Agreed. I’m a longtime HS coach and we’re starting to see the NIL-portal effect on our kids. They talk about it, are pretty aware of the who, what, how much and where.
I coached my first year of HS football in ‘94 and the gradual change in attitudes and behaviors since then is difficult to navigate at times. Especially for the older-old school styled coaches like me (GP too). And now we’re in the infancy of open market, money earning players, so we’re already seeing it affecting kids behaviors.
We (college football wise and society in general) have strayed so far from the foundational corps of self discipline, sacrifice for something greater than self, managing and overcoming adversity, etc that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to teach and learn these values in today’s world. I’ve always felt, besides the military, that football is the best arena to teach these things.
However, I’m beginning to feel like a hypocrite for pushing-teaching these values to young men when the governing body of the NCAA gave up on them.
I’ve had athletes note and comment on the hypocrisy of college sports. TEAM/me, your word is your bond, committing and giving all to something and all of the rest are in danger of no longer being lessons that the game teaches.
It truly is the end of the college football that I fell in love with by going with my Dad to every TCU home game from 5 years old to my college days. Portal-NIL has greatly lessened my fervent passion for TCU football and college football as a whole. It greatly saddens me but the closer it moves toward a professional minor league for the NFL, the less I care. Something I thought would never happen as recently as 3 years ago.
Ok, off soapbox. Merry Christmas to all here. Hope your holiday is a special one!