NIL “r” Us: Money Talks Nobody Walks

Back in the glory daze of Cardinal hoops — 70s to mid 80s — such was illegal.

Giving money to secure the services of a desired high schooler. Who even thought much about transfers then?

Nonetheless, a pal who was connected with the program asked if I’d contribute to secure the services of a wannaget? I threw in a Benjamin, which was all I could afford at the time. A score of those in the pot, the kid came to the Ville.

A Top 10 All-Timer, it turned out.

Lots of success and smiles ensued.

Best return on an investment I ever made.

A Card baller from the late 60s has told me that once a week during the season, there’d be an envelope in his campus mailbox with a few crumpled twenties.

How quaint.

Despite all the double double toil and trouble fire burn caldron bubble of the last decade, I remain a steadfast loyalist. I am not dissuaded.

So, energized by Pat Kelsey’s take that Knute Rockne pep talk in his introductory presser, I’ve ponied up again.

No meeting with a guy in a trench coat and fedora in a dark alleyway, no slipping cash under the table, I gave 502Circle my credit card.

For which modest gift, I am now in possession of a leather coaster, fridge magnet and football shaped church key, all adorned with the collective’s logo.

And a partially filled hoops roster.

But, make no mistake it’s the James Gang meets Darth Vader meets Night of the Living Dead out there. Try to close a deal on a big, but know Frank Miller is out of the hoosegow and headed back to Hadleyville.

A fellow the Cards were after and in the hunt with has announced he shall matriculate at UDub. For $2mill, it is reported.

A couple of Aggie alums not so long ago threw a $78 mill fistful of oil money to make a football coach go away.

How do you compete with that?

Understand as unwieldy and out of control as this whole scenario has become, I do not decry it. It was a long time coming, it will be a long time gone. (Somewhat clever song reference aside, it ain’t goin’ nowhere.)

It’s the new deal.

But what pisses me off is that it all could have been avoided had the dunderheaded muckety mucks at NCAA HQ in Indy the merest scintilla of foresight. A process could have been established that would have been fair and satisfied all. Players. Schools. Boosters. Sister Jean.

But nooooooooooooooooo!!!

Instead we got Rowdy Roddy Piper taking on the Free Birds by himself in a Loser Leaves Town Texas Chainsaw Death Match. Hundreds of times a day in the guise of sporting outfits representing institutions of Higher Learning for a loftier purpose.

— c d kaplan

One thought on “NIL “r” Us: Money Talks Nobody Walks

  1. As Magin Traynor might sing, ” it’s all about that cash, that cash…”
    Welcome to the socioeconomic petry dish of sleaze, graft, dishonesty, mob-influenced transactions, backstabbing and the demise of a value system which we old timers were taught to embrace. Of course, you all know this.

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