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- Thread starter ScriptOhio
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The States of Georgia and Alabama are eliminating state tax on NIL earnings in an effort to attract recruits.
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LovelandBuckeye
You never lose to those pricks. Ever. Ever. - UFM
Looks like the NIL above the table method has the SEC powers a little concerned.
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The states of Florida and Texas don’t have any state income tax at all. If it made that big of a difference we’d see it in the results by now.
Also state taxes are usually just a flat tax structure if I am not mistaken so it’s easy to just “gross up” you offer a couple of points to even out the tax difference
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This also is a good point on Texas Tech's #1 Portal class. If you're expecting guys who couldn't make a difference at their previous school, to now be your foundation. Then its going to be another rough season
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ScriptOhio
Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
Yeah, I know it is by Dennis Dodd; however, it is still a good article on how the transfer portal has affected JUCOs:
www.cbssports.com
Every morning, Jason Brown hosts a free-wheeling, sometimes profanity-laced streaming presentation on X called "The Coach JB Show with Big Smitty." Let's just say the former junior college coach has viewpoints. He also has a website selling merch to those loyal to his side hustle, Slapdick Whiskey and Cigars.
Yeah, it's a free country. It's also one that is about to change radically -- football-wise -- if you talk to Brown, known mostly because of his featured role on the Netflix documentary "Last Chance U."
The show, which ran from 2016-2020, offered an inside look at junior college football. Brown became sort of an overnight sensation when his Independence (Kan.) Community College team was featured for two seasons.
Brown hasn't worked as a coach since his last year at Independence in 2018 -- he told CBS Sports he has been blackballed -- but he keeps track of his old profession. The college football world, not just JUCO ball, is in (further) upheaval since Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia sued the NCAA in November. The everyman inspiration for the Commodores contended the association violated anti-trust law by counting time served in junior college towards NCAA eligibility limits. Athletes are allowed five total years to play four years of competition.
Alarms immediately sounded at NCAA headquarters and football offices around the country. With the NCAA backpedaling on similar issues as the power conferences and their attorneys take over, what if the NCAA eventually allowed time served in junior college to not count against NCAA eligibility?
"Everyone from [Ole Miss coach]. Lane [Kiffin] to Sark [Texas coach Steve Sarkisian] have talked to me about it," Brown told CBS Sports. "We're all former JUCO guys. JUCO used to the be the transfer portal. Now it's imploded."
As a result, junior college and high school recruiting has taken a hit as coaches more frequently go into the portal for established talent.
For years now, the NCAA had to measure each major decision against potential legal liability. It's the same approach the NCAA eventually took in allowing NIL 3 ½ years ago. It has settled in House v. NCAA, which will formally usher in the play-for-pay era later this year. A patchwork of state laws emerging may even prohibit that settlement from being enforced in some jurisdictions.
Essentially the thinking has been: What if Pavia's suit prevails and the NCAA again chooses the path of least (legal) resistance. That is, junior college players' eligibility clocks don't start until they reach FBS (or any other NCAA level for that matter). Theoretically, that would mean six, possibly, seven years of eligibility.
"Now, if you do two years of untimed JUCO ... what if kids say, 'I'm not doing to go Division I out of high school anymore? I'm going to do this JUCO thing,'" Brown said. "If you do that, you get an agent … He says, 'I'll get you a draft status after two years of JUCO. You'll play one for one at a four-year level.' Those big schools will have to pay that kid for one year of service and [they'll] enter the draft.
"It will be the Wild, Wild West times 10."
Minor league potential
If Brown is exaggerating, it's only by a little. Such a development would reshape the entire game. Sources tell CBS Sports there has been preliminary thought given to junior colleges formalizing a "minor league" arrangement with FBS schools.
For years there was the unwritten code as FBS coaches would "send" prospects not quite ready for the big time to junior colleges for seasoning.
Those were so-called "bounce backs," who would then theoretically go back to the original FBS program that recruited them. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't, but a formal minor league model would be more substantial. Those sources aren't ready to go on the record just yet, but one example emerged: Lackawanna College in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
"You can certainly see a scenario where Penn State would say, 'We're going to assist you with hiring coaches and some funding. You just have to run our offense and our schemes," said a person briefed on the idea who requested anonymity due the sensitive nature of the subject. "'[We'll help] with training table, strength and conditioning. We're just going to send all of our student-athletes who are not ready straight for the major leagues straight to your schools.'"
To be clear, there is absolutely no such arrangement known between Penn State and Lackawanna. But the Pavia lawsuit has opened the door to some creative thinking.
"It wouldn't surprise me at all [for it to become a minor league]," said Scott Strohmeier, who has won three junior college national championships at Iowa Western Community College. "I've been doing this for 19 years. There's never been [more] JUCO players that needed this avenue to make it."
The percentage of junior college players that populate FBS rosters is hard to nail down. Some schools emphasize JUCO recruiting differently than others. Having too many JUCOs used to be a curse to roster stability because they were, at most, two-year pass throughs. The transfer portal has basically created the same structure. As Sarkisian has said frequently, in the new landscape it's either "adapt or die."
Strohmeier said the transfer portal has put less of a recruiting emphasis on high school and JUCO players for NCAA programs. The coach said in 2016 he had 10 players transfer to Power Four schools. In 2024, that number was zero.
"What you're seeing is schools with a lot of money, they're not recruiting JUCO," Strohmeier said. "They're going to the backup at Iowa State or Oklahoma."
"Every D-I coach in the country that talks to me, is like, man, 'JUCO is not JUCO,'" Brown added. "You're not getting the Alabama kids no more, you're not getting the transfer, you're not getting the bounce back. You're not getting the kid that even gets kicked out for smoking weed or some kind of minor credit card fraud."
It is certainly a different world at the JUCO level. Former Garden City (Kan.) Community College coach Jeff Sims once signed a player who had done five years for armed robbery.
Dolphins' receiver Tyreek Hill, who did not play under Sims, was a two-time All-American at Garden City before finishing at Division II.
"We don't go 10 for 10 [in recruiting character athletes]," Sims once told CBS Sports. "We go 10 for 30."
Until recently, Oregon defensive lineman Jamaree Caldwell was considering an attempt at another year after seeing Pavia's lawsuit. The 332-pound defensive lineman came out of Newberry, South Carolina, to play at Hutchinson, Independence and then Houston before heading to the Ducks, where he became an All-Big Ten honorable mention.
His JUCO story is not uncommon. After academic problems in high school, Caldwell found himself walking on at Independence. (Brown was not his coach.)
"Everything you see on the show ['Last Chance U'} was the same," Caldwell said. "How crazy it is, how hard it is. You could see a lot of people come in with a dream and leave without one -- or leave with one."
Caldwell arrived as an overweight, out-of-shape weight on the program. At 400 pounds, he said teammates were made to repeat sprints because he couldn't keep up.
"Cussed out, yelled at," Caldwell recalled. "I'm glad I went through it. I feel like a lot of people in that situation would burst. Everybody on the team was mad at me."
His life changed when Caldwell noticed one day New Mexico football had begun following him on Twitter.
"That's when I realized I could go somewhere and play," he said.
A minor league model would possibly invigorate the JUCOs with better talent. Brown claims 100 of his junior college players have transferred to Division I schools. There are 28 currently in the NFL, eight of whom have played in Super Bowls, and 24 Pro Bowlers. All that during a 22-year coaching career.
"I don't know if there is anyone who rivals my résumé, and I've only coached JUCO," Brown said.
"You're going to have 27, 28-year-olds continuing to look for NIL deals," he added. "They're going to be at four or five schools. The NCAA needs to be honest and come out and say they're no longer student-athletes."
For this discussion, prep schools are private elite athletic technical institutions that allow athletes to develop their skills in a high school setting. One example is prestigious IMG Academy.
"The coaching is an interesting profession because you're always looking for an advantage," said Thom McDonald, commissioner of the Iowa Community College Athletic Conference. "You're always looking for a way around the rules without breaking the rules. The prep schools came out of a necessity for these young men and women to retain their eligibility and get a chance to play."
Despite the high school connection, prep school athletes typically live on the campus. Their NCAA eligibility clocks aren't impacted.
"My phone was blowing when that thing passed," Strohmeier said of the injunction. "They were thinking JUCOs were going to be a prep school. If you finished your eligibility this year, [they could] grant you another year."
Distant relationship with NCAA
The first junior college was founded in 1901. Some four-year college presidents back then concluded the first two years of college were not necessarily broad-based "university-level" classes. Over time, JUCOs became a haven for students who couldn't afford or weren't academically ready for a four-year college.
The National Junior College Athletic Association has been around since 1938. Its 514 schools are about half of the NCAA total. Its budget just a fraction of the NCAA's $1 billion. The state of California has a separate community college athletic association.
NJCAA president and CEO Christopher Parker describes his relationship with NCAA president Charlie Baker as "nonexistent".
"I have made efforts to connect with Charlie Baker to work together for the good of all students," Parker said, "But we haven't received any indication of Charlie's willingness to do so collaboratively."
The lack of connection is understandable. The NCAA is battling for its very existence. Baker is busy managing the House settlement, lobbying in Congress and dealing with lawsuits that seem to be filed almost daily.
Meanwhile, the list of famous former JUCO players populate varous hall of fames – Jackie Robinson, Albert Pujols, Bryce Harper, as well a pair of Heisman winners, Roger Staubach and Cam Newton. Georgia's Stetson Bennett won a pair of championships after attending Jones College in Ellisville, Mississippi.
.
.
.
continued
The original transfer portal, junior colleges face their own 'last chance' amid football's sweeping changes
Hamstrung by funding and a growing distance from the NCAA, JUCOs may need to get creative to survive
www.cbssports.com
The original transfer portal, junior colleges face their own 'last chance' amid football's sweeping changes
Hamstrung by funding and a growing distance from the NCAA, JUCOs may need to get creative to survive
Every morning, Jason Brown hosts a free-wheeling, sometimes profanity-laced streaming presentation on X called "The Coach JB Show with Big Smitty." Let's just say the former junior college coach has viewpoints. He also has a website selling merch to those loyal to his side hustle, Slapdick Whiskey and Cigars.
Yeah, it's a free country. It's also one that is about to change radically -- football-wise -- if you talk to Brown, known mostly because of his featured role on the Netflix documentary "Last Chance U."
The show, which ran from 2016-2020, offered an inside look at junior college football. Brown became sort of an overnight sensation when his Independence (Kan.) Community College team was featured for two seasons.
Brown hasn't worked as a coach since his last year at Independence in 2018 -- he told CBS Sports he has been blackballed -- but he keeps track of his old profession. The college football world, not just JUCO ball, is in (further) upheaval since Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia sued the NCAA in November. The everyman inspiration for the Commodores contended the association violated anti-trust law by counting time served in junior college towards NCAA eligibility limits. Athletes are allowed five total years to play four years of competition.
Pavia won an injunction in December, giving him another year of eligibility in 2025. The NCAA Council almost immediately reacted by allowing such players an extra year through the 2024-2025 academic year; the NCAA is appealing the original Pavia suit.
Alarms immediately sounded at NCAA headquarters and football offices around the country. With the NCAA backpedaling on similar issues as the power conferences and their attorneys take over, what if the NCAA eventually allowed time served in junior college to not count against NCAA eligibility?
"Everyone from [Ole Miss coach]. Lane [Kiffin] to Sark [Texas coach Steve Sarkisian] have talked to me about it," Brown told CBS Sports. "We're all former JUCO guys. JUCO used to the be the transfer portal. Now it's imploded."
As a result, junior college and high school recruiting has taken a hit as coaches more frequently go into the portal for established talent.
For years now, the NCAA had to measure each major decision against potential legal liability. It's the same approach the NCAA eventually took in allowing NIL 3 ½ years ago. It has settled in House v. NCAA, which will formally usher in the play-for-pay era later this year. A patchwork of state laws emerging may even prohibit that settlement from being enforced in some jurisdictions.
Essentially the thinking has been: What if Pavia's suit prevails and the NCAA again chooses the path of least (legal) resistance. That is, junior college players' eligibility clocks don't start until they reach FBS (or any other NCAA level for that matter). Theoretically, that would mean six, possibly, seven years of eligibility.
"Now, if you do two years of untimed JUCO ... what if kids say, 'I'm not doing to go Division I out of high school anymore? I'm going to do this JUCO thing,'" Brown said. "If you do that, you get an agent … He says, 'I'll get you a draft status after two years of JUCO. You'll play one for one at a four-year level.' Those big schools will have to pay that kid for one year of service and [they'll] enter the draft.
"It will be the Wild, Wild West times 10."
Minor league potential
If Brown is exaggerating, it's only by a little. Such a development would reshape the entire game. Sources tell CBS Sports there has been preliminary thought given to junior colleges formalizing a "minor league" arrangement with FBS schools.
For years there was the unwritten code as FBS coaches would "send" prospects not quite ready for the big time to junior colleges for seasoning.
Those were so-called "bounce backs," who would then theoretically go back to the original FBS program that recruited them. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't, but a formal minor league model would be more substantial. Those sources aren't ready to go on the record just yet, but one example emerged: Lackawanna College in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
"You can certainly see a scenario where Penn State would say, 'We're going to assist you with hiring coaches and some funding. You just have to run our offense and our schemes," said a person briefed on the idea who requested anonymity due the sensitive nature of the subject. "'[We'll help] with training table, strength and conditioning. We're just going to send all of our student-athletes who are not ready straight for the major leagues straight to your schools.'"
To be clear, there is absolutely no such arrangement known between Penn State and Lackawanna. But the Pavia lawsuit has opened the door to some creative thinking.
"It wouldn't surprise me at all [for it to become a minor league]," said Scott Strohmeier, who has won three junior college national championships at Iowa Western Community College. "I've been doing this for 19 years. There's never been [more] JUCO players that needed this avenue to make it."
The percentage of junior college players that populate FBS rosters is hard to nail down. Some schools emphasize JUCO recruiting differently than others. Having too many JUCOs used to be a curse to roster stability because they were, at most, two-year pass throughs. The transfer portal has basically created the same structure. As Sarkisian has said frequently, in the new landscape it's either "adapt or die."
Strohmeier said the transfer portal has put less of a recruiting emphasis on high school and JUCO players for NCAA programs. The coach said in 2016 he had 10 players transfer to Power Four schools. In 2024, that number was zero.
"What you're seeing is schools with a lot of money, they're not recruiting JUCO," Strohmeier said. "They're going to the backup at Iowa State or Oklahoma."
"Every D-I coach in the country that talks to me, is like, man, 'JUCO is not JUCO,'" Brown added. "You're not getting the Alabama kids no more, you're not getting the transfer, you're not getting the bounce back. You're not getting the kid that even gets kicked out for smoking weed or some kind of minor credit card fraud."
It is certainly a different world at the JUCO level. Former Garden City (Kan.) Community College coach Jeff Sims once signed a player who had done five years for armed robbery.
Dolphins' receiver Tyreek Hill, who did not play under Sims, was a two-time All-American at Garden City before finishing at Division II.
"We don't go 10 for 10 [in recruiting character athletes]," Sims once told CBS Sports. "We go 10 for 30."
Until recently, Oregon defensive lineman Jamaree Caldwell was considering an attempt at another year after seeing Pavia's lawsuit. The 332-pound defensive lineman came out of Newberry, South Carolina, to play at Hutchinson, Independence and then Houston before heading to the Ducks, where he became an All-Big Ten honorable mention.
His JUCO story is not uncommon. After academic problems in high school, Caldwell found himself walking on at Independence. (Brown was not his coach.)
"Everything you see on the show ['Last Chance U'} was the same," Caldwell said. "How crazy it is, how hard it is. You could see a lot of people come in with a dream and leave without one -- or leave with one."
Caldwell arrived as an overweight, out-of-shape weight on the program. At 400 pounds, he said teammates were made to repeat sprints because he couldn't keep up.
"Cussed out, yelled at," Caldwell recalled. "I'm glad I went through it. I feel like a lot of people in that situation would burst. Everybody on the team was mad at me."
His life changed when Caldwell noticed one day New Mexico football had begun following him on Twitter.
"That's when I realized I could go somewhere and play," he said.
A minor league model would possibly invigorate the JUCOs with better talent. Brown claims 100 of his junior college players have transferred to Division I schools. There are 28 currently in the NFL, eight of whom have played in Super Bowls, and 24 Pro Bowlers. All that during a 22-year coaching career.
"I don't know if there is anyone who rivals my résumé, and I've only coached JUCO," Brown said.
"You're going to have 27, 28-year-olds continuing to look for NIL deals," he added. "They're going to be at four or five schools. The NCAA needs to be honest and come out and say they're no longer student-athletes."
For this discussion, prep schools are private elite athletic technical institutions that allow athletes to develop their skills in a high school setting. One example is prestigious IMG Academy.
"The coaching is an interesting profession because you're always looking for an advantage," said Thom McDonald, commissioner of the Iowa Community College Athletic Conference. "You're always looking for a way around the rules without breaking the rules. The prep schools came out of a necessity for these young men and women to retain their eligibility and get a chance to play."
Despite the high school connection, prep school athletes typically live on the campus. Their NCAA eligibility clocks aren't impacted.
"My phone was blowing when that thing passed," Strohmeier said of the injunction. "They were thinking JUCOs were going to be a prep school. If you finished your eligibility this year, [they could] grant you another year."
Distant relationship with NCAA
The first junior college was founded in 1901. Some four-year college presidents back then concluded the first two years of college were not necessarily broad-based "university-level" classes. Over time, JUCOs became a haven for students who couldn't afford or weren't academically ready for a four-year college.
The National Junior College Athletic Association has been around since 1938. Its 514 schools are about half of the NCAA total. Its budget just a fraction of the NCAA's $1 billion. The state of California has a separate community college athletic association.
NJCAA president and CEO Christopher Parker describes his relationship with NCAA president Charlie Baker as "nonexistent".
"I have made efforts to connect with Charlie Baker to work together for the good of all students," Parker said, "But we haven't received any indication of Charlie's willingness to do so collaboratively."
The lack of connection is understandable. The NCAA is battling for its very existence. Baker is busy managing the House settlement, lobbying in Congress and dealing with lawsuits that seem to be filed almost daily.
Meanwhile, the list of famous former JUCO players populate varous hall of fames – Jackie Robinson, Albert Pujols, Bryce Harper, as well a pair of Heisman winners, Roger Staubach and Cam Newton. Georgia's Stetson Bennett won a pair of championships after attending Jones College in Ellisville, Mississippi.
.
.
.
continued
Upvote
0
"continued"? JFC what is that, War and Peace?Yeah, I know it is by Dennis Dodd; however, it is still a good article on how the transfer portal has affected JUCOs:
The original transfer portal, junior colleges face their own 'last chance' amid football's sweeping changes
Hamstrung by funding and a growing distance from the NCAA, JUCOs may need to get creative to surviveThe original transfer portal, junior colleges face their own 'last chance' amid football's sweeping changes
Hamstrung by funding and a growing distance from the NCAA, JUCOs may need to get creative to survive
Every morning, Jason Brown hosts a free-wheeling, sometimes profanity-laced streaming presentation on X called "The Coach JB Show with Big Smitty." Let's just say the former junior college coach has viewpoints. He also has a website selling merch to those loyal to his side hustle, Slapdick Whiskey and Cigars.
Yeah, it's a free country. It's also one that is about to change radically -- football-wise -- if you talk to Brown, known mostly because of his featured role on the Netflix documentary "Last Chance U."
The show, which ran from 2016-2020, offered an inside look at junior college football. Brown became sort of an overnight sensation when his Independence (Kan.) Community College team was featured for two seasons.
Brown hasn't worked as a coach since his last year at Independence in 2018 -- he told CBS Sports he has been blackballed -- but he keeps track of his old profession. The college football world, not just JUCO ball, is in (further) upheaval since Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia sued the NCAA in November. The everyman inspiration for the Commodores contended the association violated anti-trust law by counting time served in junior college towards NCAA eligibility limits. Athletes are allowed five total years to play four years of competition.
Pavia won an injunction in December, giving him another year of eligibility in 2025. The NCAA Council almost immediately reacted by allowing such players an extra year through the 2024-2025 academic year; the NCAA is appealing the original Pavia suit.
Alarms immediately sounded at NCAA headquarters and football offices around the country. With the NCAA backpedaling on similar issues as the power conferences and their attorneys take over, what if the NCAA eventually allowed time served in junior college to not count against NCAA eligibility?
"Everyone from [Ole Miss coach]. Lane [Kiffin] to Sark [Texas coach Steve Sarkisian] have talked to me about it," Brown told CBS Sports. "We're all former JUCO guys. JUCO used to the be the transfer portal. Now it's imploded."
As a result, junior college and high school recruiting has taken a hit as coaches more frequently go into the portal for established talent.
For years now, the NCAA had to measure each major decision against potential legal liability. It's the same approach the NCAA eventually took in allowing NIL 3 ½ years ago. It has settled in House v. NCAA, which will formally usher in the play-for-pay era later this year. A patchwork of state laws emerging may even prohibit that settlement from being enforced in some jurisdictions.
Essentially the thinking has been: What if Pavia's suit prevails and the NCAA again chooses the path of least (legal) resistance. That is, junior college players' eligibility clocks don't start until they reach FBS (or any other NCAA level for that matter). Theoretically, that would mean six, possibly, seven years of eligibility.
"Now, if you do two years of untimed JUCO ... what if kids say, 'I'm not doing to go Division I out of high school anymore? I'm going to do this JUCO thing,'" Brown said. "If you do that, you get an agent … He says, 'I'll get you a draft status after two years of JUCO. You'll play one for one at a four-year level.' Those big schools will have to pay that kid for one year of service and [they'll] enter the draft.
"It will be the Wild, Wild West times 10."
Minor league potential
If Brown is exaggerating, it's only by a little. Such a development would reshape the entire game. Sources tell CBS Sports there has been preliminary thought given to junior colleges formalizing a "minor league" arrangement with FBS schools.
For years there was the unwritten code as FBS coaches would "send" prospects not quite ready for the big time to junior colleges for seasoning.
Those were so-called "bounce backs," who would then theoretically go back to the original FBS program that recruited them. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't, but a formal minor league model would be more substantial. Those sources aren't ready to go on the record just yet, but one example emerged: Lackawanna College in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
"You can certainly see a scenario where Penn State would say, 'We're going to assist you with hiring coaches and some funding. You just have to run our offense and our schemes," said a person briefed on the idea who requested anonymity due the sensitive nature of the subject. "'[We'll help] with training table, strength and conditioning. We're just going to send all of our student-athletes who are not ready straight for the major leagues straight to your schools.'"
To be clear, there is absolutely no such arrangement known between Penn State and Lackawanna. But the Pavia lawsuit has opened the door to some creative thinking.
"It wouldn't surprise me at all [for it to become a minor league]," said Scott Strohmeier, who has won three junior college national championships at Iowa Western Community College. "I've been doing this for 19 years. There's never been [more] JUCO players that needed this avenue to make it."
The percentage of junior college players that populate FBS rosters is hard to nail down. Some schools emphasize JUCO recruiting differently than others. Having too many JUCOs used to be a curse to roster stability because they were, at most, two-year pass throughs. The transfer portal has basically created the same structure. As Sarkisian has said frequently, in the new landscape it's either "adapt or die."
Strohmeier said the transfer portal has put less of a recruiting emphasis on high school and JUCO players for NCAA programs. The coach said in 2016 he had 10 players transfer to Power Four schools. In 2024, that number was zero.
"What you're seeing is schools with a lot of money, they're not recruiting JUCO," Strohmeier said. "They're going to the backup at Iowa State or Oklahoma."
"Every D-I coach in the country that talks to me, is like, man, 'JUCO is not JUCO,'" Brown added. "You're not getting the Alabama kids no more, you're not getting the transfer, you're not getting the bounce back. You're not getting the kid that even gets kicked out for smoking weed or some kind of minor credit card fraud."
It is certainly a different world at the JUCO level. Former Garden City (Kan.) Community College coach Jeff Sims once signed a player who had done five years for armed robbery.
Dolphins' receiver Tyreek Hill, who did not play under Sims, was a two-time All-American at Garden City before finishing at Division II.
"We don't go 10 for 10 [in recruiting character athletes]," Sims once told CBS Sports. "We go 10 for 30."
Until recently, Oregon defensive lineman Jamaree Caldwell was considering an attempt at another year after seeing Pavia's lawsuit. The 332-pound defensive lineman came out of Newberry, South Carolina, to play at Hutchinson, Independence and then Houston before heading to the Ducks, where he became an All-Big Ten honorable mention.
His JUCO story is not uncommon. After academic problems in high school, Caldwell found himself walking on at Independence. (Brown was not his coach.)
"Everything you see on the show ['Last Chance U'} was the same," Caldwell said. "How crazy it is, how hard it is. You could see a lot of people come in with a dream and leave without one -- or leave with one."
Caldwell arrived as an overweight, out-of-shape weight on the program. At 400 pounds, he said teammates were made to repeat sprints because he couldn't keep up.
"Cussed out, yelled at," Caldwell recalled. "I'm glad I went through it. I feel like a lot of people in that situation would burst. Everybody on the team was mad at me."
His life changed when Caldwell noticed one day New Mexico football had begun following him on Twitter.
"That's when I realized I could go somewhere and play," he said.
A minor league model would possibly invigorate the JUCOs with better talent. Brown claims 100 of his junior college players have transferred to Division I schools. There are 28 currently in the NFL, eight of whom have played in Super Bowls, and 24 Pro Bowlers. All that during a 22-year coaching career.
"I don't know if there is anyone who rivals my résumé, and I've only coached JUCO," Brown said.
"You're going to have 27, 28-year-olds continuing to look for NIL deals," he added. "They're going to be at four or five schools. The NCAA needs to be honest and come out and say they're no longer student-athletes."
For this discussion, prep schools are private elite athletic technical institutions that allow athletes to develop their skills in a high school setting. One example is prestigious IMG Academy.
"The coaching is an interesting profession because you're always looking for an advantage," said Thom McDonald, commissioner of the Iowa Community College Athletic Conference. "You're always looking for a way around the rules without breaking the rules. The prep schools came out of a necessity for these young men and women to retain their eligibility and get a chance to play."
Despite the high school connection, prep school athletes typically live on the campus. Their NCAA eligibility clocks aren't impacted.
"My phone was blowing when that thing passed," Strohmeier said of the injunction. "They were thinking JUCOs were going to be a prep school. If you finished your eligibility this year, [they could] grant you another year."
Distant relationship with NCAA
The first junior college was founded in 1901. Some four-year college presidents back then concluded the first two years of college were not necessarily broad-based "university-level" classes. Over time, JUCOs became a haven for students who couldn't afford or weren't academically ready for a four-year college.
The National Junior College Athletic Association has been around since 1938. Its 514 schools are about half of the NCAA total. Its budget just a fraction of the NCAA's $1 billion. The state of California has a separate community college athletic association.
NJCAA president and CEO Christopher Parker describes his relationship with NCAA president Charlie Baker as "nonexistent".
"I have made efforts to connect with Charlie Baker to work together for the good of all students," Parker said, "But we haven't received any indication of Charlie's willingness to do so collaboratively."
The lack of connection is understandable. The NCAA is battling for its very existence. Baker is busy managing the House settlement, lobbying in Congress and dealing with lawsuits that seem to be filed almost daily.
Meanwhile, the list of famous former JUCO players populate varous hall of fames – Jackie Robinson, Albert Pujols, Bryce Harper, as well a pair of Heisman winners, Roger Staubach and Cam Newton. Georgia's Stetson Bennett won a pair of championships after attending Jones College in Ellisville, Mississippi.
.
.
.
continued
Upvote
0
This is exactly how I think lower level D1 schools will fall into line with the major schools.
Make the Ohio based MAC schools a minor league feeder system to OSU.
Except Cincinnati. Fuck those guys.
Upvote
0