BMatt’s Monday musings
AUBURN | NCAA athletes have been able to earn money off their name, image and likeness for five days now, and college sports still hasn’t imploded.
The predictions of doom and gloom were nothing but hot air.
In 2014 Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said, “He would go do something else,” if players started getting paid, “because there’s enough entitlement in this world as it is.” In 2019, he said how much he loved the “collegiate model” and the “value of a scholarship.”
Of course, Swinney is still Clemson’s coach today and he’s walked back those comments according to a current player. Swinney has yet to address the media this month.
During testimony at the Ed O’Bannon trial in 2014, NCAA president Mark Emmert, one of the most ineffective leaders in the history of college athletics, said Div. I schools would opt to move to Div. II or III if athletes were paid beyond the cost of attendance.
What an idiotic statement.
Fans were convinced that the rich were only going to get richer with more money funneled to top players from the boosters of top schools.
Turns out the most highly paid NCAA athlete so far is one that hasn’t played a game yet. Tennessee State incoming freshman basketball player Hercy Miller signed a $2 million deal with Web Apps America. He is the son of hip hop artist and former basketball player Master P.
Fresno State twin basketball players Hanna and Haley Cavinder, who have signed deals with Boost Mobile and Six Star Pro Nutrition and are finalizing at least one other, are also making serious bank.
Their over 6 million followers on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter could eventually earn the juniors $1-3 million per year.
LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne could potentially top the NIL income charts soon with her 3.9 million TikTok and 1.1 million Instagram followers.
Companies are also learning early lessons about NIL. Auburn quarterback Bo Nix announced his deal with Milo’s Tea shortly after midnight on July 1, which didn’t sit well with Alabama fans. About 40 hours later, Milo’s inked a deal with Alabama defensive back Malachi Moore.
There’s still a lot to understand about NIL, but the predictions by many of the officials in charge of college athletics over the past decade have been wildly off base.
The 2021 college football season is set to kickoff in about two months with most stadiums back to full capacity. The fans, bands, cheerleader and traditions that make college football so special will be back in force as will the great games, comebacks and upsets.
The things we love most about college sports haven’t changed and won’t just because a handful of athletes can now earn money just like the rest of their peers.
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In today’s musical journey, we go back 27 years to the release of one of the best-selling debut albums of all-time. On July 5, 1994, Hootie & the Blowfish released Cracked Rear View, which went on to sell over 21 million copies ranking among the top 60 all-time and the No. 3 debut album of all time. It’s the 10th best-selling album in the U.S. Although it was released in 94, it really started to take off the next spring when the debut release, Hold My Hand, climbed into the top 10 of the charts. It really took off as the second big hit, Only Wanna Be With You, rose to No. 1 on the Billboard 100 in the fall of 95.
Darius Rucker and Mark Bryan met at the University of South Carolina in the mid 1980s after Bryan heard Rucker singing in the shower at their dorm. The duo called themselves the Wolf Brothers and started playing covers at bars. Dean Felber and Jim "Soni" Sonefeld joined up and they became Hootie & the Blowfish in 1986. The band’s name comes from the nickname of two friends of the group, one with owl-like glasses and another with large, puffy cheeks. The band independently released two demo tapes in 1991 and 92. Atlantic Records signed the group in 93, one of the only labels interested as grunge music dominated the airwaves during that period. Hootie & the Blowfish have gone on to produce six albums and are still touring today despite a hiatus from 2008-18 as Rucker pursued a solo country career.
Hold My Hand was written by all four band members in 1989, was a regular on their playlist during local gigs in Columbia and originally released on a self-titled cassette in 1990. The version recorded for Cracked Rear View includes a backing vocal by David Crosby. The album was recorded in two months at NRG Studios in Los Angeles with producer Don Gehman, who also worked for R.E.M. and John Mellencamp. The name of the album comes from a John Hiatt song, Learning How To Love You, that contains the line: There was a life that I was living in some cracked rearview. Only Wanna Be With You was written in 92. It contains several references and quotes from Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks album, which led to a lawsuit that was settled for a large amount in 95. The video, which received a lot of airplay on MTV, included appearances by ESPN personalities Dan Patrick, Keith Olbermann, Mike Tirico, Charley Steiner and Chris Berman reporting on the band members playing with a number of athletes including Dan Marino, Alonzo Mourning, Muggsy Bogues, Alex English and Fred Couples. "It was just a way to meet all our idols,” Rucker told Entertainment Weekly in 95. Post Malone released a cover of the song in February of 2021.