This has dirty money written all over it. Opposing coaches will be reporting him for recruiting violations left and right.
The NIL money is legal although you can make a good case a lot of it is "dirty" as boosters use their companies to funnel money to the athletes through NIL contracts.
College Athletes have Traditionally done well in Pro Wrestling Examples Dick Hutton, Verne Gagne Jack Brisco And his brother Jerry Brisco A longtime Talent Scout after his Wrestling career, Bob Backlund, Kurt Angle, Brock Lesnar Etc They Signed Gable Stevenson, Now they are also going after NCAA Athletes both from Wrestling and now other sports, signing them to NIL deals< Pro Wrestling has predetermined outcomes I am Sure Fable Stevenson will be a Champion in Pro Wrestling as he has been at all levels in real life, I am sure it is in his contract. The Tennessee Women's Shot Putter, will do well being a real athlete, also The Women's Wrestling depends on looks as to who they decide are the stars, she will do well.
Predetermined outcomes, but rough with real injuries and a lot of painkiller overdoses.
Ok, Coach C is gone – who will replace him? The ND XC / Distance coaching position is a plum the size of a watermelon. Many college coaches, assistant coaches, volunteer coaches would covet the job. But as LRC’ers place their bets – and the choice has to be made soon to hold onto the recruited class of 2026 – let’s remember where Coach C came from. In 2011 ND (perhaps Jack Swarbrick? Joe Piane?) 1. took a chance 2. followed his intuition 3. saw something others didn’t or all of the above, and plucked young Sean Carlson out of Saint Charles High School and gave him the room to turn the XC and Distance programs one of the top in the nation. As the ND website says: “Carlson led the 2020-21 cross country team to its most successful season in over 60 years.” Carlson’s total college coaching experience before Notre Dame? Seven months as a volunteer assistant at D3 North Central College. So, where does Matt Sparks look for his new XC / Distance coach? Could do worse than start with the 805 area code… Just sayin’
The program is at the top of the NCAA so turning it around can only mean going down. Every scholarship they take from the sprints or throws makes the track team worse.
The program is at the top of the NCAA so turning it around can only mean going down. Every scholarship they take from the sprints or throws makes the track team worse.
The plan is to fund XC/distance with NIL money, so no scholarships.
Some of you make that claim. Are you footing the bill? Nobody is paying a skinny guy anything. And parents will be nervous is Carlson tells them that he will get their kid $25k per year through NIL and then they visit Michigan or ND or Wisconsin and are told that they will sign a real NLI for a 50% scholarship.
This has dirty money written all over it. Opposing coaches will be reporting him for recruiting violations left and right.
I've thought about it a little and I think people are making this out harder to be when they say, "But technically you can't give NIL to get someone to go to a shool - so how will the boosters know who to give money to?"
It's very simple. They give everyone who signs a ride $50k or $100k or $25k or whatever it is. So the NIL people just put that out there publicly kind of like UT boosters are doing with linemen.
I wonder if they can even talk to the NIL guys on the recruiting trip. All Sean has to do is say, "The NIL people have offered 50k to every distance runner on the team. Or hell if they are smart they get creative, 100k for every sub-4 guy coming in out of HS, 50k for sub-4:05"
Hell, could they do put it out there like this: "Well give 150k to UT's #1 recruit, 100k to the 2nd recruit, etc." then have them publish a list 1-5 after the sign? That might be pushing it but it's not as hard as we think.
The whole thing is totally bobus anway as the runners name, image and likeness isn't worth that but it won't be shut down for a number of years.
What will be interesting is he may end up getting a different type of kid. At Notre Dame, they went there for the school and team. I mean Nuguse turned down more than 6 figures to run for the team. At Tennessee, you don't wnat to get kids that only go for the money.
It's like why has Texas sucked at football for 15 y ears relatively? It's because they get pampered recruiits who go becuase UT is amazing and has a $50 million dollar locker room, not because they are badass and want to kick ass in football.
I don't know much about the ins and outs of the NIL stuff, but if I'm a savvy AD, and I want to boost up all of my sports, and I have a high profile football and/or basketball program ... then I'm thinking about doing something like a boosters "NIL tax" where every gigantic donor looking to make a splash with the football team agrees that 10% of his money for NILs is going to other sports like track and cross-country.
And honestly, I don't think it would take megabucks to make a difference. If you're just covering the cost of tuition via NIL instead of an official scholarship, that's probably going to sway some recruits and will be effective at building a team.
I have no idea if any of this is legal in the NIL game, but just thinking out loud about possibilities.
Why not put those dollars toward the football team though instead of the XC team? No donor wants their "tax" to fund a distance runner if it could instead get a better recruit in football.
The program is at the top of the NCAA so turning it around can only mean going down. Every scholarship they take from the sprints or throws makes the track team worse.
The plan is to fund XC/distance with NIL money, so no scholarships.
That's not NIL, that's pay to play.
The game UT is playing with sports where they are trying to become a top notch athletic department by running the booster bagmen through the AD seems unsustainable to me. The idea that boosters are going to let them spend their money on XC runners while the football loses recruits and games to SEC rivals seems unlikely, to say the least.
Why not put those dollars toward the football team though instead of the XC team? No donor wants their "tax" to fund a distance runner if it could instead get a better recruit in football.
I think you underestimate the ego and excess cash of big-time boosters. They want to privilege, access, and to be connected. They want to brag about how much they donated and how much difference their contributions made to the team and university. And they get that my throwing their money around.
A good AD can potentially stroke the egos and convince them, "You'll make a difference, boss. We just need an extra $50k for track. Speed wins football games, right? You'll be soo important to our athletic department if you can help us dominate in multiple sports."
Distance runners will be cheaper than football players, so the goal is just to fill the NIL pool with money, and you can then decide how to spend it.
No. You underestimate how much the dinirs live football and hiw much dislike XC. Every dollar they donate they want to go towards improving the football team. $50K that helps track and XC is $50k that would have helped football.
The real move will be move the scholarships to xc (since we can all agree no one cares) and then find sprinters and other mega star field athletes with nil money (obviously this only works or they can really just funnel money to any athletes they want) but if possible people would be much happier paying the 100m and 4x100m champ over the 10k/xc champ!
Why not put those dollars toward the football team though instead of the XC team? No donor wants their "tax" to fund a distance runner if it could instead get a better recruit in football.
This is correct especially since the donor can sponsor whatever athlete they want directly. Why give any of it to any other sport than the one you want to support???
I'm sure there are a few donors at some school who are wealthy who will want to support track or XC so some schools will be able to take advantage of this but the ultimate result will be minor sports being reduced to club team status at most school.
Why not put those dollars toward the football team though instead of the XC team? No donor wants their "tax" to fund a distance runner if it could instead get a better recruit in football.
This is correct especially since the donor can sponsor whatever athlete they want directly. Why give any of it to any other sport than the one you want to support???
I'm sure there are a few donors at some school who are wealthy who will want to support track or XC so some schools will be able to take advantage of this but the ultimate result will be minor sports being reduced to club team status at most school.
It could be just a thing you have to do and people will end up being ok with it… at Gonzaga you need to buy season tickets to women’s basketball to have the privilege of buying season tickets to men’s they have both been sold out for days!
The real move will be move the scholarships to xc (since we can all agree no one cares) and then find sprinters and other mega star field athletes with nil money (obviously this only works or they can really just funnel money to any athletes they want) but if possible people would be much happier paying the 100m and 4x100m champ over the 10k/xc champ!
Are you guys familiar with sport of track and field? Have you seen how much trouble it is to get sponsorship for sprinters outside of the top 3-4 in the US? Who are these boosters in Knoxville who you think are excited to pay sprinters?
UT is punch-drunk on NIL right now after buying a few football recruits. We'll see how this all looks in a year or two.
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