March 14, 2015

"Charles Barkley Says Paying NCAA Athletes Is A Turrible Idea, And Americans Still Agree."

Can someone explain to me why the Huffington Post used that "turrible" spelling? Is it mocking Barkley's speech? It it mocking the idea?

The idea sounds right to me, by the way:
"There’s only a couple of players on the college team that actually can really play in every sport, so sometimes you have to look at the big picture... All of those kids are getting a free education. But let’s say we do it your way … we have to pay the diving team, the swimming team. That’s crazy. Less than 1 percent [of college basketball players] are going to play in the NBA... What about the other 99 percent that are getting a free education? Think about it."
I'm looking at the comments now and see that the top-rated comment is:
The spelling of terrible in the article title ("Turrible") diminishes both the point of Mr. Barley's opinion and his education. Further, given how some in his country have worked to to portray African American men, it can also be interpreted as racist.
That gets the response "but that's how he says the word" — which is something I wondered about, but didn't know — and the original commenter comes back with "And in how many instances have journalists used regional accents when writing on a commentary's opinion?" — which is exactly how I would have responded to the assertion that Barkley happens to pronounce "terrible" like that. I mean, he'd have to be awfully famous for that word, pronounced that way before it wouldn't seem disrespectful and a cheap way of discounting what is a damned good argument. He's not famous enough for saying "turrible" that I knew it. Are there any other cases of famous people so famous for a way they pronounce a word that the respelled word would be used like that in a headline? The only thing I can think of is a bunch of dumb old headlines about Ed Sullivan and his "really big shew."

92 comments:

Horseball said...

Carl Sagan -Billyuns

rhhardin said...

There's a linguistics term eye dialect, which is just spelling that just emphasizes how people actually say the word anyway.

jameswhy said...

Does HuffPost spell it "Tollybon" the way Obama pronounces it? If not, why not?

Meade said...

War on Turrer.

richlb said...

Corpse-men.

Humperdink said...

Barkley needs to go all nuc-e-lar on Huffpo for mocking him.

Drago said...

Barkley is well known for his particularly amusing manner of speech. "Turrible turrible turrible" is a phrase all the impressionists use when doing Barkley.

traditionalguy said...

Barkley is a conservative black man with a Shakespeaerian wit for word creation. That skill level is his crime.

He mixes the white European language skills spoken in a southern black patois. Charles relies on his authenticity as a defense.

Humperdink said...

My beloved deceased father in law, when he was exhausted, would say he was "tarred". It still brings a smile to my face when I think about it.

Quaestor said...

Barkley leans conservative and is one of Rush Limbaugh's circle of friends, so it's no surprise the Proglodytes at HuffPo would dis him over his dialect.

Drago said...

If you want to hear unvarnished commentary regarding a much broader set of subject matter than you'd expect watch him, shaq and the other 2 on TNT's primetime NBA coverage (pre and post games).

My personal favorites are when they all talk about how they arent even bothering to watch the primetime game on tnt on that night.

lemondog said...

Charles Barkley That's turrible taco bell commercial

Lyle said...

Liberals and progressives are easy racists when it is a cherished idea of theirs under attack.

Meade said...

"Aww don't feel noways tarred. I've come too faarrr from where I started frum."

Larvell said...

Actually, anyone who knows Charles Barkley recognizes "turrible" as a peculiar Barkleyism. Almost exactly like "really big shew."

Quaestor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Quaestor said...

My beloved deceased father in law, when he was exhausted, would say he was "tarred"

That dialect is fairly common, but by no means universal, in North Carolina. I remember consulting on a construction project with an engineer with that accent. It was a hot August day and we spent hours driving over the site discussing this and that. Finally after all was done he turned to me and said, "Let's quit. I'm tarred." To which I replied, at least your not feathered. The wrung out fellow turned an uncomprehending eye on me and said "What?" He should have clocked me on the spot. I'm such a jerk sometimes.

Quaestor said...

Damn it. Not your, it's you're.

I'm Full of Soup said...

NCCA scholarship athletes are prohibited from working summer jobs. I think that is dumb- how can they have even a minimal amount of spending money? Plus they are training or practicing almost year round which also precludes them from having a part time job so I support a stipend for all in that boat.

Ann Althouse said...

"Charles Barkley That's turrible taco bell commercial."

Thanks.

I've watched that.

Now, it that's a basis for respelling, you could also respell "that" as "dat" and "off of" as "offa." That would, however, certainly be perceived as inappropriately racial.

Ann Althouse said...

"Charles Barkley That's turrible taco bell commercial."

Thanks.

I've watched that.

Now, if that's a basis for respelling, you could also respell "that" as "dat" and "off of" as "offa." That would, however, certainly be perceived as inappropriately racial.

Marc in Eugene said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bob Ellison said...

The cool thing about Charles is what it always was: he doesn't care what you think about him. He's genuine. And he's got an accent, and he's able to laugh at it. Frank Caliendo explains "turrible" there.

He's also a good tipper.

dreams said...

The problem is that Charles Barkley is not a politically correct liberal black celebrity so the liberal media must punish him by portraying him as an ignorant black man. Remember Barkley defended the New York and Ferguson police by saying that they were the friends and protectors of black people living in poor neighborhoods. Also, his opinion of not paying college athletes isn't politically correct either.

Ambrose said...

@dreams - you have it absolutely right. Everyone knows it is ok to use racist and sexist language to attack conservatives.

Sebastian said...

"Charles relies on his authenticity as a defense."

A defense against what or whom exactly?

Racism is a thought crime except when it serves progressive purposes.

Race trumps gender, class, and religion. Politics trumps race.

Unknown said...

Humperdink said: "Barkley needs to go all nuc-e-lar on Huffpo for mocking him."

"It's foilage, Lisa, foilage. It doesn't take a nucular scientist to know that."

Roger Sweeny said...

Cordale Jones, who led Ohio State to the big time college football championship this January tweeted back in October, 2012, "Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain't come to play SCHOOL, classes are pointless"

Scholarship athletes in big time football and basketball programs have a full-time job: preparing for and playing football or basketball. "All of those kids are getting a free education." False. Very, very false.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

I'm fine with the players not getting paid as long as the coaches, AD and administrators don't get paid either.

Big Mike said...

If in fact the athletes are getting an education. At North Carolina they certainly didn't, not if they got good grades while not even showing up.

Is it much better at UW-Mad? Are your basketball players taking midterms or are they in Chicago studying their next opponents?r

Marc in Eugene said...

I'm sorry I can't pull an example out of my memory just now, but relatives in my grandparents' generation would, because of tiredness or excitement, occasionally use words from their (Appalachian) parents' generation, remembered from childhood or (under usual circumstances) schooled into retirement; wonder what the linguists call that phenomenon.

Marc in Eugene said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
clint said...

Is the argument really that we shouldn't pay any college athletes because only a few are really exceptional and it wouldn't be fair not to pay them all equally?

Is there any other profession where such an argument would be anything but risible?

Should we expect newspaper reporters to work for free because there are a dozen citizen journalists lacking basic grammar for every professional journalist?

Marc in Eugene said...

(Had to delete this twice, because I got the original post exactly backward, and then apparently 'pronunciation dialect' ought to be 'pronunciation respelling'.... Am going out for my morning walk since Internet engagement is proving to be too much for me.)

We're discussing 'pronunciation dialect', not 'eye dialect' (via Wikipaedia)-- the former describes an idiosyncratic word pronunciation when a standard spelling exists. The latter is standard pronunciation but a different spelling for whatever reason.

William said...

For the sort of pro sports like basketball and football, how about a pay package where the minimum starting salary for a player is the dollar value of one year's tuition. The player could have the option of actually paying tuition or using the money to buy a new car. That would be the minimum starting salary, but the colleges would have the option of paying more than just one year's tuition for a coveted player.......I read a really horrible statistic the other day. Within five years of retirement, 78% of NFL players declare bankruptcy.

john said...

Didn't Barkley make some noises a while back about running for mayor of Phoenix, or maybe governor, as a Republican?

It sure gave the left all the reason they needed to mock anything about him.

Matt Sablan said...

Nuculer, Turrible.

RecChief said...

we know that when you scratch a Progressive, you find a racist. Huffpo is mocking him.

Dr Weevil said...

I can't confirm it on the web, but I believe a high school in North Carolina changed its name a few years ago because of its embarrassing pronunciation. The problem was not so much that 'Hale' is pronounced 'HAY-ull' in the local (Raleigh) dialect, but that 'Hell' is pronounced exactly the same. When you asked someone where he went to school, and he said "Ah went to HAY-ull", you couldn't tell whether he meant Hale High School or Hell. As I recall, they got tired of the jokes.

Gahrie said...

Barkley is known for saying terrible, and pronouncing it turrible.

rcocean said...

Someone up thread has it right. Because Barkley is perceived as not a liberal, the HuffPuff writer thought he could get away with a racist put-down - 'cause all leftists have a "I'm not a racist" certificate.

And Barkley is also correct. Pay NCAA Football players and you're going to have to pay them all, including the women's diving team.
Ever hear of Title IX? As Chuck said.."Crazy".

Mark said...

Reading this, the impression is given that it was Barkley who used the word "turrible" with that spelling. If it wasn't him, if it was Huffington Post instead putting words in his mouth by implication, then the problem is one of distortion, not this whole side issue of racism, etc.

Then again, the whole thing is a side issue. Which all too often happens with important issues -- some boob comes along and derails the conversation with some inane comment.

So, back to the real issue -- paying student athletes. Fine. Sure. Whatever. Let's further destroy amateur athletics and professionalize them all. Let's further destroy the idea of playing for the love of the sport (previously implicit in the Olympics, but no more), and get all caught up in money, money, money. Since that's the most important thing, then, let's pay them. And then let's also charge them tuition and room and board to attend the university.

And what do we get then? OK, we pay them a good wage -- $50,000 or so. And then charge them for tuition, etc., just like every other student. If we limit those costs to $50,000, the student athlete would be lucky.

The point is, we already pay student athletes. If we were to pay them (taxable) cash money instead of paying them with (tax-free) tuition, etc., in many cases, the student athlete could end up in the hole, owing more to the university that what they are paid to play.

Mark said...

And if some maroons don't want to "play school," wanting to play sports instead, then instead of going to an institution of learning, they can simply go find some minor league team to play on.

Michael K said...

"when he was exhausted, would say he was "tarred"

My father and grandfather would say "barrel" with the first letters pronounced as bar. They also said "stalk" where I say stock.

This was Illinois midwest dialect or else Irish but my great grandfather was born in New York State. Most of the people in that area of Illinois were divided between farmers who were largely Irish and townspeople who weren't. I once found a local history of the county in a library and noticed that no Irish names were in it. The librarian told me that those early histories were sold by subscription and many Irish families couldn't read.

I suspect they were not sold out on the farms.

Brown Hornet said...

College football and basketball are big money at a lot of schools. The most profitable programs net over $100M per year - that's more than $1M per player for a football program. The money corrupts the schools. North Carolina created bogus classes to keep players eligible. Penn State kept quiet about a serial child molester for over a decade to protect their football program. Most recently, Oklahoma hastily expelled two students for saying the n-word in order to protect football recruiting. Barkley is correct that most NCAA players wont make it to the NBA or NFL. But that doesn't change the reality that those teams are defacto 2nd tier professional teams. Amateur teams dont make tens of millions of dollars per year, or pay coaches multi-million salaries, or build stadiums that hold 100K. An many of the players at those schools dont really get an education.

madAsHell said...

Aren't most of the athletes on a full ride scholarship?

How much should they be paid? Would they need to join a union to ensure a live-able wage?

dreams said...

When I was a child, I can remember older people saying they were tobble after being ask how they were, I assumed it was originally the word tolerable. I can also remember hearing adults talking about the economy by saying things like "the little man doesn't have a chance, its all about the big man" meaning the rich man.

Karen of Texas said...

Why not simply have "Sports Colleges"? Minimal class requirements, like maybe Life Skills 101 and such? Athletes should have minimal tech skills- like how to operate a cash register. Burger flipping. Table waiting. More competition for those WITH degrees, eh? Seriously, why waste the time of instructors and others who are in class to actually learn? Of course, I suppose you could push this down to high school, too. Right?

Michael K said...

" An many of the players at those schools dont really get an education."

I am a USC football fan (Season tickets over 50 years) and a few years ago there was information on USC graduation rates. Quite a few players came back and finished their degrees after graduation. I think it was about 50% when John McKay was coach. The NCAA assumed SC was corrupt because that is so common. There is a huge lawsuit working its way slowly through the courts that may blow up the NCAA.

Recent data for 2007 to 2014:

The Trojan football team's GSR of 58% was up 5 percentage points from the previous year. That number is projected to rise into the 70% range in the next few years' GSR announcements.

Of the 65 football players in the current 2004-07 cohort, 33 played in the NFL and 17 of those NFLers (including Mark Sanchez, Malcolm Smith, Jordan Cameron and Jeff Byers) got their USC degrees within the six-year GSR calculation period. The other 16 NFL Trojans from that cohort left school after their final fall season in order to prepare for the NFL and didn't finish their graduation requirements in that six-year window. But four of those 16 have since returned to campus and graduated while another will graduate this fall, bringing to 66% of the cohort's football players to get a USC degree. And five others likely will re-enroll at USC in the spring to complete their degree work, which means that 74% of the 2004-07 cohort will be USC graduates.


I remember a Cal football graduate who played for the San Diego team who was illiterate.

dreams said...

These athletes are blessed with elite athletic ability, they're the cream of their generation and if they don't take advantage of their good fortune then its their own fault. Most of these athletes don't have the ability to play pro sports but a lot of them through the connections they make while playing college sports will with the help of those connections find good jobs, better jobs than they could ever have dreamed of if not for being fortunate to play college sports.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Rather, Mr. Barkley should be commended for his proper use of a singular verb "is" with a singular subject "couple" where many speakers would use the plural verb "are" because of the prepositional phrase "of players."

"There’s only a couple of players..."

harrogate said...

Wilford Brimley: Dyabeetus

And yeah, Barkley's pronunciation of this word is quite famous. It has generated memes. I've seen so many people who care nothing for sports but who associate that pronunciation with him.

Karen of Texas said...

Sorry for going off topic. I was a female athlete in college, briefly, back in the early '80s. Don't get me started.

My vote - they were mocking Charles in a way the could claim plausible deniability.

harrogate said...

When people note that the players are getting a "free education" they are not thinking it through. The education, these athletes pay for with hours upon hours of intensive workouts and (especially for the big money sports) unsane travel itineraries while at the same time being expected to perform in the classroom along with their fellow students.

(Before I go on, if your response is 'Well, they are NOT expected to perform in the classroom!', then stop talking about how they are getting a "free education.' You cannot have it both ways)

And look at the billion dollar industry that is the NCAA. The coaches in basketball and football garner wealth of course (high salaries and endorsement deals), but there is also so much money generated in terms of merchandising and (for God's sake) television deals, it's mind boggling.

So yeah, the athletes are being exploited big time. Those who squawk on and on about how the athletes are getting a "free education" also seem never to follow that to its logical conclusion, what a damn shame it is that we make a college education in this country, like health care, accessible only either through sheer luck of birth or by crushing debt.

But, let FREEEEDUMB! ring, right?

Karen of Texas said...

And if not, let's point it out and say it loud enough and often enough that we make it so...

Number One.

Sorry. ;)

Tom said...

The "turrible" word play comes from comedian Frank Caliendo's impression of Barkley -- which is hilariously funny. Frank has been on the TBS show with Barkley, doing the impression and Barkley thinks it's funny. Seriously, it's worth a good search and the resulting chuckle!

Karen of Texas said...

As I said, Harrogate, Sports Colleges. Just like the School of Arts and Sciences housed on campus, how about a School of Sports? Minimal class requirements. Generated money to pay for itself, and the athletes recruited, with some percentage of that generated revenue going to the general fund for the entire university.

Tom said...

"crazy knucklehead turrible" -- Sir Charles

FullMoon said...

Roger Sweeny said... [hush]​[hide comment]

Cordale Jones, who led Ohio State to the big time college football championship this January tweeted back in October, 2012, "Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain't come to play SCHOOL, classes are pointless"

Scholarship athletes in big time football and basketball programs have a full-time job: preparing for and playing football or basketball. "All of those kids are getting a free education." False. Very, very false.


They are getting the opportunity to become educated. It is up to each to decide what to do with that opportunity.

FullMoon said...

According to comments here, Barkley frequently uses turrible in a humorous fashion, so no foul., obviously

Anthony said...

Give 'em all work study wages. Heck, one of our (Washington) football players works at the local Team Shop. They just want the big bucks early.

William said...

Axing the hard questions.....An elite body like that is its own reward. Why not give exceptionally pretty girls college scholarships?

Brown Hornet said...

"Aren't most of the athletes on a full ride scholarship?"

Unless they play football or basketball at a D1 school, probably not. Athletes in non-revenue sports rarely get full scholarships.

traditionalguy said...

Barkely has superior communication skills that make his friends jealous and his enemies furious. He is often accused of being a Clarence Thomas or a Herman Cain...high praise.

Michael K said...

Too many people assume all college athletes are dumb and I wonder if that is assuming they are black ? Many of those SC football players I linked to are black and many have graduated although, with the time demands of big time sports, it may take more than four, or even six years.

One of my medical school classmates was an all-Coast Tight End for SC and, while he did not play in the NFL, he could have.

SC has tuition in the high range,

The following are the estimated two-semester costs for a full-time USC undergraduate (taking 12-18 units each semester) living in university housing:

$48,347
Tuition and fees
13,334
Room and board*
1,500
Books and supplies
1,000
Personal and miscellaneous
580
Transportation
$64,761
Total (add $350 New Student Fee for your first semester)


That is a pretty decent reward for playing football. What is even more interesting is the number of "walk-ons" who made the team with their parents paying full tuition. One of the walk-ons was Green Bay linebacker Clay Matthews.

richard mcenroe said...

I like the charming fiction that the athletes are getting a free education when the headlines are full of cheating and garbage degree scandals for college athletes.

Brown Hornet said...

Karen of TX says: Why not simply have "Sports Colleges"? Minimal class requirements, like maybe Life Skills 101 and such?

Because that would be too sensible. Professional soccer clubs like Barcelona and Manchester United run academies to develop new players. The NFL and NBA outsource their player development to the NCAA.

Browndog said...

The headline is mocking Barkley.

Why? Ask them, but his republican afilliations are well documented.

Traditionalguy joins the bandwagon to affirm the point.

Odd, isn't it-

An important issue, worthy of a stand alone blog topic, is highjacked by Althouse herself from the jump.

Michael K said...

"Ask them, but his republican afilliations are well documented."

Well, at least AP History test prep doesn't link him to the KKK.
The far right of the chart is labeled “fascist.” The authors demonstrate modern-day “fascists” by pairing “Clarence Thomas and the KKK” in the same box.

Pianoman said...

The whole "athletes should get paid" thing is more about things like uniform sales, promoting star athletes, etc. The athletes get full scholarships which are obviously worth a lot. But they don't get paid a dime when the schools sell jerseys with their names on them. THAT'S what really frosts the athletes -- they have no say on that stuff, because they sign their rights away when they join the university.

Also, you can bet the sports agents are salivating at the possibility of tripling their customer base.

I'd give them what they ask for, but if I was the Prez of a university that did so, I wouldn't offer free scholarships any more. The students would have to pay for themselves via their compensation. Can't have it both ways.

Pianoman said...

By the way, Calliendo references "turrible" at about 2:40 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3vWvhlEcDw

Anonymous said...

They should get paid the amount they were getting in tuition, and then not get a free tuition.

Then they should have to pay taxes on what they are getting paid and learn a valuable lesson in college about paying taxes.

Doug said...

Much as I despise the Huffington Post, they are just journalistically winking at the key to the great Frank Caliendo's spot-on impersonation of Barkley. And Caliendo is as famous for impersonating Barkley as Barkley is for being himself. Barkley being a bigger-than-life personage himself, the HuffPo spelling is all about that, not a hypocritical swipe at a black man's pronunciation.

Doug said...

It is inaccurate to say that the athletes "are getting a free education", when in fact, many of them never crack a book or darken a classroom doorway. It IS accurate however to say that a student athlete is given the OPPORTUNITY to get a free education.

Put this picture in your mind: a Stanford football player who graduates walks out of college - whether he goes pro or not - with an education worth about $300K, and doesn't owe a penny in student loans. Now, even if he doesn't further his sports career, think about the advantges - tangible and psychological - that he has over the Stanford grad that didn't have a scholarship.

And you want to pay him on top of that?

rcocean said...

Given the number of players and the money involved the amount scandals is fairly low.

College athletes are already paid large sums in free tuition and room and board. Not to mention free OJT.

If some don't wish to get an education that's their choice.

fivewheels said...

Even though several people have made it clear, it bears repeating for those on the fence that "turrible" is practically Barkley's catch phrase. Go into a sports bar and ask people to do a Barkley impression, and I guarantee you every person who volunteers will say "turrible." It's to the point of cliche, though I understand that people might not know that if they don't watch the NBA on TNT.

There's nothing deeper there.

Known Unknown said...

What about creating a hardship fund for athletes?

That's what I would envision. Something administered either directly by the NCAA or a third party (not the school itself.)

Student athletes could apply and receive a weekly stipend to use solely for food or school-related materials.

So you're not "paying" them a wage. So you don't have to worry about paying everyone. It's another grant program that is designed to assist with living expenses while not at home.

How much would that cost? I don't know.

Achilles said...

The "Free tuition" card is being played here by a bunch of people who are completely ignorant of the commitment the student athletes are being asked to make. They spend absurd amounts of time even in the off season preparing and practicing. There is no way on gods green earth they have time to actually get a useful education. Sure they can "graduate." They can get a piece of paper that says they have a degree. But they don't have the study time in or any actual skills. And if they get a career ending injury or lose their spot on the team? You think they have a chance to finish school as is?

And the money generated is going to "non-profit universities" which is another pile of horseshit. There are administrators, athletic directors and coaches paying themselves 6-7 figures. If it is about the kids getting an education then no administrator or coach should be payed more than the "free tuition" the students are getting. The rest can go into the non revenue generating sports for other students.

If you aren't going to pay the athletes then everyone else involved including coaches, athletic directors, and administrators need to have their pay capped in the 5 figure range. Anything else and it is pure exploitation.

Anonymous said...

No they don't, Achilles.

They have plenty bot time to study, and unlike other students, they dont need to get a job to supplement their income while in school.

But its the same thing, only, they are getting paid more.

Good try though.

Achilles said...

eric said...

"No they don't, Achilles.

They have plenty bot time to study, and unlike other students, they dont need to get a job to supplement their income while in school.

But its the same thing, only, they are getting paid more.

Good try though."

If I was making 7 figures running an athletic program I guess I would say the same thing. I would at least feel a little bad about it.

Until these administrators and coaches start working for a "free education" too then everything you say is bullshit.

Mrs. X said...

It's my understanding that the big revenue producing college sports teams fund the non revenue generating ones. If colleges are mandated to pay student athletes in the name of 'fairness,' it's likely that, in the name of economic rationality, they'll soon start eliminating teams that don't pay for themselves. Wait, you mean you like playing on your school's soccer/lacrosse/crew/wrestling/field hockey/squash team? Sorry - playing without pay is exploitation, so we just can't let you play anymore.

Mrs. X said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Scott M said...

Anyone that parodies Charles Barkley, and there have been plenty over the years, have used "turrible" as one of ingredients of those characters/bits. For years.

RichardJohnson said...

lemondog @3/14/15, 9:33 AM links to
Charles Barkley That's turrible taco bell commercial

I listened several times to the commercial, and I did not hear "turrible," but "terrible."

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

It's the way he talks, and so what? It's not mocking, in the sense of being derisive. Sometimes we look down of folks for their manner of speech, and sometimes we simply notice a humorous peculiarity, as we have through the years with most celebrities, incl. Lawrence Welk, Ed Sullivan, James Carter, William Buckley, Sean Connery, Bill Clinton, etc.

Ctmom4 said...

I agree that this will never happen. The SJW women will not let it. No women's sports are revenue sports

Student athletes in non - revenue sports rarely have full scholarships. The NCAA sets the number of scholarships for each sport, and sports other than football and basketball usually portion them out among their athletes. The students still spend the same 3 hours or so practicing, running, in the weight room, etc. And, they have to go to class and maintain grades. Their GPAs and graduation rates are used to prop up the stats for the athletic program as a whole.

What I think is wrong is that even after an athlete graduates, the NCAA still owns the right to their names. If they are in video games, or the schools are still selling Johnny Football or Michael Jordan jerseys, they don't get paid. Ok, we don't feel sorry for Michael Jordan. Still, I think it is wrong.

Bob R said...

My guess is the HuffPo Sports audience and the ESPN audience has a big overlap. To them, the objectionable thing about the spelling is that it's a cliche.

While Barkley's accent is pretty strong, you can hear a lot of similarities in The Blind Boys of Alabama, Jason Isbell, Drive By Truckers, St. Paul and the Broken Bones when they talk between songs. Accents are dying, but they aren't quite dead yet.

Bob R said...

My solution to the "problem" of athlete pay is to simply treat them like students in other departments. Let them be paid by people outside of the department. If someone gives a math student a paid internship, we brag about it. If it happens to an athlete, the coach gets fired. 95% of the athletes are getting a great deal. The small minority who have market value outside of college should be allowed to tap into that market. All we should care about is that they are actually students.

Scientific Socialist said...

Professor, you're almost always spot on but not here. I presume that you're not a rabid NBA fan because if you were, you'd know that "turrible" is a classic Barkleyism. There isn't an "Inside the NBA" telecast without Sir Charles intoning the word at least once, particularly when talking about my hapless Knicks. And here he uses it for Taco Bell: http://youtu.be/3hIqesIVX-c.

JackOfClubs said...

Kennedy: We can do bettah.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Suck my dick, no pay. Die first. Whatever, fire the big coaches, close the teams or fill them with 5'6" just-glad-to-be-there gym rats like the ivy league. "Prollege" sports are a travesty.

Bad Lieutenant said...

And let them toe the fucking line. Don't want to "play school?" Fire, I mean cut their asses. I say cut them, because apparently, shooting them in the back of the head is illegal for some reason.