Samardzija to play pro baseball and football

[micropolitan guy]

He'll be lucky to have an Ed McCaffrey-like career. Not that he hasn't played well, but Ed won some rings for a reason.

No argument there. Stanford always put out quality receivers under Walsh/Green.

 

[Firstime Caller]

You're sort of making my points for me Freelance. I wasn't saying Samardzija was or wasn't worth the money. I was more saying: 1) If Bud's going to step in, he should realize the kid would have likely gone higher had he not played football as well. So the contract likely won't upset Bud's precious bonus/salary structure as much as he fears it will. 2) Who is Bud, supposedly the commissioner (laugh, laugh, cough, cough,) to tell any team how to pay its players/draft picks? To me, this is worse than a few weeks back when David Stern wanted to give the Knicks some advice. Here Bud apparently is actively getting into the running of a team, which I think IMHO is way overstepping his bounds. That is, if was a real commissioner.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

It's different because Samardzija will be receive a salary from the Cubs.

The key with Bloom was endorsements. The NCAA ruled that Bloom could have received endorsements because he was a football player and not a skier. It may seem asinine, but what if a Colorado booster was a CEO of a company that gave Bloom $1 million for skiing? It's a slippery slope at best.

As long as Samardzjia doesn't receive any endorsement money (and it's doubtful he will in rookie or A ball), he should be fine.

Good thing the Tribune Company CEO didn't go to Notre Dame! Oh, wait, their third in charge did. I wonder if he lobbied for the Cubs to draft the ND guy so he'd have some money and be better off in football.

 

[BYH]

Media ethics scenario, you make the call:  ND gets you an interview with Samardzija to talk specifically about football. In the course of the interview, he talks to you about his baseball negotiations. You use the baseball info, and his quotes make some waves. ND complains to you that you violated the terms of the interview.
Your response? Is there any reason you don't use the baseball stuff?

I'd use it. He's an adult and a professional athlete. He can talk about whatever he pleases.
I've had something similar happen to me where a PR person said something was off limits. I didn't ask the question, but the guy talked about it anyway, and I wrote about it. PR person was pissed, but they get over it, eventually.
If not, who cares, PR tend to come and go anyway.

Especially since bending over and taking it up the ass following ND's media policies isn't going to earn you a break from those guys. Unless of course you're from ESPN.

Again: **** Charlie Weis.

I'd find a hungry kid in Boise and pay him to get quotes for use in my Indiana-area story on Jeff whatshisface.