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ouflak

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Everything posted by ouflak

  1. Was it? I mean they'll probably self-punish. Ban themselves from a couple of post-seasons they weren't going to be involved in anyway - that sort of thing. If they (can) manage to closely enough follow the North Carolina model, nothing much more will really come of it when all is said and done. In a few years NIL will finally make it possible for booster-supported pay to possibly make a difference in a school's fortunes in the recruiting arena, and their boosters have deep pockets.
  2. Actually played in a game against Emmit Smith. In fact our high schools were each other's fiercest rivals.
  3. But the schools set that price don't they? This is why the NCAA and the universities have special exemptions from following state and federal labor laws and complying with anti-trust laws. Because if companies could just pay people in whatever-currency-they-like of their own making (be it education, housing, etc...) without actually paying any money, they could have free labor and enslave their employees' by simply threatening them with losing everything if they don't accept whatever the employee. Money, actually legal currency, allows people the freedom to participate in our economy as they see fit. That's why we have those laws. That's why the NCAA and universities are afraid of unions, and why the NCAA has tried to sneak in permanent exemption from anti-trust laws when suggesting that congress pass a federal law regarding student compensation. They all want to continue to pay nothing except for an education for which the universities themselves set the 'value' for.
  4. I'm paid to take the risk and go out of my home and go back to the office. I could go hermit if I wanted, eventually probably losing my job, but I won't. I like my job. And I like money and have uses for it. And I'm no longer a college student, visiting (or being visited) friends randomly, occassionally going to parties. So my risk is one I'm paid to take, and my risk is fairly low because I just don't have the social life of a typical college student. So the statement that we know something, or nothing, about the long term effects of asymptomatic infected is particularly relevant. These kids aren't paid. A whole lot of people are making a whole lot of money off of their efforts. And they are college students - most probably doing what most college students do. What all of the rest of us should do, well that's something rather different because of the context. On a side note, wasn't there some trash talking in this thread earlier about how TCU was trying to avoid a loss to SMU? Texas State must have taken that personally or something. Tied at the half 14 - 14 as of this post.
  5. Excellent news. So what are the long term after effects for someone who has contracted the virus but was asymptomatic?
  6. ... visiting family, visiting friends, or being stuck in a football pile with someone who just last night has....
  7. You mean play for a team in the fall, and then play for another team in the spring?
  8. I'd probably be the same way, mostly due to my ignorance. With concussions, we have some idea what those long-term effects are. We even have some acquired knowledge about the long-term effects for those who never really had recognized concussions, but went through the constant pounding that the game can incur otherwise. For COVID-19, we have no idea of the long term effects, whether asymptomatic or not. Certainly some people who have recovered appear to be screwed up permanently, but who knows? Maybe they all will miraculously overcome those after-effects and go on to lead normal lives. It's just not been long enough. So my focus of concern would be more on what I know, and less on what I don't know.
  9. Does that include class action suits with a huge number of plaintiffs? Based on contact tracing to a bunch of football games that have been played? Because there has been a lot of contact tracing that's gone on. I know there are posters here dismissing it outright, but we've actually gotten pretty good at it. We know a lot of people got it at parties, social events, even at work. And there are a lot we don't know at all. I have no idea how many of those 150,000 can point to a big money event, knowingly held by big money sponsors, and assert, "It' your fault". There's probably some. Somehow I doubt there's 150,000. But having a college football game with guys, who have potentially engaged in behavior that college students typically engage in, flying at each other all over the field, spreading the infection to not only other players on both sides, but possible family, friends, and other loved ones, and even strangers - who will all very possibly spread it on forward? That narrows the liability target down to a very nice convenient bullseye.
  10. If you guys got to see the media from the European perspective that I see it from every day, I believe a lot of you would gain a whole new perspective on the media and their behavior.
  11. As far as I'm aware none so far. It's my belief that we are in completely unprecedented territory here.
  12. But again, whatever protocol they are following are not following, if the infection spike they are responsible for can't directly be contact traced to a football game or practice, then there's no chance of a class action suit against the university/conference/NCAA/coaches/medical staff.
  13. There very well could be. But those won't be contact traced back to football games, and now probably not even practices. Conference/university/NCAA off the hook.
  14. I have to say that one of my thoughts was that maybe they were trying to dodge all of this union talk, and try to take a good chunk of steam out of the cause, by just ditching the fall season due to 'safety'. If the players ever successfully form an effective union that actually has the full support of all the athletes, the powers-that-be *know* that they are finally going to have to start letting the players also dip their buckets into the fountain of gold.
  15. Ok, but is it cowardice, or financial prudence? I'm not sure that their leadership is 'scared'. I just think they are behaving like executives looking out for the long term interests of their business, which any good executive should be doing. And, as someone very correctly pointed out earlier in the thread, it's one thing if these athletes are geting paid the big money. It's completely different for me to sit in an office all day and 'bravely' risk someobody else's life, and perhaps the lives of their friends and family, when they aren't making a dime, and I'm raking it in directly as a result of their efforts (and risk). Here on this message board we can argue, "that doesn't matter". But in those boardrooms with their legal teams, I'm sure it's been pointed out that that fact would be mentioned in front of a judge quite loudly and publicly in every one of the plethora of class action lawsuits that spring up when a traceable infection spike is linked directly to a football game or practice.
  16. This is kind of what I think is happening. It's not so much that there are going to be people who traceably contract it directly as the result of a football game being played, and that their class action suit is subsequently frivolous. It's how much are the PAC and Big Ten willing to pay deal with the potentially massive class actions due the domino effect infection rates of a highly contagious disease? If the number you calculate for a settlement/victory/case-thrown-out is larger than the amount of money you (by whatever means) calculate is less than what youare willing to lose by postponing the season, you play. Otherwise, you postpone. Also, so far, no one has shown me a convincing precedent for a potential legal situation like this, where a few cases can astonishingly quickly expand to be a few dozen cases which can then expand even further, by the simply act of a few guys attending a party, playing in a game, and then seeing their family.
  17. No I do not. Kids in this sport die. It happens. It's happened recently. It will happen again. The 'increased liability', in my opinion, has nothing to do with the players themselves, where the conferences, schools and staff are fairly well ready and covered. It's the geometric explosion of liability that occurs when even just one of those players spreads the disease around, and it's clearly traceable to that player contracting it at a game or practice. That could lead to dozens of people, who themselves could subsequently spread the disease to dozens (per individual) of others and so on. I know of no other potential legal case like that in history. But maybe some lawyers will chime in.
  18. That's a great point. So if you're the lawyers for the Big Ten and PAC, are you figuring you just don't want to fight the class action suit, even for a survivable settlement. If you're the lawyers for the Big XII, SEC, ACC, are you figuring you'll fight the class action suit to the Supreme Court and win, and that's assuming it doesn't get thrown out?
  19. Trying not to be silly here, but was the cancer contagious to anybody those people later came into contact with? I mean in that case, you're liability is really only limited to those who drank that water and noone else. But a highly contagious disease that can spread to people who were nowhere near the original source (in this case China)? I think Bob has an argument in that it's impossible to specifiy the exact source. But a hypothetical legal argument might be that: Since what is actually and clearly traceable was traced directly through a football game, if the football game hadn't been played, the path would have been broken there and there would have been no further spead to my family, friends and loved ones (weeping tears). That could be several orders of magnitude more people that were in the (big money) part of the path in the contract trace that is the foundation for the lawsuit. I just wonder if we aren't dealing with yet another aspect to all of this that is unprecedented.
  20. No. Not really an argument. My opinion of the concerns of a few of those who are percieved to have deep pockets i.e, PAC-12, Big Ten, the universities, etc.... I really have no idea how or if contract tracing will ever be used as evidence in a lawsuit. Has that ever happened?
  21. I was trounced pretty hard (I suppose rightfully so) for suggesting that A&M might, or might not, have sovereign immunity as implied in the bonfire diaster. It turned, after I 'looked it up myself' that they ended up settling for a seven figure amount. This does not bode well for similar cases if contact tracing tracks an infection spread right through a football game/practice. The problem isn't that you couldn't nail down a specific starting point. The problem is that if there is anybody along that contact path that is seen to have a lot of money (conferences, universities, NCAA, coaches and AD's), enough to pay for medical expenses and such, then they are the ones who get named in the suit. And the bigger problem here is that it isn't just players/coaches/staff. It's anybody they've had contact with and so on who gets infected and subsequently is hospitalized and/or dies. The number of people on that class action threatens to be geometrically larger than would be the case if it was just those directly involved in the competition. And I'm fairly certain that a larger number of plaintiffs gives a lot more credibility to a class action moving forward. I believe this is what has scared the Big Ten and Pac. What this means for the Big XII, SEC and ACC, I'm not sure. Just so we're clear, FULL DISCLAIMER: I'm hell and far away from being a lawyer, not even an internet one.
  22. I believe the worst case scenario is a significant number of players getting infected and spreading their infection to family, friends,fellow party goers, and many others they come in contact with, and the start of their transmission is directly traced back to a football game or practice. That web of liability could be fatal.
  23. Yep. Plus, in all of those cases, there's no chance the student athletes can spread those things to family members, friends, or fellow students on campus - potentially expanding the liability geometrically.
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