July 25, 2019
LSU’S $28 MILLION DOLLAR TRAVESTY
THESE ARE DENNIS DEARIE’S WORDS. PLEASE SEE HIS HEY REF COLUMN BELOW.
DENHAM SPRINGS HS FOOTBALL ON RADIO!!
Denham Springs HS Football Radio Broadcasts return to the airwaves for the 24th year as a Jon Fine Production in 2019. Josh Ward calls the play-by-play, Andy Duckworth provides color commentator and yours truly, Jon Fine, will contribute to the pre-game, half-time and post-game shows. The broadcasts can be heard 6pm Friday nights, on Family Radio, 91.9 FM, Baton Rouge and on the Internet at JonFineProductions.com… The first broadcast will be Friday, September 6, when Denham Springs plays host to Hahnville HS.
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THE WIZARDRY OF OS
Much ado about nothing. That is the off season in sports. Thank goodness we are almost to football season.
This week’s invented controversy is the renovations to LSU’s football facility. I am only going to address the “issue” this way. I am jealous of everyone.
When I was at LSU, there wasn’t a Barnes and Noble on campus. Tiger Stadium, the PMAC, and other athletic facilities weren’t as nice. The dorms weren’t as nice as they are now. The rec center didn’t have a pool in the shape of LSU. The landscaping wasn’t as nice. I didn’t have the option of eating the Pita Pit, 5 Guys, or Buffalo Wild Wings. CEBA was a horrible building on campus. Now they have Patrick Taylor for engineering (not that I was an engineering student) and it is amazing.
While I am slightly envious, in reality, I am proud of my University. I am happy for the next generation. I want the best for my school. I want them to tear down every building that doesn’t fit the master design plan. They can start with Lockett and Middleton.
Thankfully, we are almost to the beginning of football season and if I had to pick a controversy regarding a new renovated facility on LSU’s campus and a bunch of players breaking the law, then I choose the renovation.
The good news story of the week is Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf getting his jersey retired this year. I agree with those who say he was Steph Curry before Steph Curry. It was such a different era. I remember sitting in my room listening to Rauf and Gerald Glass of Ole Miss go back and forth on the radio. Glass had 53 points and Rauf had 55! Ole Miss won 113-112 in overtime. If only every game was streaming back then as they are now.
I was able to see Abdul-Rauf score 50 on the road at Florida, since it was on ESPN. I was at home by myself and was recreating every shot with my small nerf ball. Luckily many of these highlight performances are on YouTube.
It is amazing to realize that LSU has had three players unique to their eras in Maravich, Shaq, and Abdul-Rauf. When you watch highlights of Maravich, you see things that nobody else was doing during his era. The same can be said for Shaq and Abdul-Rauf. In fact, you can easily say Shaq did things that had never been done before and haven’t been done since.
While Tiger fans haven’t been spoiled by great championship teams in basketball, we certainly have been spoiled by extremely talented and transcendent individual players.
HEY REF
Why do some people enjoy getting under my skin? For some they know exactly what it takes to get me all riled up and frustrated. But now, in my old age I’ve become a little better at not allowing them to “hit a nerve” so to speak. Let me explain; first things first, everybody that knows me is well aware of my views on what I refer to as today’s legalized slave trade, the NCAA. This multi-billion dollar enterprise allows everyone the opportunity to make as much money as they can get away with except for those that are 95% responsible for the mega cash derby.
Just twenty four hours ago LSU celebrated or should I say “christened” their new $28 MILLION DOLLAR LOCKER ROOM. That doesn’t sound right so let me quote new athletic director Scott Woodward as he calls it the new Football Operations and Performance Nutrition Center. I guess when you spend $28 million you can call it whatever you want and I guess that’s his way of putting a perfect “spin” on it or as I would call it a MEGA TRAVESTY!
I can hear y’all now “But Hey Ref it was all donated dollars”! That doesn’t make it right by any means. Take a look at it from a sane person’s reasoning, which of course is mine, this whole abomination of wasting millions just so the athletic department can brag or as I will call it admit to its self-professed ignorance. A. D. Woodward calls this new building “truly innovative” and “it’s absolutely necessary”.
Mr. Woodward let me tell you what’s absolutely necessary; the first thing needed at LSU and at all major colleges is for those people in power to exercise some old fashioned COMMON SENSE! If there just so happened to be any of it at the athletic dept. in Baton Rouge it would say we need to improve our classrooms, we should be putting many more dollars in the pockets of the best professors that this money could hire.
If we had common sense we’d put more money into the university as a whole so student’s tuition wouldn’t continue to rise at the alarming rate that we’ve seen for most of the last 20 years. Mom and pop wouldn’t have to work more than two jobs just to afford the luxury of having one of those bumper stickers that say “My kid goes to LSU”! Common sense would also tell you that you could use some of that money to plug the holes in the roofs so lab students wouldn’t have to bring umbrellas with them each and every time it rains. That is of course if you understand the Baton Rouge campus is located less than a hundred miles from the Gulf of Mexico, the same place where hurricanes grow into killers before they come knocking on our doors.
I keep hearing your industry use the phrase “Student Athletes” when describing the players you’ve hired. Because they are your employees but they just so happen to be your non-paid employees. If you describe your players in that way and you should then why aren’t you putting more emphasis on the STUDENT? The question that should be asked of you is “LSU an academic university or an athletic university”?
I’m not sure how many fans are going to counter me by saying former players Patrick Peterson and Tyraqnn Mathieu both donated $1 million each to LSU. I did read that little tidbit but what the story didn’t say is this; Mathieu signed a 3 year NFL contract worth $42 million. He was paid a signing bonus of $14.8 million; his average salary is $14 million of which $26.8 million is guaranteed. Mr. Peterson signed for 5 years which will pay him $70 million. His signing bonus was $15.3 million, with an average salary of $14 million and I believe his guaranteed dollars are a slight bit above the $47.3 million dollar mark. So if I use the old math it looks like LSU will receive a mere $2 million out of the $112 million these two players could make. So that combined “donation” amounts to squat.
But my biggest complaint is that the players busting their rumps day in and day out and bleed purple and gold aren’t given a salary while enrolled at your university. You employ people that have just one job and that is go after donations, get more money because we have to have the best. That would be fine if you shared the wealth but you and all like you involved in collegiate sporting events are greedy and by every sense of the word each and every one of you are guilty of running a modern day slave trade. I know the answer to my question but I’ll go ahead and give you a chance to thing about the answer you’ll give me but I’d like to know if you weren’t paid millions of dollars would you still be in the profession you’re in? Well, would you work for just room and board?
“Oh, HELL NO” is your answer. So why do you and your kind expect young 18 to 20 year old kids to do exactly what you wouldn’t do? Many of these kids come from poor families that can’t afford to buy textbooks. You know that’s the truth but again you and your NCAA thieves scrape every dollar away from these kids. These kids are now generating BILLIONS of dollars for you and your kind so y’all can live in the best homes, the best neighborhoods, eat at the finest restaurants and drive new cars all at their expense. I don’t know how y’all sleep at night; well I really do, y’all sleep very well knowing that some poor kid and their families are giving everything they have hoping to be in that one percent that make it to play professional sports.
To close I just want to say that what y’all are doing is wrong on so many levels. You make millions in salary and benefits. The contractors and their companies are on board with y’all because they make those same million dollars generated by these kids. Then on top of all that you dole out tickets to their games to these companies that you just accepted a “DONATION” from. Maybe what the NCAA should do is teach their students how to run Ponzi schemes. I mean after all you’re running the best in all the land!
Till next week…
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