This morning's report in the DMN says it's unclear who paid for the meals. The tweets apparently say he had dinner with them, but perhaps cleverly don't say anything about paying for them. Dumb on the part of the players; a pile of crap on the part of the agent; and another reason that the social media thing needs to fade into the night.
Those tweets have to be some of the most selfish, idiotic things I've ever read. Who cares if the kids get in trouble for it - hey if they lose their eligibility, I'll just get to represent them a year earlier and start getting payed sooner. Utter scumbaggery.
Well just like johnny rolling up $20s in the bathroom, it doesn't mean anything, but it sure makes you wonder why they would do it knowing the possible repercussions.
Just hope the players' stories jive and no one is caught lying to the NCAA. Expect a game or two suspension from the NCAA. No telling what Strong will do, but it will not be pretty.
I'd like to see Mason Walters fire the ***-hat. Hopefully the players and family members paid for their meals. The agent is a freakin clown.
I thought that there was a state law implemented a while ago that basically says if an agent or someone else breaks the NCAA rules and there are financial penalties to the school (loss of bowl revenue, for example), then the agent can be held liable?
Other sources are indicating that the NCAA can permit restitution if, in fact, the meals were paid for by the agent. That same source, quoting the ***-hat's tweets, indicates that the players were accompanied by parents. Hard to think there could have been that much irresponsibility.
Bingman reminds me of a couple of neverwas wannabes that used to try to steal players from other agents and sign our players. Wound up getting one coach fired in Austin. Patterson & Strong need to put this human waste on notice that Travis County is not on his itinerary now and or ever.
I think who paid for what is really a secondary issue. Even if it isn't against the rules, the fact that these players were out with this guy at all is what concerns me the most. I seriously doubt that Strong was aware of it beforehand.
OK so here's an issue over which someone really needs to jump up and challenge the NCAA: Basically you have five kids that may or may not have had dinner paid for by an agent. But in fact, at this point, the only proof that ANYTHING happened was that an agent tweeted about it. You know... the guy who needs to promote his business by making it look like he's wining and dining prominent athletes? So on the strength of five unverified tweets, the NCAA will now suspend the players. How in the world would this hold up in court? Even if the players could produce a receipt (and who keeps their restaurant receipts?) they could never prove that the agent wasn't there with them - and in fact, it's also possible that the agent could have "stalked" them, found them or saw them at the restaurant, swung by and chatted them up for a while, then left and said "hey, had dinner with some great kids." There's no way to prove or disprove any of those things sufficiently. BTW, I'm not arguing that any of those scenarios happened. But even if the tweets ended up being lies, the kids would still get suspended, because the NCAA would never take an athlete's word over an agent's word.
I'll start by saying that if they went to dinner with an agent and the agent bought, I believe they broke the rules and should be punished. The University spends A LOT of time reminding kids what they can and can't do... That said, this is more ********* from an organization that has far outlived it's usefulness. Why does the NCAA care who a player has dinner with. If it's an issue of who paid, who gives a flying flip? It is bizarre to me that something like a dinner, even a nice dinner, is not allowed. For Christ's sake, the NCAA just had to pass a rule allowing universities to provide adequate meals to their athletes.
Have to agree with Hu Fan. Along the lines of... "What the America public doesn't know..is what makes them the American public".
