far, but I do want to highlight an issue that I feel I can help rectify. I have noticed that when you are delivering your speeches, the ethnic makeup of the crowd behind you is relatively homogenous. Neither of us is naïve enough to believe that you will receive anything close to a majority of the popular minority vote, but it could be potentially detrimental to both your campaign and the Republican party as a whole if you are perceived to be unreceptive to diversity. Admittedly, I understand the struggles you must have securing a consistent brown face to showcase, especially when visiting key heartland states. Luckily, I am here for you. I am a 21-year old, college educated, black male willing to become a permanent fixture of the Romney campaign. I can represent a number of groups of people whose interest you struggle to attract. No one would confuse me for anything other than a minority, but my fair complexion and freckles offer two distinct advantages:
1.) I am effectively racially ambiguous; I am willing to be presented as both African American and Latino, if necessary.
2.) I am less intimidating to your base.
For the bargain price of $10,000 per appearance, I am willing to appear at frequent campaign stops, right behind you in the camera’s view. I would be willing to negotiate a discounted price for multiple appearances in close temporal proximity of each other. For a premium, I am also willing to be photographed shaking hands, or even firmly embracing you. I urge you to strongly consider this offer, as I am confident that you would like to be president as much as I would like to get out of debt. Contact me at your leisure, and we can begin discussing a plan of action.
Sincerely,
Brian Harris
At least he bought a jersey
This past Saturday, December 24, the Detroit Lions made the playoffs for the first time since 1999. Even in ’99, they only squeaked in with an 8-8 record because the NFC lacked depth. I don’t remember much about it because I was 9 and had a soccer game that day. That means I’ve never really experienced anything good happening to the Lions. there’s something different about being a fan of an incompetent franchise in the NFL. In baseball, the odds are stacked against most teams, so whatever Pirates, but the NFL is structured so that no team can dominate, and even poorly run franchises can get lucky. As fans we attach part of our personal worth to the teams we identify with, so it’s a natural defense mechanism to give excuses when our teams underperform. As Lions fans, our excuse was Matt Millen. In MIllen’s defense, he was as unlucky as he was a bad decision maker. No one struck out on more sure things. For his tenure, the Lions had the worst eight-year record in the history of the NFL, which of course culminated with 0 and 16. Unless you were a Lions fan, and I mean a real Lions fan, it’s hard to fully understand 0 and 16, so I won’t spend too much time trying to explain it. When you spend a decade expecting to lose every game every year, it actually happening feels more like the realization of the inevitable than a shocking tragedy. We didn’t just hit rock bottom, we were living there.
A few days ago, at the conclusion of the bitter crosstown rivalry between Xavier University and the University of Cincinnati, a minor brawl took place. As a result, eight players ended up being suspended a total of thirty games. By most accounts, this was far too few, particularly since the most high profile players involved, Xavier guards Mark Lyons and Tu Holloway, seemed to show relatively little remorse for their involvement in the altercation. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE in the media has broken out there inner Bob Costas to take shots at all parties involved with the situation. Meanwhile, somewhere, in probably multiple locations in North America, this same type of altercation is taking place at a hockey rink right now. In fact, the hockey players involved are making efforts to make sure they hurt each other worse by removing the padding that would soften their blows. I’m saying this as someone who is not a big hockey fan, but I am saying this with conviction because it is so pervasive and acceptable in hockey culture that even a less-than-casual fan like me knows this to be true. And you know what else? No one gives a shit.
Given that I like to write, I especially like to write about sports, and I ESPECIALLY like to write about sports on the internet, you’d expect me to join the mass of people scrambling to explain the Tim Tebow phenomenon. To be honest though, I was content with sitting this one out. I spent an exorbitant amount of time and energy (mostly) irrationally loathing Tebow during his time at the University of Florida. He was the best player and golden idol for my least favorite college football team and academic institution, it happens. Since he’s left college, it’s not like I turned into a follower, but I hold no ill will towards the man. He seems like a handsome, passionate, nice guy who loves his mother and is not that good at quarterback. Look at that, we’re like the same person!
In my opinion, Zooey Deschanel is one of the prettiest women on the planet. I enjoy essentially everything she acts in (maybe just because I think she’s pretty). From ‘Almost Famous’ to ‘Elf’ to her guest spot in ‘Weeds’. Of course the pinnacle is 500 Days of Summer. I can safely say it is one of my favorite movies. Deschanel pretty much plays the same character as she does in every movie, but 500 days of Summer was unique because it provided the visual manifestation of how my interactions with her go in my head. And I don’t think I’m alone. Most romantic comedies depict romance from the woman’s perspective, but 500 Days allowed us male hopeless romantics to have a character WE could live vicariously through. Sure, Gordon-Levitt is attractive like most male leads, but at least he’s skinny, and for once we got to see a typical example of neuroticism from the man’s side of a relationship.
And damn was Deschanel the perfect love interest. For one, her character’s name was Summer. It’s the type of name that matches a certain level of attractiveness. ‘Summer Finn’ just screams ‘cute’ (for that matter, so does Zooey spelled with two o’s) the same way that ‘Scarlett’ and ‘Beyonce’ scream ‘hot’. Hopeless romantics don’t want a sex symbol, they want someone they can SEE themselves have a relationship with. Someone with substance. Someone who thinks about shit and has legitimate interests outside whatever’s trending. In other words, a real person. Deschanel’s character is awkward, quirky, and at times flat-out weird, and we DIG it. These traits make her seem accessible, and as a result, even more attractive.
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After the Gold Cup final, I came to terms with the fact that for the first time in a decade, the Mexican National team is definitively superior to the USMNT. It wasn’t just the result that made this evident; after all, the game could have gone completely differently had the US not had to replace Cherundolo with Jonathan Bornstein, effectively discombobulating the entire defensive unit. As a result of this substitution, we saw 75 minutes of exactly what happens when a world-class attack goes up against an ill-equipped defense. I’m almost happy it happened because it exposed exactly how wide the creativity gap is between El Tri and the Yanks. It wasn’t just Chicharito, or Gio Dos Santos, I saw class all over the field that we can only potentially counter with the likes of Clint Dempsey, and maybe, MAYBE Landon Donovan. The future of Mexican soccer is quite bright which naturally casts an inversely dark shadow on the outlook of the American team.
Timmy Chandler could be the first of a wave of young mixed-race German-Americans to hijack the USMNT
Arguably the most encouraging sign for the American soccer fan in 2011 was the play of Timmy Chandler against Paraguay and Argentina. Both perennial South American World Cup participants seemed to have a hell of a time dealing with his pace down the right side of the pitch. For all but the most avid of USMNT fans, this came out of nowhere. It was immeasurably refreshing not only to see offensive potency outside of Dempsey and Donovan, but also because we’ve grown accustomed to seeing our outside backs play like, well, backs. This is even more significant now that Klinsmann is at the helm, as it will be much more vital for defenders to get involved up front in his attack-oriented scheme. Chandler became the second American raised in Germany to debut for the team in the past year. The first was Jermaine Jones, a bruising central midfielder who, to date, does not do much more than bruise when called upon to complement Michael Bradley in the midfield. Another German-American made his debut in the same set of games as Chandler; a keeper by the name of David Yelldell. Besides being raised in Germany, the three share another notable aspect of their identity: all of them fathered by American servicemen, all of them half-black.
I didn’t consider this more than a fantastic coincidence until recently. I always get a little soccer mad before the US plays, (I’m writing this on August 10, about an hour before kickoff against Mexico) so I decided to browse the interwebs aimlessly for stories on American soccer. I came across the name Terrence Boyd, who was apparently a young player to watch after making strides in the youth ranks of reigning Bundesliga champion Borussia Dortmund. A little more snooping revealed that Boyd was not just an American plying his trade in a world-class league, but yet another player raised in Germany who is eligible for the USMNT by virtue of having an American military father. Because his name was Terrence, I felt compelled to google image what this guy looked like, on the off chance that I had stumbled upon yet another light skinned brother. Yes!! Clicking on the most relevant picture of Boyd led me to this article on Klinsmann and German-American footballers. Sure enough, the title picture is that of mulatto Boyd. The floodgates had now been opened.
Sushi in Utah 