Tag Archive for: greed

Keep Unions Out of College Athletics

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We’ve been raised to compete, to want more! More! More! It’s a way of life. It’s about greed. — Sandy Duncan, actress, singer

And so, the label “amateur” will likely be lifted from college football players very soon. No more is it about earning scholarships, attaining a college education, and working hard at a sport in order to pay for that education. It’s all about greed.

Gimme, gimme, gimme.

The National Labor Relations Board issued a ruling in March declaring football players from Northwestern as “employees” of the university and therefore the right to form a union.

What?

That’s like saying tuba players in the band are employees of the college. Maybe even swimmers, cheerleaders and chess players. After all, they all compete, they all enhance the “sporting” events and they all work hard.

Yes, football players work hard at their sport. But they are not employees! They are students of a college or university who – in most situations – must maintain a particular grade average in order to be granted the privilege to compete.

Now, a mighty foot has wedged into the proverbial door for unions to take over college sports. It may start with football, but don’t think for a minute this won’t spill over to basketball, baseball, soccer, lacrosse, wrestling and more, even beyond sports.

For their hard work and training, many football players have earned scholarships at institutions of higher learning, which is worth a lot of money, not only in tuitions but in achieving an education that will prepare them for profitable careers in later life. There’s the reward.

Some outstanding players are often cherry-picked into the big leagues where millions of dollars are bestowed upon them as a pro. That’s another reward for being great at their sport.

But until then, the kids are primarily students. Other than teachers, there is no place in amateur/university sports for unions. Union power will eventually translate in to sport domination, collective bargaining and if they deem necessary, strikes and sit-downs. And it will reach out to all other extra-curriculum activities on campus.

Talk about opening Pandora’s box.

Collective bargaining will translate to higher and higher salaries, which will create the need for new sources of funding. Network television is already established and on board. So where will that come from?

Ticket sales. Vendor costs.

Today’s pro baseball and football, ticket prices have soared out of sight to where the average family can barely afford a day at the ball game, unless they sit in the bleachers over center field or the end zone. The bulk of good seating is reserved for corporations, politicians, and clients of all sizes and shapes of money bags.

Fortunately, prices for attending amateur school games have not hit the stratosphere – yet. But wait until the costs of ball players generate the need for revenue – revenue which the average Joe cannot afford.

Going to college is first and foremost about attaining education. Sports and their associated events are an important element of college life, but it’s not a “profession.” If kids wish to dodge education and go for the big bucks, they can always apply for the pros once out of high school.

Amy Perko, Executive Director of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics said, “Universities and the NCAA, not unions, need to be the ones to guarantee benefits, like multi-year scholarships.”

When it comes to students, regardless of their extra curricula, unions should be kept out of the universities and colleges. To say that students who play sports are an “employee” of the school, is not only absurd, it’s nothing but a money-grubbing ploy to destroy the spirit of school sports now and forever…not only for the kids, but the families and spectators as well.

Amy Perko enunciates many of the benefits that college athletes should be entitled to, outside of being paid “salaries” as an employee. Watch the video:

RELATED STORIES:

College Players Granted Right to Form Union – NYTimes.com

College Athletes Granted the Right to Unionize—Is This the End of the NCAA? | Alternet

Pope Francis: Left, Right and Wrong? Left on Marxism, Right on CEO Capitalist Greed, Wrong on Prosperity

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This is a response to the pope’s attack on capitalism referenced in the UK Telegraph, January 9, 2014. This Pope is destined to impact the world, but is he right?

This author, as a college youth who spent summers in Colombia and Venezuela, landed in Caracas in 1960 and was shocked to see a Communist demonstration because a Communist diplomat from Cuba was arriving. I was told that the poverty in Latin America was fertile soil for their ideology.

Why the poverty in Latin America? Those countries were colonized by Spain and Portugal at the same time the United States was forming. They have an abundance of natural resources without the severity of climate in the northeast where the pilgrims landed. But after centuries of Catholic dominance, I witnessed a country where millions of people were illiterate and could not read or write. Yet in every village, high above the sheds and shacks, was a cathedral built by money from these poor people. I was told the gold in a Panama cathedral was white-washed to disguise and save it from an invading army.

Alberto Rivera, a converted Jesuit priest, says when his father died, his mother had to give their only cow to the priest to get daddy out of purgatory (a word not found in the Bible). Rivers’s wife believes he died of poisoning. One of his revealing books, The Godfathers, is linked at the end of this article.

The pope admits Marxist friends, but says they are wrong—after all, they don’t believe in God, and one of the pope’s titles is ‘Lord God the Pope.’ That claim and the persecution of those who would not bow to the pope led Protestant Reformers to believe the papacy was the “little horn” power that grew out of the Roman Empire in the imagery of Daniel 7’s sequence of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Grecia and Rome.

The pope is right about capitalistic greed of CEO’s paid such inordinate amounts. The Bible says, “The love of money is the root of all evil.” [1 Timothy 6:10]. But the pope forgets the Sermon on the Mount; We can’t take the speck out of our brother’s eye till we take the beam out of our own. [Matt. 7:3,4].

The Vatican is the largest holder of land titles for any organization or government in the world with visible title at around USD $316 Billion of property (churches, schools, hospitals etc.) and around USD $264 Billion of investment property hidden in extremely complex networks of hundreds of thousands of trusts and front companies. AND THAT’S JUST THE BEGINNING!” [Sic, Comment in UK article]

The Bible teaches prosperity and America flourished from 1776 to JFK when conflict with his church over the Vietnamese War may have contributed to his demise. Since JFK, every president may have been threatened with the same destiny as they moved us toward a New World Order with Rome behind it all. Rome is the recipient of wealth from banks as Karen Hudes reveals half-way through her expose.’ Search YouTube for Karen Hudes World Bank Whistle-blower; huge revelation that may get her killed.

Now we have a majority of Supreme Court Justices that are Catholic and Congress is mostly Catholic or catholic (universal—go along to get along). Where are the Protestants? No wonder this country is about to get flushed down the toilet of economic greed, moral pollution, and spiritual depravity.

Rome’s role in both World Wars is exposed in Rivera’s Godfathers and may be read online. The Bible describes the harlot (a woman represents a church in Bible prophecy, Jeremiah 6:2) as decked with gold and precious stones (wealthy church) and is the mother of abominations, Revelation 17:4,5. How it got there is well-described in a chapter of The Great Controversy a best-seller that can be read online.