If you’ve read any of my earlier work, you may have surmised that I am rather displeased with several recent actions of the NCAA as it concerns college football. This is completely true. My latest regularly scheduled rant is on the ruling of the NCAA that Jeremy Bloom, a Colorado wide receiver and world-champion skier, cannot collect endorsement money, thus forcing him to choose between football and skiing. Here we go…
What is the NCAA thinking? It’s about to lose one of the NCAA’s best and brightest over $40,000 a year? That’s ridiculous. Players who double in minor-league baseball get twice as much as a signing bonus. The NCAA doesn’t do anything about them. Why is it going after the single case of a standout athlete?
The double standard doesn’t end there. The NCAA collects millions from licensed products, which means that wearing a Jeremy Bloom jersey while throwing passes to Jeremy Bloom on the Xbox is okay, but giving any of that money to an athlete struggling to make ends meet while pursuing his Olympic dreams is wrong.
Meanwhile, you’re missing out on a good guy throughout all the bad news in college sports, many of them coincidentaly in Boulder. Whereas most would have given a “no comment,” here’s a guy who dedicated his World Championships gold medal to Gary Barnett, his embattled head coach. When most would have sat around whining, here’s a guy who researched the rulebook to find the NCAA’s legislation on dual-sport athletes (it favors him). When most would be out for their own, here’s a guy who spearheaded a new group for athlete rights. Seems like the NCAA wants to put down a stand-up guy to me.
But does the NCAA care? No. They can’t see past the money, not even to their own rulebooks. It may be wrong, but they don’t care.
Kind of funny. The most money-conscious group in all of sports turns out to be the one that’s supposed to be amateur.
3 replies on “Bloom Getting Nipped in the Bud”
Interested I would be interested in hearing more about this story. I would like to se a follow up of this article sometime soon. I want to hear more.
interesting story yeh he’s right. you need to add more, it’s a little on the short side. ill give you the vote when you add a few more paragraphs
Just like i said to A man88 It was way too short (331 words.) I was in a rush when I wrote it, and it came out flat and uninspired. the follow-up will be much longer