Deja Vu All Over Again
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The Friday, June 1, 2018 edition of USA Today featured a major piece by Steve Berkowitz and Erik Brady that discussed the reactions of college sports administrators and organizations to the state-by-state legalization of college sports betting. I would have thought that college administrators and organizations would have learned a few things about how the world actually works between 2000 and 2018. I appear to have been mistaken or, conversely, the powers that be in college sports have indeed learned quite a bit, but have decided to test the gullibility of the public rather than recognize reality.
I'll go through that piece line by line later this week, but for now what I want to stress is how incredibly similar in tone and argument the college administrators and organizations are to those that attempted to ban college sports gambling in Nevada in 2000. Some of what is argued, then and now, is true. The majority, however, is illogical and conveniently skips over established facts.
I am using someone else's camera this weekend, so the following photos are pretty raggedy, as Charles Barkley might say. I'll do my best to ensure they are at least semi-readable.
Retro Resonance: Back in 2000, the then president of Penn State, Graham Spanier (yes, that Graham Spanier, who was ordered to serve a few months due to Jerry Sandusky) was chairman of the NCAA Division 1 board of directors. He spearheaded an effort that almost succeeded in vetoing college sports gambling in Nevada. Derek Wan, a reporter for Knight Ridder in the D.C. bureau, wrote a comprehensive piece that appeared in Spanier's and Penn State's local newspaper, the Centre Daily Times. I will attempt to post copies of that piece.
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