04-17-2024, 03:28 PM
(04-16-2024, 12:49 PM)WBB fan Wrote: What's evolving now makes me more and more inclined to look to D II and D III athletics to get interested in. The athletes at such schools are, of course, typically not the world class ones who want to have the big stage, but for the most part, they are genuine student-athletes, with student coming first. My son went to a small liberal arts college ( Haverford) that competed at the D II and D III level, and was able to enjoy being an athlete at the same time his education was his first priority.
NIL deals and portal transfers are not limited to Division 1 athletes. A basketball player at Claremont McKenna whom you've never heard of unless you are one of his million followers and people like that. I've never been into litmus tests of what the people who entertain me care about first and foremost or what motivates them. I listen to jazz and rock a lot. Watch a lot of sports. Read. I am definitely going on longer hikes, reading more, and watching fewer sports, but then there's that jazz and rock. What to do?
Notable D2 and D3 NIL deals
I heartily recommend high school sports for a less money-driven experience. (I still go to high school games.) Wait, no, high school can be rampant with recruiting and districting shenanigans plus transfers. Maybe latch on to intramural sports? That's as pure as it gets, right? Random collections of variably talented students with zero recruiting. Wait, I shouldn't say "zero" based on personal experience. My fraternity's ultimate frisbee team had an incredible ringer on it. We won championships mostly because of that dude. A legitimate Tech graduate student (with a Stanford BSEE to boot!) who was in a fraternity. At Stanford. You can't join two fraternities. No one asked or cared. We don't carry fraternity cards (or pledge pins) and how is someone on work study with a clipboard over at SAC gonna know our secret handshake? He's with us.
My granddaughter plays soccer now. That's pure, although her revolution will not be televised.*
*If you don't count the hours and hours of available footage stored somewhere up in the cloud.


