About Me 0071: Being Right or Making Money

The UAW, not content with bankrupting GM and Chrysler once, want a repeat performance. And with Bob King at the helm, and apparently done campaigning for world peace and praying at the US capitol, they may yet get the double double. But first, it's time to put on the sheep's clothing and pretend to be rational. From the Detroit Free Press: UAW reveals ideas to try to level playing field. By 'leveling the playing field', what they mean is putting a thumb on the scale to tip the balance in their favor, but such is establishment media and their newspeak.

The document, called “UAW Principles for Fair Union Elections,” outlines 11 ideals that are designed to level the playing field between the UAW and an employer during a union campaign and election.

....The principles include an agreement that the ability to join a union is a “fundamental human right.”

But opting out from being forced to join the union is not. The document with the 11 principles can be found at this link, but just check out #2 for one:

Employees must be free to exercise the right to join a union or refrain from joining a union in an atmosphere free of fear, coercion,intimidation or threats. There is no free choice if a worker is afraid of losing a job or losing benefits as a result of his or her choice, or is intimidated into making a choice not of one’s own making.

Luck's father, Oliver, says the decision was based purely on "staying in a place he loves, playing beside teammates he adores and getting the degree he covets." Perhaps, I can relate to Luck better than some because I have the perspective of a 19-year-old high school senior that wants nothing more than to be in college right now instead of high school.

Being a senior in high school is not a horrible experience by any means, but right now, if I could be anywhere I wanted, I would be a second-semester freshman in college. Maybe a lot of high school seniors say that, but I am in my 14th consecutive year at the same independent private school. I have gone to school with more or less the same people for that entire time. I am ready to change schools, take some new classes, meet new people, and leave home. So when Andrew Luck announced he wanted to stay at school instead of going pro, I totally understood how he felt. I wouldn't want to leave school either.

On another note, even though the current NFL Collective Bargaining situation reported influenced Luck's decision very little, it is still a major issue worth examining in the context of Luck's decision. A major crticism of Luck is that he will lose tens of millions of dollars for not turning pro.

On the surface, that is almost guaranteed to be true even if his draft stock doesn't go down at all, and he doesn't get hurt playing for Stanford next year or the year after that because the new CBA realistically has to have a rookie payscale, which would result in Luck receiving a significantly smaller salary than the one he would have gotten had he gone pro this year.

But a closer analysis of the broad financial picture reveals that Luck made a sensible decision that very few big-time college athletes are capable of making. Assuming Luck gets his architectural design degree, he will still be set up to make good money regardless of what happens to his football career.

If something bad happens, he has a college degree to fall back on. If he plays for 20 years and makes more money than most of us will see in our lives, then he will have options for a real job beyond football if he wants to leave. Most former players who don't want to coach or don't make good coaches and don't have enough education, end up on the street because they spend too much money during their playing careers. By getting a degree, Luck assures himself that he will not share that future.

Andrew Luck has the right ideas of how to build a successful future. The rest of the world of big-time college athletics should take notice. And his critics should think twice before saying anything.

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Monday, January 10, 2011

Being Right or Making Money

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