Jeremy Bloom rips the NCAA a new one...

[jesse_ewiak 0]

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news?slug=ed...v=tsn&type=lgns

 

Last week, the NCAA rejected Colorado's request to restore wide receiver Jeremy Bloom's eligibility. Bloom, who also is a standout freestyle skier, has battled the NCAA for the past two years to allow him to play for the Buffaloes while also accepting endorsements to fund his ski training. Bloom left Colorado's camp earlier this month and currently is training with the U.S. Ski Team near Santiago, Chile, in hopes of making the 2006 Olympic Games in Turin, Italy. Colorado, which hoped to have Bloom aboard to add speed and needed experience at receiver, has appealed the decision.

 

I think I've been wrong about the caring folks at the NCAA all along. They have received way too much negative attention about their unwillingness to have an open mind concerning my unique athletic situation. As it turns out, their reasoning behind this decision has taught me some of the greatest lessons in my life.

 

I owe them an apology, and I hope that after reading this, you, too, will understand this was just a case of an immature and over-ambitious 20-year-old asking an organization to allow unacceptable and selfish circumstances.

 

Two years ago, I became a proud member of the 2002 Winter Olympics team and then won the World Cup overall title as a freestyle skier. Then, a few weeks later, the NCAA informed me that if it were to allow me to continue my financial means of paying for my trainer, nutritionist, physical therapist and agent for skiing, I would be endangering the core principle of amateurism as a college football player. Although at the time it seemed silly, looking back I believe they made the right call. It is true my relationship with those people would have been more damaging to the spirit of amateurism than, say, the University of Miami's relationship with star football recruit Willie Williams, who has been arrested 11 times since 1999.

 

So I took their advice and dropped all my legitimate ski-related sponsors and enrolled at the University of Colorado, where I became a proud member of the football program and the social science department.

 

Even though the NCAA denied multiple waivers to let me play football, at least it provided me with a lengthy and adequate response to why it felt the request was off-base. It read something like this: No.

 

That response helped me to understand the value of a simplistic and concise answer to a question. If my coach, Gary Barnett, would have taken this approach when asked if Katie Hnida was a good football player, he never would have put himself in a position of conflict and would likely not have been placed on administrative leave by university president Elizabeth Hoffman.

 

But that wasn't the end of my education by the NCAA. Before the first road trip of my collegiate career, Coach Barnett made it mandatory to wear a sport coat to the game. At the time I didn't own a sport coat, so I borrowed one from one of our trainers.

 

The following week, during my weekly phone call from our compliance office, someone informed me that, due to NCAA rules, I would be fined $35 for a "rental fee."

 

This is when I learned the NCAA holds a tight monopoly on the "rental business." In fact, it rents out college athletes every year. While I was in college, the NCAA rented me out to many different corporations and allowed me to play in endorsement-filled stadiums every week. The NCAA even allowed the university to sell a jersey with my school and my number on it in stores all over Colorado.

 

I didn't get any of the money that was generated by this service, but at least the NCAA paid for my schooling, right? Well, no. Actually, the NCAA didn't pay a penny of my scholarship, and the university only paid half. The other half came from my "personal scholarship donor," a private citizen who donates money to Colorado to fund student-athlete scholarships. Now that the NCAA is finished with me, it simply will dismiss me, just like it does with thousands of student-athletes every year. And why wouldn't it, when it has thousands of fresh-faced, new student-athletes every year who are eager to join the cycle?

 

While I was in college, the NCAA made more intelligent decisions than not. However, there was one decision that impacted someone else's life that is hard to forgive. Aaron Adair was a young man who battled brain cancer for a long portion of his life. He not only had enough heart to become part of the select few in the country to overcome the unthinkable disease, but he also possessed enough to make the University of Oklahoma's varsity baseball team.

 

Aaron wrote his own book while he was in college, intending to give other cancer patients hope they too could win their battles with the disease. After his book was published, the compassionate and understanding folks at the NCAA ended Aaron's dream of playing baseball because his name was attached to a "corporate product."

 

But life rolls on in the wonderful world of amateur athletics because the NCAA doesn't have to justify its decisions to anyone. They are the all-powerful people who make decisions that will have a positive impact on the "student-athlete."

 

All of the lessons I learned from this organization will make me a rich man. Eventually, I think I'll start my own amateur business. I not only will provide housing and a positive working environment, I also will teach my employees the benefits of working as a team. And though I'll be making millions running this business, I will sympathetically tell my employees that paying them would corrupt the purity of my business and their learning experience. If they try to support themselves in other ways I find inappropriate, I'll dismiss them.

 

And I'll laugh as I pull away in my Mercedes, because they're at my mercy, and I won't have to answer to anyone.

[nl5xsk1 0]

Even though I don't disagree with him, boo-fucking-hoo to Bloom. He knew what he was getting into when he tried to be both an amateur in one sport & a professional in another. And sinec the NCAA didn't cave in to him, he feels like he's got the right to bitch about it. How about this, Bloom: pick a side and stick with it. Either be a professional or an amateur.

 

And for him to bring up a guy that survived brain cancer as someone that's fought a comparable battle is a joke. Of course, the fact that he brings up Hnida's name makes his brain cancer comparison seem light-hearted.

 

The little bit that I agreed with him went out the window when I read this sob story. Fuck him with his own ski pole.

[HarleyQuinn 0]

did you miss this part NL?

 

So I took their advice and dropped all my legitimate ski-related sponsors and enrolled at the University of Colorado, where I became a proud member of the football program and the social science department.

[The Czech Republic 0]

How does being a professional skier prevent you from being an amateur football player? NCAA is really stupid sometimes.

[Guest MikeSC]

Even though I don't disagree with him, boo-fucking-hoo to Bloom. He knew what he was getting into when he tried to be both an amateur in one sport & a professional in another. And sinec the NCAA didn't cave in to him, he feels like he's got the right to bitch about it. How about this, Bloom: pick a side and stick with it. Either be a professional or an amateur.

 

And for him to bring up a guy that survived brain cancer as someone that's fought a comparable battle is a joke. Of course, the fact that he brings up Hnida's name makes his brain cancer comparison seem light-hearted.

 

The little bit that I agreed with him went out the window when I read this sob story. Fuck him with his own ski pole.

Do you want to even go into the murky waters of shoe company-sponsored basketball camps that NCAA basketball recruits have attended, regularly, for years?

-=Mike

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

I agree with most of what Bloom says here, although I suspect there may be some parts he is not telling us. After all, of course his account will look beneficial to his argument.

 

I do think the way he phrased some things is slightly childish. And his comparisons to the cancer patient and Willie Williams really has no baring on the argument.

[nl5xsk1 0]

Harley, nope, didn't miss that fact at all. But I also didn't miss him pissing and moaning for a dozen paragraphs either. Does it suck that he can't ski competitively like he'd want to just because of a stupid NCAA rule? Yeah, it does. But the rule was in place long before he got involved, and he knew what he was getting into when he got into it. I'll shed no tears for him.

 

How does being a professional skier prevent you from being an amateur football player? NCAA is really stupid sometimes.

He's a professional athlete, period, regardless of what sport it is. You're either a pro, or an amateur. You don't choose when the tag is applicable.

 

Do you want to even go into the murky waters of shoe company-sponsored basketball camps that NCAA basketball recruits have attended, regularly, for years?

-=Mike

Apples & oranges, Mike. Having a camp be sponsored (or a stadium name, or even the uniforms that the teams wear) is a lot different than an individual player electing to forego his amateur status to become a pro.

[Guest Anglesault]

How does being a professional skier prevent you from being an amateur football player?

.

Fool! The answer is obvious!

 

...

 

The NCAA will get back to you when they figure it out and/or make one up.

[jimmy no nose 0]

My main question in all of this is what about the many college football players who have also played minor league baseball at the same time. Minor league baseball is a professional sport and the players are paid to play. What's the difference?

[Guest Kageho]

Actually, NL. You do get to choose when you are a pro or not. It's called being in the professional league.

 

And in neither sport is he a professional. He is on the Olympic USA team who really only get money to do what they do by endorsements. And if I'm mistaken, the Olympics (pardoning a few sports) are amateurs doing what they do. And just like any sports player, he needs to finance the people who will help him be able to acheive making the "ultimate prize" (every sport calls their championship that).

 

The only difference between the two organizations is while the NCAA supplies the needs for the players to develop their skills to grow into the professional realm with its college tournaments and that, for the Olympics, it'll be coming out of Bloom's own pocket.

 

BTW, wouldn't you be just a little bitter at turning down all these endorsements and almost giving up on one dream, to make sure that you could make another dream happen as well but fail and most likely have lost both dreams? I know I sure would be.

Edited August 27, 2004 by Kageho

[Guest Anglesault]

My main question in all of this is what about the many college football players who have also played minor league baseball at the same time. Minor league baseball is a professional sport and the players are paid to play. What's the difference?

FOOL! The Difference is obvious!

 

It's because....

 

....

 

The NCAA will get back to you when they figure it out and/or make one up.

[Gert T 0]

NCAA did not mind when Tim Dwight went back to Iowa to run track after he was already with the Falcons.

 

I can understand Bloom's bitterness, and why should he pick one sport? If you are good enough to excel at two sports, and he gave up his endorsements to go back to college, not just to play football.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Poor guy. Willie Williams is going to murder him after that jab.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Good thing the stabbing isn't a hit that somebody else requested because that could really hurt his amateur status.

[Bored 0]

No one even pointed out the best part:

But that wasn't the end of my education by the NCAA. Before the first road trip of my collegiate career, Coach Barnett made it mandatory to wear a sport coat to the game. At the time I didn't own a sport coat, so I borrowed one from one of our trainers.

 

The following week, during my weekly phone call from our compliance office, someone informed me that, due to NCAA rules, I would be fined $35 for a "rental fee."

That's all you need to know about the NCAA right there.

[Guest Salacious Crumb]

I find it hilarious that ESPN has basically ignored this story but have pasted the Mike Williams story all over the air. With that you can at least argue they made the right decision.

 

There's no excuse for saying a guy can't play football if he's a pro in another area.