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 ...
And if he can make 100 times more catching a football, then what's wrong if that's what the college exclusively educates him in? Does Juilliard make their viola scholarship students take organic chemistry? Does anyone ever write that up as a travesty?
There is no double standard. We are not even talking about the same thing.
Also, when was the last time a student got in trouble with the NCAA for getting a free lunch from an agent? The trouble usually arises when the college athlete/student accepts something more. Usually it is the athlete/student who is making the demands as was demonstrated in the article.
As I expected, you can't help making personal attacks. It does not bother me but it should concern you. In the heat of a reasonable disagreement, it just make your seem less than serious.
There is no double standard. We are not even talking about the same thing.
Also, when was the last time a student got in trouble with the NCAA for getting a free lunch from an agent? The trouble usually arises when the college athlete/student accepts something more. Usually it is the athlete/student who is making the demands as was demonstrated in the article.
As I expected, you can't help making personal attacks. It does not bother me but it should concern you. In the heat of a reasonable disagreement, it just make your positions on this seem less than serious.
Who do you think gets those billions in bonuses the big Wall Street firms shell out. How much does a partner from a NY white shoe firm make a year. What schools are they coming from?
I'll bet there were more 7 figure bonuses passed out in 2006 on Wall Street than there were 7 figure salaries in the NFL.
We're most certainly talking about a double standard.
Also, when was the last time a student got in trouble with the NCAA for getting a free lunch from an agent?
You tell me since you seem so willing to tell others they are wrong while you obviously argue from a position of ignorance.
If all that the schools expect from an amateur athlete is to learn how to play games which will make them both large sums of money, they have lost their way as well as the athlete. They are supposed to be on the receiving end of a quality education.
You think? Well you don't know. I do. They study their genre, that's it unless they enroll in interdivisional liberal arts.
Again I'm going to ask you for the umpteenth time this thread, why are academic pursuits a more honorable pursuit than athletic pursuits?
First we were talking about Excellent students in math an science and engineering. Now we are taking about Wall Street?
CEOs and Wall Street types did not get these large bonuses because they were gifted math students in college.
This is a far stretch from the basis of the article which started this discussion.
I hope for your sake you did not just find out that the richest people are not necessarily the smartest. I can live with that, can you?
There are hundreds and hundreds of behind the scenes quantitative analysis specialists, arbitrage structurers and trading programmers that skim billions for these banks that make more than an NFL lineman. They are the math geeks at top school programs and they are HIGHLY recruited.
Never in this entire thread did I say or imply that academic pursuits were more or less honorable than athletic.
It is never a case where the pursuit of excellence is without honor. In any field it is the perversion of the ideals associated with a failed system rather than the pursuit of excellence which is in question.
That is why I mentioned Emmitt Smith in an earlier response as someone who understands what is important in life. His own sense of honor is what makes him a success in all aspects of his life. He went back and got his 4 year degree out of both that sense of personal honor and his sense of responsibility to all of the young people who aspire to be what he has become.
Yeah, Wall Street is electronic now or were you still picturing a giant chalkboard?
What's the big personal honor in getting a piece of paper from a place that sells pieces of paper?
In both cases we are talking about bad behavior which is not acceptable. Few of the really excellent students use their gifts in that way.
More attacks rather than exchanging ideas.
Would you have what it takes to say that to the man himself?
Why is designing electronic trading platforms and programs, and analyzing arbitrage plays using a mathematical gift "for the wrong reason"?
That word doesn't mean what you think it means.
Would you have what it takes to say that to the man himself?
I tell people all the time they are wasting their money on the embossed paper selling racket. Now you tell me what is so honorable about buying paper from places that sell paper.
But in your fevered world apparently most of the athletes do.
I'm abut the same age and I'll always associate the 280Z with Datsun.
Using you skill to obtain an advantage is never wrong either in sports or in business. Nobody said it was.
Have you made your travel reservations to meet Mr. Smith yet and bestow on him your personal congratulations on his recent academic achievement?
I would not be watching the MLB Playoffs as I am typing this if I believed that.
As I read the article, that was the car another much older agent (Doc somebody) who he worked with told him he bought players in the past, not that he did it.
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