Manziel to Receive 1/2 Game Suspension Vs Rice

https://twitter.com/Ron_Clements/status/372835924335292416

 

From analyst and long-ago Stanford player:

Rodney Gilmore ‏@RodGilmore 2h
NCAA threatened (per same bylaw as used for Manziel) Andrew Luck's eligibility when cafe named sandwich after him. #crazyncaa

 

Then the NCAA found out the sandwich had whitefish, sable and capers and thought it to be punishment enough.

 

As requested by my friend Steak Snabler, as an add-on to Jenn Floyd Engel's Aug. 9 article (not) comparing Johnny Football to Rosa Parks. Fitting that the Manziel suspension is announced on the anniversary of the march on Washington ...

I Have a College Football Dream

Five score weeks ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, won the Heisman Trophy. This momentous award came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Texas Aggies who had been seared in the flames of withering SEC opponents. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred days later, the Aggie still is not free. One hundred days later, the life of the Aggie is still sadly crippled by the manacles of investigation and the slings of TV commentators. One hundred days later, the Aggie lives on a lonely island of championship poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred days later, the Aggie is still languishing in the corners of SEC society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to NCAA headquarters to cash a check. When the architects of our governing body wrote the magnificent words of the NCAA bylaws, they were signing a promissory note to which every American college football fan was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and cash payments in exchange for autographs.

It is obvious today that the NCAA has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her student athletes are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, the NCAA has given the Aggie people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of royalties is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of licensing of this governing body. So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of autograph sessions and the security of payment from boosters. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind the NCAA of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of cost-of-living allowances. Now is the time to make real the promises of pay for play. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of investigation to the sunlit path of compensation. Now is the time to lift our student athletes from the quick sands of a half-game suspension against Rice to the solid rock of TV face time. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's student athletes.

It would be fatal for the NCAA to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Aggie's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of SportCenter highlights and easy women. Those who hope that the Aggie needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the NCAA returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in college athletics until the Aggie is granted his first half against Rice. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our NCAA until the bright day of playing in the first half against Rice emerges.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of amateur athletics, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Aggie is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of two-a-days. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of practice, cannot gain free lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Aggie's basic mobility is from a the Big 12 to the SEC. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "Go to Hell, Manziel". We cannot be satisfied as long as an Aggie in Mississippi cannot get a roughing-the-passer call and a Aggie in New York believes he has nothing for which to cash in his Heisman trophy for. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until pimped rides roll down like waters and cash rains down like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of scholastic examinations and staggered by the winds of Juco brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day the NCAA will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all student-athletes are compensated equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former Bulldogs and the sons of former Yellowjackets will have the funds to sit down together at the strip club booth of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of futility, sweltering with the heat of losing, will be transformed into an oasis of gifts and cash.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day play in a NCAA where they will not be judged by the color of their jersey but by the model of their Mercedes.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious defense, with its coach having his lips dripping with the words of "process" and “aight”; one day right there in Alabama, little Auburn boys and Auburn girls will be able to join hands with little Alabama boys and Alabama girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of Urban Meyer shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our NCAA into a beautiful symphony of football highlights. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be paid one day.

This will be the day when all of Saban's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "Hey Aggies! We just beat the Hell outta you! Rammer Jammer, Yellow Hammer, Give ‘em Hell Alabama!"

And if the NCAA is to be a great governing body this must become true. So let money rain from the prodigious Hilltoppers of Western Kentucky. Let money rain from the mighty Mountaineers of West Virginia. Let money rain from the heightening awareness of child sex abuse of Penn State!

Let money rain from the Buffalos of Colorado!

Let money rain from the Golden Bears of California!

But not only that; let money rain from the Bulldogs Georgia!

Let money rain from the Volunteers of Tennessee!

Let money rain from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let money rain.

And when this happens, when we allow money to rain, when we let it rain from every campus and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of football's children, black men and white men, Aggies and Longhorns, Gators and Seminoles, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Aggie spiritual, "Paid at last! paid at last! thank God Almighty, we are paid at last!"

 

Fantastic

 

Kind of like Douglas MacArthur didn't understand how to bomb half a bridge.

 

30 minutes more than Cam Newton

 

Suspended for the first half? So he'll be able to go out drinking on Friday night and sleep off the hangover. Awesome.

 

If this is true, he got off incredibly light. Not much of a deterrent.

 

Oh, for goodness. Bryant's a trainwreck of a person. The NCAA suspended him for what it had, which was him lying his ass off. The truth, I suspect, would have been a key to a lock that opened more doors.

I have little doubt the rabbit hole went deeper on Bryant than anyone cares to admit, since it's over.