Posted on 10/12/2010 2:19:40 PM PDT by truthandlife
I will never forget the first time I paid a player.
There are moments you will always remember, like your first kiss or your first home run or the day you met your wife. For me, the first time I broke an NCAA rule to try to land a client is just as indelible.
It was before the 1990 football season, and I flew from Los Angeles to Denver and drove to the University of Colorado to try to meet with Kanavis McGhee. He was a big, pass-rushing linebacker who was expected to be a high pick in the 1991 NFL draft. I was 20 years old -- the youngest agent ever certified by the NFL Players Association -- and had less than a year's experience, but for whatever reason I convinced myself that I had a shot with him.
I figured out where Kanavis lived, drove to his apartment and knocked on the door. No one answered, so I waited. About four hours later, Kanavis finally came home and I bum-rushed him at the door.
"Hey, Kanavis, my name is Josh Luchs. I'm a sports agent, and I flew here from Los Angeles specifically for you," I said. "You're a great player and I came a long way, and I'd really appreciate it if you would sit down and talk to me for a few minutes."
(Excerpt) Read more at sportsillustrated.cnn.com ...
What stupid rule!
I’m not sure that’s such a bad rule — at least from the NFLPA’s perspective. I don’t see how a professional player’s association like that should have any concern about what a player did before he was a member of the organization — at least in terms of what appears to involve no criminal behavior of any kind.
Entertaining indeed! What a fabulous article and all around story. This Luchs fellow sure did have alot of dirt to dish and I am thankful he did so. A whole world that I never knew existed jumped right off the page.
Thanks for sharing.
My issue is with the so called Amateur Athletes who aspire to become professionals.
The way they have learned to use the system to get free stuff is indicative of their lack of character.
They have an opportunity to use the free college education to build some kind of foundation which will serve them well in the future as adults.
Instead they choose to take the low road. It is no wonder that many of them turn out to be less than exemplary role models.
Fifty or more years ago, a sportsman graduated college and then went on to play professional ball. They also went on to start a family and build businesses to sustain them in the future.
Today, that example is found only in the exceptions to the normal way of doing things. How many Professional Athletes are there who even go back to college after they turn Professional and get a four year degree like Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys?
As a father who makes sacrifice sand tough choices about spending priorities every day to send three kids to college, I can't and won't sympathize with an amateur athlete who gets a free college education and in turn treats it like crap!!!
The guy is an immoral scum bag that knew exactly what he was doing, and chose to make it a career. He is one of life's bad men.
I respect your opinion. This is not a Job I would choose for myself or my children.
However, my point is that the current state of Professional Athletics in this country is disturbing. I don't think it is the entirely the fault of the Agents , NCAA, Players Union or the Professional Leagues and colleges. It is the athlete him/her self who has to examine themselves and be held accountable for what they do with their life.
Professional Athletes have become part of an entitlement class along with Government Employees, Professional Politicians and Entertainers.
If they weren't playing games for pay they would be breaking into our houses!
Why do the colleges encourage and facilitate math students meeting with recruiters and headhunters for future job prospects but forbid the athletes from doing the same?
Is securing a negotiated pay scale for a job with the NFL somehow less worthy than doing the same with Goldman Sachs?
How are they choosing the low road by taking a job with the NFL and using their God given talents to make millions? Is there more honor in a math whiz becoming a quant for JPMorgan Chase?
Interesting post!
This is similar to extorting someones lunch money. And there is hardly a one that ever enters college with the intention of getting a degree. They are told from the time they are small children how much better they are but for all of the wrong reasons.
The parents are also responsible for what kind of man they are raising in this environment. You can not just blame the agent.
In the practical sense, nobody is preventing Athletes from networking. The rules say you can't take money from an agent. They don't say that you can't speak with them.
Also as one of those math and engineering students who was interested in getting a job after studying for 4 years, it is not the same thing. No company offered me $2,500.00 so I could help my mother pay the rent.
They offered me a job. I did not get a signing bonus. I showed up for work and one month latter I received a pay check. Nobody gave me a car or subsidized my carfare on the train to get to work for that month.
It is not even close to being the same thing!
That's because in the math world you were the equivalent of a Division III bench warmer. I assure you, had you been one of the top of statistical analysis at CalTech life would have been very different for you. And your post was still non-responsive as to the double standard for athletic skills as opposed to intellectual. Do you just dislike athletes?
Being wined and dined as a potential lucrative client is the equivalent of "extorting someones lunch money"? I can't imagine all the "extortion" that went on at Gibson's Steakhouse today.
I will bet there is no rule against an athlete getting a free lunch while an agent is making his pitch. Amateur Athletes get free stuff from alumni all of the time.
Math and engineering students get nothing but words of encouragement. We wouldn't have it any other way!
And you'd lose that bet. And you still haven't given a reason for the double standard between top tier athletic ability and intellectual savant treatment about prospective employment other than a general sense of jealousy.
bump for later read
I was waiting for the personal attack. It has been my life long experience as a Division III Engineer as well as a husband and father, that at some point in the discussion, someone will blink and make a personal attack or two. Usually this sort of thing happens when I am having a discussion with a left winger over politics.
I enjoy athletics as well. Giving Scholarships to college athletes was a grand idea to allow a poor kid who excels at sports a chance to get a college education he would not have been able to obtain otherwise. Somewhere along the line this practice has been distorted to the point that the education of the athlete has become a calamity.
In violation of NCAA rules. But graduate students get grants from donors, corporations, the government and alumni all the time and that's encouraged and even solicited. Why the double standard?
It's a personal attack to differentiate you from the top tier math savants at MIT and CalTech? What thin skin you have.
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