Best course for studentathletes up for debate
As with Monday’s Pac12 Media Day for women’s basketball, Tuesday’s media day for the men’s teams at the Pac12 offices in San Francisco centered on the new law that will allow studentathletes at California colleges to profit from the use of their names or likenesses starting in 2023.
Pac12 commissioner Larry Scott met with league coaches Tuesday morning and addressed the law, which was signed last week by Gov. Gavin Newsom in the face of opposition from the NCAA. More states have since announced they will follow California’s lead. Scott also briefed players on the issue.
“There’s a great desire to figure it all out. The welfare of the studentathletes is always a high priority,” Stanford head coach Jerod Haase said. “Having said that, this is not a twoquote kind of conversation. The ramifications, no matter what decisions are made, it’s going to be really interesting to how it plays out, and I think every decision is going to have many ramifications that people don’t know about, good and bad.
“It’s a very complex issue, so I think it’s one thing to talk philosophically — what you believe or don’t believe — but then I think it’s more important to talk practically as you really implement it and make decisions, what does it lead to? Those are the kind of conversations really smart people need to get in a room and try and foresee the future the best you can to make the appropriate decisions.”
Washington State big man Jeff Pollard realizes he could probably earn some money from his image and likeness, yet Pollard, someone firstyear coach Kyle Smith jokes could be a mayoral candidate because he is so wellliked, is against college players being paid for signing autographs or taking part in community events.
“I think it’s a good medium ground in terms of the argument of whether guys should get paid or not, because in my opinion I don’t think athletes in college should outright get paid, but I think that’s kind of where college athletics has its draw is the fact that it’s not something you’re getting compensated for,” Pollard said. “It is for the most part for the love of the game. Instead of playing for a paycheck, you’re playing for a school or an institution.
“I think there is some value in that. But I think there’s fair arguments on both sides. There is a lot of money made by the studentathletes, so I think kind of finding that middle ground of name and image, likeness, I think that is a good middle ground to have where you kind of introduce that without taking away what makes college athletics so special.”
Smith resigned after presiding over a turnaround at USF to take the Washington State job.
Also new: Cal head coach Mark Fox, who takes over for the fired Wyking Jones. Fox spent nine seasons at Georgia — he took last year off from coaching — making the NCAA Tournament twice and going 163133 overall at a school where the focus is on its football powerhouse.
Before that, Fox led Nevada to three NCAA Tournament appearances. He said that Cal provides advantages that neither of his previous two stops did.
“We obviously are inheriting a situation where we haven’t had as much success in the last couple years as we wanted,” said Fox, whose team was picked by Pac12 media to finish last this season. “But we have some advantages going forward that if we just — if we find the right formula that we can rebuild this program to places that everybody wants it to be . ...
“We want our program to be known for a lot of things down the road. But first off, we want to put forth an effort that the people respect and admire just because the kids have worked so hard and they play the game the right way, and it can make the people proud of the effort that they’re giving, and because if they do that, all the results should take care of themselves. But we want to graduate our players. We want to win. We want to do a lot of things. But it comes back to us making the right daily investments.”