Introduction
The man
These are biographies of him on four websites.The State of Massachusetts website
Governor Charlie Baker is the 72nd Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He was sworn in for a first term in January 2015 and a second term in January 2019. Throughout his tenure, Governor Baker has focused on moving Massachusetts forward through bipartisan, results-driven leadership.Note; Some states, including Massachusetts, call themselves a "commonwealth", as mentioned in the first paragraph of this biography. There is no distinction between these states and other states in our courts.
Since taking office, Governor Baker and Lt. Governor Karyn Polito have assembled a diverse team and put forth a ‘get stuff done’ approach to build a state government that is as thrifty, hard-working and creative as the people of Massachusetts.
Governor Baker has prioritized downtown and regional economic development, allowed small businesses to become more competitive in a dynamic economy through regulatory reform, and delivered critical tax relief to more than 400,000 hardworking individuals and their families through a doubling of the Earned Income Tax Credit.
The National Governor's Association
Governor Charlie Baker was sworn in for a second term as the 72nd Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on January 3, 2019. Over the course of his career, Governor Baker has been a highly successful leader of complex business and government organizations. As a cabinet secretary under Governors William Weld and Paul Cellucci, Governor Baker helped lead efforts to reform and modernize state government, turn a billion-dollar deficit into a surplus, create a half million jobs, and enact an ambitious education reform agenda. During his time as Chief Executive Officer of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Governor Baker turned a company on the brink of bankruptcy into the nation’s highest ranked health care provider for member satisfaction and clinical effectiveness for six straight years.
Raised in Needham, Governor Baker attended Massachusetts public schools and is a graduate of Harvard College. He went on to earn a Master’s of Business Administration from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, where he met his wife Lauren. The Bakers reside in Swampscott, have been heavily involved in numerous civic and charitable endeavors, and are the proud parents of their three children, Charlie, AJ, and Caroline.
Wikipedia
Charles Duane Baker Jr. (born November 13, 1956) is an American politician and businessman serving as the 72nd governor of Massachusetts since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, Baker was a cabinet official under two governors of Massachusetts and served ten years as CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.
Baker grew up in Needham, Massachusetts, earned a BA from Harvard University in 1979, and later obtained an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. In 1991, he became Massachusetts Undersecretary of Health and Human Services under Governor Bill Weld. In 1992, he was appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services of Massachusetts. He later served as Secretary of Administration and Finance under Weld and his successor, Paul Cellucci.
After working in government for eight years, Baker left to become CEO of Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates and later Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, a nonprofit health benefits company. During this time he served three years as a selectman of Swampscott and considered a run for Massachusetts governor in 2006. He stepped down in July 2009 to run for governor on a platform of fiscal conservatism and cultural liberalism. He was unopposed in the Republican primary but lost the 2010 general election to Democratic incumbent Deval Patrick.
In 2014, Baker ran for governor again and narrowly defeated Democratic nominee Martha Coakley. In 2018, he was reelected handily over Democratic challenger Jay Gonzalez with 67% of the vote, the largest vote share in a Massachusetts gubernatorial election since 1994. Nonpartisan polls consistently list him among the nation's most popular governors. In December 2021, Baker announced that he would not seek reelection in 2022.
Ballotpedia
Baker was born in Elmira, New York, and spent most of his childhood in Needham, Mass. Baker's father served in various roles in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan (R) and Richard Nixon (R). Baker attended Needham High School and then graduated from Harvard University. He worked for the Massachusetts High Technology Council as a corporate communications director before obtaining an M.B.A. from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management.
In the 1980s, Baker took a position with the newly founded Pioneer Institute, a think tank. Baker was secretary of health and human services under Gov. Weld (R), then secretary of administration and finance under Weld and then Acting Gov. Paul Cellucci (R). When Baker left the public sector in 1998, he joined Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates as CEO. He then became CEO of the nonprofit Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare.
From 2004 to 2007, Baker served as a selectman of Swampscott, Massachusetts. After his unsuccessful 2010 gubernatorial bid, he worked for the investment firm General Catalyst.
Baker (Republican Party) ran for re-election for Governor of Massachusetts. He won in the general election on November 6, 2018.
In 2014, Baker ran for governor on a joint ticket with lieutenant gubernatorial nominee, Karyn Polito (R). He succeeded two-term Governor Deval Patrick (D).
Baker ran for governor in 2010, winning the Republican nomination but losing to Patrick, the incumbent, in the general election. Patrick decided not to run for re-election in 2014.
Before being elected governor of Massachusetts, Baker served as a selectman of Swampscott, Massachusetts from 2004 to 2007, Massachusetts secretary of administration and finance from 1994 to 1998, and Massachusetts undersecretary and then secretary of health and human services from 1991 to 1994. He was also the CEO of Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates and Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare.
In December 2021, Baker stated he would not seek re-election.
Bloomberg's website also has a biography of him.
His short athletic career
He played in eight games on the Harvard basketball team during the 1977-78 season. These are his athletic stats. He averaged 1.6 points per game with a 40% Field Goal percentage, a 50% Free Throw percentage, and 1.0% Total Rebounds per game. This means he was a third-rate player.
This is the first paragraph of a December 15, 2022 Boston Globe article.
Long before he spent his days on Beacon Hill, Governor Charlie Baker could be found in an entirely different arena - one that relied more on his height than on his political prowess.The Boston Globe is a reliable shill for local Democrats, yet they can't find anything more compelling about his nomination as the NCAA President than his eight games as a third-rate basketball player! They know that his political strength was weak at Harvard and is still weak now, so they talk only about his easily forgettable athletic career.
His short corporate career
With more than a year to go before voters go to the polls, the gubernatorial race is heating up. Charlie Baker is resigning from Harvard Pilgrim Health Care so he can run for governor.
Baker has been making the rounds at Republican Party events across the state this spring, fueling speculation that he would join the race for the state’s top political office. Baker has expressed some reluctance about leaving Harvard Pilgrim, a company he helped pull out of bankruptcy.
Close associates have said that leaving his nearly $1 million salary and a job that gives him a reasonable amount of time with his wife and children will also be difficult.
In a statement released Wednesday morning, Baker said, “Leaving the company is not an easy decision for me, but there is no middle ground. I am either the CEO of Harvard Pilgrim, or I’m building a campaign organization. I cannot do both.”
| This picture was included in the July 2009 WBUR story about his resignation from Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. |  |
He stepped down [as the CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care] in July 2009 to run for governor on a platform of fiscal conservatism and cultural liberalism. He was unopposed in the Republican primary but lost the 2010 general election to Democratic incumbent Deval Patrick. In 2014, Baker ran for governor again and narrowly defeated Democratic nominee Martha Coakley. In 2018, he was reelected handily over Democratic challenger Jay Gonzalez with 67% of the vote, the largest vote share in a Massachusetts gubernatorial election since 1994.
The end of his two terms as Governor
Gov. Charlie Baker's approval rating has tumbled since August, but the Republican would still be the favorite if he decided to run for a third term in 2022, according to a new UMass Amherst/WCVB poll.The sentence was copied from the last quoted paragraph of the previous WBUR story about Charlie Baker's decision to become a candidate for Governor.
The poll conducted by YouGov between March 5 and March 9 to mark the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic found that 52% of residents approve of the job Baker is doing, compared to 62% for President Joe Biden. That rating for Baker is down from 68% in October and high of 78% in the same poll taken in August.
Meanwhile, Baker would still go into a head-to-head matchup against Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey with a slight lead should he decide to seek another four years in office, according to the poll.
The Republican has not said when he'll make his decision. Baker has consistently been one of the most popular governors in the country over the past six years and led Healey in the survey 31% to 28%, with 34% of the poll registered voters undecided.
Baker has consistently been one of the most popular governors in the country over the past six years and led [MA Attorney General Maura] Healey in the survey 31% to 28%, with 34% of the poll registered voters undecided.Donald Trump, the Republican President from 2017 to 2021, and a candidate for reelection, found out that favorable poll results, an enthusiastic crowd at campaign events all over the country, and a nonexistent campaign by candidate Joe Biden don't' guarantee your reelection.
Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for Governor of Arizona, was also a hard-working candidate with an enthusiastic reception at her campaign events. The first video shows a 2020 Trump rally in Orlando, Florida. The second one shows an endorsement of Kari Lake by Tulsi Gabbard, who was a Democrat member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
| Uploaded June 19, 2019 | Uploaded October 18, 2022 |
Both candidates lost for the same reason. There was a massive amount of voter fraud against President Trump in 2020 and a massive amount of voter fraud against Kari Lake in 2022.
The formal announcement
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) today announced that Charlie Baker, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, will serve as the next NCAA President, assuming the role effective March 2023. A former collegiate athlete at Harvard, Governor Baker is credited with bringing bipartisan leadership to the state, successfully guiding Massachusetts through an exceptionally turbulent period for government officials. In addition to his two terms as Governor, he brings decades of experience spearheading transformations at high profile institutions in the private and public sectors.This is half of the first senetence of the second paragraph of the previous story.
Governor Baker's appointment marks the culmination of a comprehensive and inclusive national search process, led by a subcommittee of the NCAA Board of Governors and TurnkeyZRG, the top search firm in the space (which recently placed the commissioners of the ACC, Pac-12 and Big 12). Baker's term as Governor ends January 5, 2023.
"Governor Baker's appointment marks the culmination of a comprehensive and inclusive search process ...."
A process like that would have quickly revealed that the current Governor of Massachusetts has little or no demonstrated knowledge about any of the issues that every NCAA President must deal with as part of his job.
| This picture was included on the page of the NCAA website that made the announcement. |  |
“I am honored to become the next president of the NCAA, an organization that impacts millions of families and countless communities across this country every day,” Baker said in a statement released by the NCAA. “The NCAA is confronting complex and significant challenges, but I am excited to get to work as the awesome opportunity college athletics provides to so many students is more than worth the challenge. And for the fans that faithfully fill stadiums, stands and gyms from coast to coast, I am eager to ensure the competitions we all love to follow are there for generations to come.”Notice the omission of any issue that the NCAA deals with. He doesn't know any of them well enough to comment on them.
This is the next paragraph of the same Politico story.
Linda Livingstone, Baylor University president and chair of the NCAA Board of Governors, who led the presidential search committee, said in a statement that Baker “has shown a remarkable ability to bridge divides and build bipartisan consensus, taking on complex challenges in innovative and effective ways. As a former student-athlete himself, husband to a former college gymnast, and father to two former college football players, Governor Baker is deeply committed to our student-athletes and enhancing their collegiate experience. These skills and perspective will be invaluable as we work with policymakers to build a sustainable model for the future of college athletics.”Linda Livingstone also can't mention any sports-related issue that Charlie is competent to discuss. The "skills" that she does mention are his ability to be a husband to a former college athlete and a father to athletic children!
These other websites have similar announcements. The name of each website is a link to their story.
| N.Y. Times | U.S.A. Today | Axios |
| CNBC | Boston Herald | ESPN |
| Politico | Associated Press | Law360 |
| WGBH | Sports Business Journal | NECN |
| CBS News |
Washington Post | CNN |
The Harvard Crimson, their own student newspaper, also has a story about his new job.
Baker's background in government made him a top choice for the NCAA, which has confronted a variety of national legal and regulatory controversies in recent years. The organization was embroiled in a Supreme Court case last year over student-athlete compensation.Every Supreme Court case involves legal issues, but the NCAA itself is an administrative body. It makes and enforces rules using the contracts that it has with the teams and other organizations that are members of the NCAA. Charlie Baker is not a graduate of any law school, so he has no expertise in any legal controversy. As the President of the NCAA, he will lose the ability to have the state's lawyers advise him. He will have to depend on the advice given to him by the NCAA's lawyers!
His first day on the job - March 1, 2023
Former Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker formally replaces Mark Emmert as the NCAA’s president Wednesday, and during a roughly 30-minute interview with USA TODAY Sports earlier this week, what Baker didn’t say was just as notable as what he did say.
Amid what he described as a listening tour of college sports stakeholders that already has been underway and will continue during his first 100 days, Baker did not dismiss out of hand the concept of college athletes becoming employees of their school. He also did not adhere to the idea that the association’s only path to clarifying its most urgent underlying issues is the passage of new federal laws.
His first week on the job
INDIANAPOLIS -- All of this is familiar to Charlie Baker. So very familiar. He has been down this road before. He pulls out his cell phone from the pocket of his suit and holds it up inside a conference room at NCAA headquarters. This phone comes with, shall he call them, suggestions. A lot of suggestions.This story and the previous one shows how unprepared he was to become the President of the NCAA. He has no idea how to delegate the minor responsibility of listening to advice from people who have a reason to make changes in this organization. A competent assistant can answer his calls and prepare a daily summary of these suggestions for improvement.
Baker, the former two-term Massachusetts governor turned NCAA president March 1, compares his government job to the one he has now, leading the organization that oversees college athletics during what he calls "very turbulent and challenging times."
There are plenty of parallels between the two jobs, but Baker noticed one right away -- the phone calls with the "suggestions."
Charlie Baker has been NCAA president for less than two weeks, but he knows he is coming into his role in the governing body of major college sports during a tumultuous time.The fifth paragraph explains his lack of qualifications to be the NCAA President. He played basketball at Harvard University, but he never had any responsibility for making and enforcing any sports policy at that school.
Baker, most recently the governor of Massachusetts, said his friend Utah Sen. Mitt Romney described the transition from leader of a state to leader of a rule-making organization for student-athletes nationwide as “going from the frying pan and into the fire.”
“I don’t think the people who say it is going through a tumultuous time are exaggerating. I mean, that’s the reason I took the job,” said Baker in his first televised interview since replacing Mark Emmert on March 1. “I could have done a lot of other things that would be a lot easier.”
As NCAA president, Baker will oversee an organization for 520,000 athletes, 19,000 teams and 1,100 schools in three divisions.
On the first day of the men’s basketball tournament, Baker – who played basketball at Harvard – discussed with CNN’s Chris Wallace the challenges of the job, including rules on transgender athletes; gender equity; how student-athletes can profit from the use of their names, images and likeness (NIL) and transfers.
Charlie Baker's start with the NCAA is not sitting well with Charles Barkley and othersThis is Charles Barkley's page on the website of the NBA Hall of Fame.
Eight months after Charlie started working
Former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines called out the NCAA and current president Charlie Baker in response to his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday where he was asked specifically about the issues Gaines has raised about her experience swimming against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas in 2022.
Gaines, a 12-time NCAA All-American swimmer and five-time SEC Champion, spoke to OutKick’s Dan Dakich on Thursday about Baker appearing to distance himself from his predecessor’s policies related to transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, specifically with regard to locker rooms.
Some of the issues that confront the NCAA
The CNN story that is quoted and linked above mentions a few issues. Rules for transgender athletes, gender equity, the NIL (name, image, and likeness) rules, and transfers. There are other issues, such as rule-making, scouting, red-shirting, academic requirements for student athletes, financial compensation for student athletes, and the discrimination against female athletes by men who claim to be women.Issues mentioned by The Athletic
It feels like the walls are closing in on the NCAA, or at the very least like the end is nigh for the antiquated ideals that have propped up college sports for decades. And the year 2023 is shaping up to be a pivotal one, with more than one domino poised to fall and each capable of toppling the business model entirely."Multiple lawsuits aimed at the economic structure of college athletics are working their way through the courts in a legal environment that appears more supportive of athletes’ rights than ever before."
What will the college sports enterprise look like five years from now — and who gets to decide that? The upcoming calendar year will begin to answer that question.
Multiple lawsuits aimed at the economic structure of college athletics are working their way through the courts in a legal environment that appears more supportive of athletes’ rights than ever before. The National Labor Relations Board is proceeding with an unfair labor practice charge filed against USC, the Pac-12 and the NCAA in a push to categorize athletes as employees, a process that could take months if not years to reach a resolution. There’s also a new Congress set to be sworn in next month, a new NCAA president with a background in politics set to take over in March and, perhaps, a new Big Ten commissioner coming in the new year.
Lawsuits mentioned by Athletic Scholarships.net
Cases settled by the U.S. Supreme Court
The website says that these six cases were decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.- NCAA v. Board of Regents (1984)
- NCAA v. Tarkanian (1988)
- NCAA v. Miller (1993)
- Law v. NCAA (1998)
- Brentwood Academy v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (2001)
- Worldwide Basketball and Sports Tours Inc. v. NCAA (2004)
This is the website's description of the 1998 Law v. NCAA case.
In 1991, after salaries for part-time coaches had reached full-time levels, the NCAA created a category of coaches known as “restricted earnings coaches.” Restricted earnings coaches had their salaries capped at $16,000 per year. The coaches challenged the salary cap as a violation of antitrust law. The 10th Circuit ruled that the restricted earnings cap violated antitrust law and did not fall under the NCAA’s antitrust exemption from the Board of Regents case.
In addition to winning an injunction against the rule, the coaches affected won a judgment on back pay. That issue was not settled until 2009 when the NCAA and the coaches settled for $54.5 million in back pay.
Cases settled out of court
The Athletic Scholarships website also names a case (White v. NCAA) that was settled in 2008 by an agreement between the parties. This is their description of it. The last sentence of their second paragraph was quoted verbatim despite their faulty grammar.This case involved a challenge by student-athletes to the NCAA’s restrictions on the value of athletic scholarships. The NCAA limits athletic scholarships to tuition, mandatory fees, room, board, and required books. This is less than the cost of attendance which also includes optional fees, school supplies, and other miscellaneous expenses. The student-athletes argued that the NCAA’s full grant-in-aid definition was a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
After some early victories for the student-athletes, the NCAA settled the case. Under the settlement, schools were permitted to purchase health insurance for athletes and two funds that provided benefits to student-athletes were combined and allowed to be used for more purposes. The NCAA also set up a $10 million fund that past athletes could receive either a cash payment or additional money for further education.
Pending cases
These five cases are in the early stages of being settled or decided.- O’Bannon v. NCAA and EA Sports
- Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. NCAA
- McNair v. NCAA
- Bield Sports v. NCAA
- Arrington v. NCAA
The business of college sports deserves to collapse.
This is the subheadline of the same story.
College football and basketball have become massive enterprises that appear to be on shaky ground. Can Charlie Baker save the NCAA from itself?
Other issues
Rule-making, recruiting, discrimination against female athletes, and financial compensation for student athletes are only four of the major issues that confront the NCAA. There are minor issues, too, such as redshirting. Let's look at these issues.Rule-making
The Targeting Rule in Football
Targeting is not simply helmet-to-helmet contact, nor is it just leading with the crown of the helmet on a tackle - and since its inception in 2008, the criteria, review process and punishment have all changed.Football is a very competitive game. Any NCAA rule that can disqualify a player from a game can be used (or abused) to give one team a big advantage, so the NCAA and the referees that they hire must apply this rule without any preference for one of the teams. This ethical requirement is similar to the ethics that judges must obey, and for the same reason. If the public believes that referees or judges have a bias, the public will lose confidence in the entire process.
Before targeting, there was "spearing," a term used to define a tackle that led with the crown of the helmet. Both the NFL and National Federation of State High School Associations banned spearing in 1976, making it a penalty of 15 yards if committed by an offensive player, or an automatic first down if committed by a defensive player.
The NCAA also adopted but altered the penalty, saying that only "intentional" spearing was illegal. By 2006, the NCAA had banned all forms of spearing.
Then came targeting.
In 2008, the NCAA implemented a new rule, saying that "no player shall initiate contact and target an opponent with the crown (top) of his helmet. When in question, it is a foul." It added that no player shall initiate contact and target a defenseless opponent above the shoulders.
Defenseless players were then defined in various scenarios - but simply put, they were players who had completed their role in a play, or receivers who were concentrating on a ball in mid-air.
The penalty was 15 yards.
But the targeting foul didn't truly become a hot-button issue until later.
"Where this thing began to take effect was in the 2013 season, where the targeting foul carried with it an automatic disqualification," Shaw said. "Then everyone began to pay attention."
Charlie Baker played on Harvard's basketball team during the 1977-78 season, after this rule went into effect. Its likely that Harvard's football players talked about this rule and that Harvard's basketball players heard them. There is no record of Charlie the second-rate athlete ever discussing it while he was a student or at any time afterward.
Perhaps no rule in organized sports is more hotly debated than the targeting rule in American football — particularly its application at the NCAA level.
Proponents argue that, as controversial as the rule may be, it is aimed at improving player safety: It's an ever-growing point of emphasis in a collision sport such as football. Opponents argue that the application of the rule is too rigid, does not consider context and, more often than not, errs too far on the side of caution.
Regardless of where you fall in the debate, there is no denying the rule has been vexing not only to the players and coaches, but also to fans who do not know how the rule should be applied (often because of the lack of uniformity in how it's called).
Sometimes, the application is obvious. Other times, it appears nebulous, with on-field and replay officials trying to judge whether a player was guilty of the infraction.
 |
Harvard University has a football team and a home stadium, as shown in this picture. Someone who played on Harvard's basketball team, even for eight games, must have talked with some of their football players, yet there is no record of him ever discussing any NCAA rules, including the targeting rule. |
The NIL Rule
On June 30, 2021, the Division 1 Board of Directors approved an interim name, image and likeness (NIL) policy. This new policy allows all NCAA D1, D2 and D3 student-athletes to be compensated for their NIL as of July 1, 2021, regardless of whether their state has a NIL law in place or not.
The NCAA NIL rules do not override state, college/university or conference specific NIL rules. This means student-athletes need to review the NIL rules in the state where their school is located and check with their athletic department for any school and conference-specific rules to understand what limitations they will have on their NIL.
College student-athletes competing in states without an NIL law will have the freedom to receive compensation for their NIL however they see fit, as long as they do not violate pay-for-play or receive financial incentives to sign with or remain at a program.
Scouting/Recruiting of high school athletes by college coaches
The stories in this section are arranged in chronological order, oldest first.The Harvard Crimson version of this issue
In sharp contrast to Harvard's active support of rule changes mandating stricter minimum academic requirements for college athletes, the University vehemently opposed restricting alumni recruiting of student-athletes. The rule change, which also won passage at the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) January convention, has clouded the future of recruiting in the Ivy League, which relies heavily on alumni for wooing students because its recruiting is on a small scale.Harvard's version of this issue concerned the academic requirements of their students. They wanted to balance sports performance with intellectual strength.
While President Bok and his American Council on Education committee led the way in the adoption of the controversial test and grade minimums, a separate group succeeded in garnering support for this less-publicized change. Although Bok generally discusses NCAA issues in broad terms emphasizing the importance of measures aimed at improving the integrity of college sports, his position on the recruiting rule is adamant and parochial: "We are perpetually in fear that the NCAA, in order to solve its problems, is going to pass rules that simply don't fit our special situation, that will make life too difficult for us, that we'll have to seek some separate existence."
Complicating the already sticky issue of confining alumni--who, it is feared, can easily lure high school seniors with material offers--is apparent confusion over the rule's implications, even among Harvard officials. Dean of the College John B. Fox Jr. '59, who attended the NCAA conference in San Diego, believes that a clarification of the ruling made minutes after it passed makes the restriction far less threatening than first presumed. "So long as the alumni contact is not for the sole purpose of fostering a better athletic program, it will be allowed." Fox says. "That will probably give us some leeway."
The New York Times version of this issue
A dozen years ago, the University of Washington barred athletic coaches from having contact with anyone in the admissions department.The University of Washington's issue concerned the influence that athletic coaches had on recruiting students inside the admissions office.
With a move that now seems prescient, two new administrators supervising athletics sought to allay any concerns that coaches could put undue pressure on admissions personnel. The change also brought more oversight to athletics, in this case through a committee of senior faculty members, deans and other university representatives.
The previous arrangement, said Philip Ballinger, an associate vice provost now overseeing admissions, “didn’t have sufficient transparency; it didn’t have enough eyes on it.”
The leeway coaches get in recruiting has long been a point of discussion in higher education circles. But after federal investigators last week revealed a broad admissions cheating scandal, a number of colleges began asking hard questions about how they evaluate athletic applicants and oversee the chosen few whom coaches recommend for admission.
The ESPN version of this issue
The FBI and college sports are once again intermingling this week, as federal prosecutors indicted nine college coaches and dozens of others Tuesday for participating in an alleged bribery scheme that helped wealthy parents -- including actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman -- secure their children admission to some of the nation's top colleges.The F.B.I.'s issue was crimes committed by the parents of students who wanted their children to be admitted to colleges by falsifying their sports history.
With so many high-profile athletic departments and surprising big names tied into this week's indictment, here's everything you need to know to get up to speed on a wild story at the crossroads of sports, celebrity and scandal.
The Washington Post version of this issue
The University of Michigan, a charter member of the Big Ten, is widely regarded as an athletic powerhouse. Brown University is not. The Wolverines are a household name and routinely draw national television audiences for football and basketball. Brown’s Bears are not and do not.Note the continued mention of television celebrity Lori Laughlin. This is her Wikipedia page.
But federal data show the Ivy League school equals Michigan on one measure: They each had 910 varsity athletes in 2017.
Because Brown is smaller and more exclusive, that means a far larger share of its coveted admission offers every year — nearly 9 percent — are set aside for recruiting in sports from baseball to water polo. The athletic portion of admissions for Michigan’s public flagship is 2 percent.
These are two examples among many — drawn from interviews, documents and a Washington Post survey — that illuminate the powerful and pervasive role sports play in admissions to the nation’s most prestigious private colleges and universities.
The admissions bribery scandal unfolding since March has cast a spotlight on the connections between athletic coaches and college gatekeepers. Some schools acknowledge that a plug from a coach or athletic official can provide a strong “tip” for applicants whose academic accomplishments otherwise might not suffice to ensure admission. At the most selective schools, where stellar grades and test scores are a given, that thumb on the scale can be crucial as athletic talent helps applicants stand out.
In the scandal, wealthy parents — including actress Lori Loughlin — are accused of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to help their children use fake athletic credentials to secure entry to prominent universities through what a consultant called “the side door.”
The CNN version of this issue
A federal jury on Friday found two wealthy parents charged in a national conspiracy that facilitated cheating on college admissions for their children guilty on all counts, the US Attorney’s Office announced.
Gamal Abdelaziz, 64, and John Wilson, 62, are the first parents in the scheme to be convicted by a federal jury, Liz McCarthy, a spokesperson for the US Attorney’s Office - District of Massachusetts, confirmed to CNN.
“The defendants in the case decided today were powerful and successful men. They and their families enjoyed privileges and opportunities that most of us can only imagine, yet they were willing to break the law – and the jury has now found that they did break the law – in order to guarantee an admission spot for their children in the school of their choosing,” Nathaniel R. Mendell, Acting US Attorney, said.
In 2017 Abdelaziz agreed to pay William Rick Singer, the figure at the center of the scheme, $300,000 for the facilitation of his daughter’s admission to the University of Southern California as a purported basketball recruit, court documents detail. Based on her falsified athletic credentials, the USC subcommittee for athletic admissions approved to admit her to USC as a basketball recruit.
The Arizona Sports version of this issue
The Arizona State Sun Devils’ 2021 football season was played under a dark, looming cloud.
That cloud was an NCAA investigation into recruiting violations that surfaced in June 2021.
Arizona State got through the year with an 8-4 record in regular-season play before falling to Wisconsin in the Las Vegas Bowl, albeit with a lot of key pieces missing.
But it appears that looming cloud has since turned into a full-blown storm, as five coaches have either resigned or been fired since the New Year.
The ABC News version of this issue
The mastermind of the nationwide college admissions cheating scandal -- known by its investigative moniker "Varsity Blues" -- deserves no more than six months in prison, Rick Singer's attorneys said Wednesday in a new court filing.
Federal prosecutors, however, said Wednesday night in a sentencing memorandum that Singer deserves to spend six years in prison, far exceeding the six-month sentence sought by the defense.
Singer pleaded guilty in 2018 and has since helped federal prosecutors in Boston with their sweeping investigation into bribes paid to athletic coaches, SAT and ACT proctors, and others so students of wealthy parents could cheat their way into some of the country's best-known schools. Actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman were among the more than three dozen parents charged.
There is no record of Governor Baker talking about any aspect of the issue of recruiting violations.
Discrimination against a conservative state
The NCAA announced on Monday the relocation of seven previously awarded championship events — including NCAA tournament games in Greensboro — from the state of North Carolina during the 2016-17 academic year as a result of the state's controversial House Bill 2.This issue was explained in much more detail in these pages. They are written as political science because their subject is the adversarial relationship between a President and a Governor.
The law prevents cities and counties from passing protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. And public schools must require bathrooms or locker rooms be designated for use only by people based on their biological sex. The NCAA sent a questionnaire in July concerning discrimination issues to the local organizing groups in cities that have been named to host any NCAA event in any of its three competitive divisions or are interested in staging them.
The President and the Governor, published May 9, 2016
The President and the Governor, part 2, published May 18, 2016
The President and the Governor - updates, published July 21, 2017
 Obama tried to have his way with many issues outside of the limits imposed by Article II of the U.S. Constitution. |
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Article II of the U.S. Constitution gives United States Presidents their authority to act, but any power that is not explicitly listed in this article is unavailable to them. Note: Both men whose photos are shown above lost their jobs as a result of the 2016 election.
Discrimination against female athletes
There are many ways that women can suffer discrimination. Female athletes are especially vulnerable because athletes usually have a short career on the sporting field before they must look for other work as a coach or through endorsing products.Introduction
Financial compensation for men and women is different. The athletic training rooms are different. Male athletes have been competing head-to-head with female athletes simply by making a false statement that they are now "female".American gymnast Cathy Rigby, left, and Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci, right, competed in Olympic Games. Cathy competed in 1968. Nadia competed in 1976.
 Both of them are obviously female. Both of them inspired young girls to practice their own gymnastic skills. |
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Both girls became women. Cathy became an actress and played Peter Pan on a Broadway stage. Nadia fell in love with the son of a Romanian dictator. She competed again in 1980 and won two gold medals, but her performance wasn't as good as it was in 1976 because her focus on the internal Romanian politics affected her ability to focus on training and competing.
Lower pay and less attention from sports reporters
Maria Sharapova’s shoulder injury stopped her playing in the US Open tennis tournament in New York this month. Not that she needs the prize money. The highest-paid female athlete in the world, she has earned $29m this year. Women golfers and figure skaters do well too. But others don’t. While sport has gained huge clout and wealth (the global industry is now worth up to $620 billion, according to a study by A.T. Kearney, a consultancy) and women’s participation has risen sharply, men still fare far better.This article included a photo of women playing rugby.
The number of girls participating in American high-school athletics, for example, has jumped to 3.2m from 300,000 in 1972, when a clause in an education bill called Title IX enshrined equal opportunities for students of both sexes, including in sports. The Tucker Centre at the University of Minnesota, which studies women in sport, says 40% of American athletic participants are female. But they receive less than 5% of all media coverage (and only 1.62% of sporting airtime on big networks). In 2004-2009 they comprised just 3.6% of the covers of ESPN The Magazine, a journal produced by a big sports media outlet.
Belatedly, this is beginning to change: women are breaking through in sports where physical strength and speed matter less or not at all. Even in muscular games such as football and rugby (pictured above), they are seeing slivers of the action, the glory—and the financial rewards
Male athletes are treated better than female athletes
Almost nobody likes the NCAA. Plenty of people like college sports, in the same way plenty of people like the NFL or the NBA. But very few like “the NCAA,” the governing body that oversees America’s college athletic contests. For many, that’s because when the NCAA isn’t working to prevent athletes from being paid, it’s working to make sure women’s sports are treated as something less than men’s sports. The latter was especially clear over the last week.
As March Madness began in earnest, photos and TikToks illustrating disparities between the NCAA’s men’s and women’s basketball tournaments spread rapidly across social media, and subsequently, into wider press coverage. Thanks to posts by women’s stars like University of Oregon forward Sedona Prince, the organization was caught outfitting the men with better weight rooms, food buffets, swag bags, and even playing venues than the women. Along with other NCAA failures, the viral posts made the organization’s incompetence the defining story of the first week of both ongoing national tournaments.
This YouTube video, uploaded in March 2021 by KSAT, is about complaints from female athletes at an NCAA event in San Antonio, Texas. KSAT is the ABC affiliate in San Antonio. |
Male athletes are calling themselves female athletes
The news stories and articles in this section are arranged in chronological order, oldest first.
ALLEN, Texas -- A transgender wrestler in Texas who was born a girl wrestles girls, but parents say it's unfair because he takes testosterone.
Last winter, Mack Beggs, now a senior at Trinity High School in Euless, Texas, competed for the state title, which he ultimately won.
"It was amazing. Like, I couldn't stop crying. It was so great," Angela McNew, Beggs' mother said.
Now, he's back at it again. His family said he's been working harder than ever towards his goals.
"We're proud of him because he's come so far from the first day he went and his personality has come far, and his -- everything about him has changed," said Nancy Beggs, Mack's grandmother.
Some parents, however, say he has an unfair advantage over his competition. He's been taking testosterone since he was 15 as he transitions to male.
"She's not built like a girl and she dominates everyone she wrestles. I mean, all you have to do is watch one of her matches for yourself and go see what everyone's talking about. It's not an even competition," said Omar Palomarez, parent.
 The photo above is Mack Beggs, an 18-year-old male wrestler. The photo on the right is a girl that will turn 18 soon. She has signed a contract with the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) to wrestle. |
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Mack is a boy. The other wrestler is a girl. Mack should not be wrestling with girls because he has the unfair advantage of 18 years of testosterone building his muscles larger and stronger.
For the second year in a row, a transgender wrestler has won the Texas girls’ Class 6A 110lbs division.
Mack Beggs, an 18-year-old senior from Euless Trinity High School near Dallas, entered the tournament in Cypress outside of Houston with an undefeated record. He beat Chelsea Sanchez – who he beat for the title in 2017 – in the final match on Saturday.
Video posted online showed a mix of cheers and boos from the crowd following Beggs’ win.
Beggs is in the process of transitioning from female to male and taking a low-dose of testosterone. It was his steroid therapy treatments while wrestling girls that stirred a fierce debate about competitive fairness and transgender rights last season. His march to a state championship was dogged by a last-minute lawsuit that tried to stop him.
Beggs asked to wrestle in the boys’ division but the rules for Texas public high schools require athletes to compete under the gender on their birth certificate.
He entered this year’s state tournament with a 32-0 record, beating three female wrestlers on his way to the championship.
A former Olympic swimmer has written a letter of protest to US college sports’ governing body, the NCAA, attacking its policy on transgender athletes after a high-profile swim meet that made international news.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Lia Thomas made history on Thursday as the first known transgender athlete to win an NCAA swimming championship when she took the title in the 500m freestyle.
Lia Thomas, the University of Pennsylvania swimmer who became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship, has lost a bid to become the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year.
The NCAA announced its conference selections on Monday, with Columbia University fencer Sylvie Binder being selected to advance to the next round as the Ivy League conference winner.
The University of Pennsylvania previously drew backlash after nominating Thomas for the award. Eligible schools could nominate up to two female athletes. There were 577 nominees for this year’s award.
A U.S. District Court has upheld a West Virginia state law that protects female athletes by prohibiting biological males from playing on girl's teams.
In an order issued Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Goodwin rejected a legal challenge that would have undermined women's sports in the state by allowing males who identify as female to compete with females in girls and women's sports.
In the world of college sports, it is impossible to provide equal opportunities for both sexes without single-sex teams. Allowing biological males on women’s teams discriminates against female athletes. The NCAA is not above the law. We demand that the NCAA stop discriminating against women and establish rules to keep women’s sports female.I signed their petition.
These other organizations are co-signers of this letter.
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Fox News also wrote a story about this letter.
Former Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines and about two dozen demonstrators outside the NCAA convention Thursday protested the inclusion of transgender athletes in women’s sports and threatened the association with legal action if it doesn’t change its policies.
Gaines competed in last year’s NCAA swimming and diving championships against Penn’s Lia Thomas, who became the first transgender woman to win a national title ( the women’s 500-yard freestyle). She also placed fifth in the 200 freestyle, tying with Gaines.
“Today, we intend to personally tell the NCAA to stop discriminating against female athletes by handing them a petition that we have garnered nearly 10,000 signatures on in just a couple of days,” Gaines said, kicking off more than an hour of speeches that attracted a few onlookers and a handful of quiet counter-protesters.
The topic has divided the U.S. for the past several years, with critics saying transgender athletes have an advantage over cisgender women in competition. Eighteen states have passed laws banning transgender athletes from participating in female school sports; a federal judge earlier this month ruled West Virginia’s ban is constitutional and can remain in place.
CNN also wrote a story about the protest.
My entire high school life I worked to achieve the prized title of "NCAA athlete." But now, through a series of regulatory decisions, the almighty organization that controls college sports has drained the title of its honor.There shouldn't be any exemptions from sex-segregated sports. The NCAA, like other organizations, should recognize the basic biological differences between men and women and protect female athletes from the unfair competition of male athletes who claim to be female just because they want a trophy.
In elementary school, I spent hours outside my house learning to overhand serve a volleyball. I was hooked. By the end of middle school, I decided I was willing to make significant sacrifices to extend my volleyball career into college and hopefully earn a scholarship.
This was no easy feat! I spent most of my free time in the gym or traveling to tournaments, never attended prom and missed several vacations.
The distinguished title of NCAA athlete carried weight; you were a hard worker and willing to sacrifice for a team — but I had to prove it.
Now, as an NCAA athlete, I wake up at 4 a.m. for practice, work diligently in the classroom, lift weights, condition, do homework, repeat. In season, I miss family weddings, spend late night hours on the bus desperately trying to complete the day's assignments, study the other team’s film, report to school early for preseason, and make sure I maintain eligibility requirements – including not using prohibited drugs.
College athletes are also required to hold to a standard in representing their school and compete at the highest level. Why? Because that’s what it means to be an NCAA athlete: You’re sacrificial. You’re disciplined. You’re resilient.
Now, the NCAA is disregarding the rules that once made this title special, denying the title of its assumed dignity.
The organization now regulates by prioritizing the feelings and whims of the athlete over the disciplined nature of athletics.
The most obvious of these decisions? Exempting athletes who identify as transgender from the fundamental rule of sex-separated sports — that you have to play according to your sex.
Riley Gaines' notable swim
| This short video includes the finish of the race between Riley Gaines and TG swimmer Lia Thomas that catapaulted her to fame. The timing equipment that was used in this race was very precise. It could measure time down to the millisecond. |
Despite the inherent biological advantages that male athletes have over female athletes of the same age, Riley Gaines tied "Lia Thomas", yet this picture shows that they were given different trophies.
This picture shows that they were not considered tied for first place in the race. Riley is not standing next to "Lia" in the first-place portion of the winner's platform. She is on the second-place portion of the platform.
| This video was uploaded October 17, 2023 by Forbes Braking News. It shows a confrontation between U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Charlie Baker. This is the name of the video. "Mike Lee Asks NCAA President Point Blank If He's Apologized To Former College Swimmer Riley Gaines" |
Reduced eligibility for transfers
The NCAA Division I Council approved legislation on Wednesday to limit waivers for second-time transfers. Now, undergraduate players who transfer will have specific guidelines they must meet in order to be eligible for immediate playing time starting with the 2023-24 season or risk sitting out a year in between transfers.
First, a player can receive immediate eligibility if they have a physical injury or mental health condition that pushed them to transfer from a school. Additionally, the NCAA will consider "exigent circumstances" that could force a player to leave an institution -- like sexual assault or abuse. No other factors will be considered, including academic considerations or playing time.
The new rules are an attempt to rein in the number of players using transfer portal, which has exploded since it launched four years ago. Nearly 2,000 players in FBS alone entered the portal in the first transfer window following the 2022 regular season. At least 120 quarterbacks alone have entered the portal, including a handful that were expected to enter the 2023 NFL Draft and opted for new starts at the college level instead.
The New York Times wrote a story titled "How sponsorship deals are transforming college sports" on January 24, 2023.
Compensation for the expenses of athletes
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The NCAA asked a federal appeals court on Wednesday to reject a legal effort to make colleges treat Division I athletes like employees and start paying them an hourly wage.
Lawyers for the student-athletes said that weekly, they often spend 30 hours or more on their sport and often need money for expenses, even if they are on full scholarship. And they believe the athletes deserve a share in the millions that are spent on coaches, college administrators and facilities — and the billions that networks pay to televise college sports.
They are not seeking pay equivalent to their market value, but only a modest across-the-board pay rate similar to those earned by work-study students, the lawyers said.
“This does not open up a circumstance in which there’s a bidding war (for top talent),” lawyer Michael Willemin said.
The NCAA urged the court to uphold the tradition of college athletes being unpaid amateurs. Critics of the pay-for-play scheme also fear the cost could lead schools to cut sports that don’t generate as much or any revenue while sending more resources to their profitable football and basketball programs.
WASHINGTON (AP) — NCAA President Charlie Baker said Friday that action by Congress was needed to protect what he described as the “95 percent” of athletes whose ability to play college sports would be endangered by a court ruling or regulatory decision declaring them as employees of their schools.
Speaking to a small group of reporters near the NCAA’s Washington office, Baker was realistic but still hopeful about the prospect of Congress doing what it didn’t do despite persistent requests from his predecessor, Mark Emmert: granting the NCAA a limited antitrust exemption that would allow it to make rules safeguarding college sports without the constant threat of litigation.
His comments took on more urgency when a Tennessee judge ruled Friday that the NCAA could not block schools from using name, image and likeness (NIL) money to recruit athletes. Baker was informed of the ruling during his meeting with reporters and declined to comment. The NCAA said later in a statement that the ruling “will aggravate an already chaotic collegiate environment.”
A federal judge has temporarily blocked the NCAA from enforcing name, image and likeness (NIL) rules for recruits after Tennessee and Virginia demanded a preliminary injunction.
The decision, handed down Friday by U.S. District Judge Clifton Corker in the Knoxville division of the Eastern District of Tennessee, said the NCAA cannot enforce its NIL rules — which ban student athletes from negotiating compensation with outside funders.
These are the first three paragraphs of a February 25, 2024 Yahoo Sports article. The link in the first paragraph was in their article.
The purpose of records is not to satisfy the incurable enthusiasms of men with sweating beer bottles in hoarse bar arguments over arcane decimals. It’s to provide some memory-measure of great deeds. Iowa’s Caitlin Clark is approaching a great deed, but the NCAA record book cheapens it by historically gutterizing women’s basketball. The greatest scorer in major-division women’s collegiate history is not Clark, but Lynette Woodard of Kansas. You’d never know this, however, because the old NCAA had no respect for Woodard’s era, so it canceled it, and asterisked it."The NCAA doesn’t regard women’s basketball records as records, because before 1982 the NCAA didn’t want women in their organization."
The most remarkable thing about Woodard’s scoring mark of 3,649, set at Kansas from 1978-1981, is that many of those points came after she’d been folded into a van because nobody would pay for women athletes to fly. The most airtime Woodard got was when she’d go skylarking to the rim. She could flutter a shot in the net like a pianist touching keys, despite being cramped up for hours - the tallest women suffered the most in those vans. Yet Woodard’s accomplishment isn’t formally in the record book because NCAA male administrators flatly refused to recognize or fund women’s sports until, get this, 1982. In response to a query, an NCAA spokesperson responded that women’s records pre-that date “were not completed while the schools/teams in question were NCAA members.”
To sum up, the NCAA doesn’t regard women’s basketball records as records, because before 1982 the NCAA didn’t want women in their organization.
The NCAA erased an entire generation of women's sports.
... by allowing biological men, with biological advantages, to compete against them in every age group and in many different sports.This is the first paragraph of a March 14, 2024 Fox News story.
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These are the first paragraphs of a March 14, 2024 Associated Press story.
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