True. I’m not naive about it in general. But IMG in particular is branding itself as a European-style sports academy and agency for the most elite athletes. They need to be very careful about this or their brand will go down the tubes.
Yeah, I am looking at this as a product of a working class/lower middle class upbringing (dad is a roofer, mother is a teacher in underpaid public school district). If I were those kids, I’d be fine with coasting for the rest of my life. My life’s goal is to not work as hard as my parents for as little as my parents lol.
Status is substance, no? When it comes to accession to monied circles, or maintenance of class and wealth? I don’t think people game the system for such striking sums just for bragging rights.
In a way, though–as many people pointed out yesterday–this is just the lower end of a spectrum that includes things like parents giving big sums for buildings and naming rights and having their kids’s files labeled “VIP applicant” or “watch list,” a code for go, as was apparently the case with Jared Kushner. (His dad gave Harvard 2.5 million; according to people at his high school he never would have gotten in. Like Trump himself the guy was probably once a Democrat, so hardly a matter of partisan sour grapes to report this. My dad got both of my brothers into Michigan with a simple request back in the day.)
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did I see “Saddi Washington”? 
Yeah that is super interesting…
Saddi is a “recruiting ace” with experience at a not so clean program.
Is Oakland no so clean? I wasn’t aware of that reputation
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I think it may also be that Dawkins was gilding the Lilly with everyone in the college coaching ranks (including all the Izzo guys) he knew in Michigan through his dad, who essentially knew everyone at the high school and college levels over a 20 year period. There is nothing in any of the notes (or previous leaks of transcripts) which implicates Saddi or Michigan in any way (or, for that matter, anything which implicates MSU other than buying Bridges’ mother dinner).
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Heavy hitting stuff really coming to light today. It’s just astonishing the no shame Arizona has. Miller still having a job is just absurd.
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I’m trying to discount all the Arizona/Sean Miller stuff but you have to remember you are dealing with criminals and Arizona will wait until the trials are over and the NCAA makes a move. They’ve stood by him for this long, might as well stand by him longer.
It’s a little less astonishing when you consider this:
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I keep thinking this house of cards will fall…that was three years ago.
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Well, someone cue up Yakkety Sax. Dawkins brought banana peels for the FBI to slip on.
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Wow, UA got taken to the cleaners in that contract negotiation.
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Can they plausibly fire him for “no reason”? What kinds of actions are included in the definition of “cause”?
It sounds like they’re obligated to wait till this runs its course and then sack him when things seem to be going OK.