Dr. Lynn Lashbrook

It may be hard for this generation to grasp how large of an impact on society it was for Branch Rickey to sign Jackie Robinson. It will be sixty-five years on Sunday since Rickey (and Robinson) took that fateful risk, and altered America’s way of thinking on athletics and race relations. It altered not only that, but how sports business was viewed.

The change did not come easy. An MLB Steering Committee document sent to all the owners after Rickey had signed Robinson, but before he was called up to the Brooklyn Dodgers showed that there was still racism within the highest levels of Major League Baseball (see MLB Committee Fought to Keep Blacks Out Even After Robinson Signing).

All these years later, the risk that Rickey took is a cornerstone for baseball. Robinson’s number 42 has been retired for all time by the league, and “Studio 42” is one of MLB Network’s pride and joys.

So, should we continue to march forward.

It is no secret when one walks into the SMWW Headquarters, the first picture on the wall is of Robinson sliding into home plate; that famous play where he steals home on the Yankees’ Yogi Berra.

Growing up in the era of segregation I never want to forget the power of sports as a platform for making it a better world.  My favorite quote from Robinson is, “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”

Sixty-five years later we still experience racism and prejudice but progress has been made.  We may never know for sure where progress would be without Rickey having the courage to sign Robinson, but I would bet, not as far as we have come as a society since my childhood days.

It is an absolute passion of mine to provide opportunities worldwide for all people, no matter the race, gender, or culture. When critics suggest that sports are just a reflection of society I always remind them that Jackie Robinson was a catalyst of courage to make it a better world. I truly believe in “Sports Are A Weapon of Mass Construction!”

Thank you Branch and Jackie for having the courage to show the rest of the world how sports as a business can make a better society for all!

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Who knew that HBO show “Hard Knocks” would illicit so much controversy? The show, which follows the New York Jets this season, hasn’t seen buzz over spectacular catches, or unseemly activity by players, but rather, over head coach Rex Ryan’s mouth.

Ryan’s vernacular runs a bit on, how should we say, the “blue” side. During the most recent 50 min. episode, Ryan let the f-bomb fly 10 times. Just think how many hit the cutting room floor!

Football is a “man’s game” but times have changed. I don’t think age has anything to do with this point I’m about to make… age on this issue does not make one a dinosaur.

Being involved with the game of football for over 55 years as a fan, coach, academic advisor, athletics director, sports agent, and co-author of the book Fan Etiquette, I’ve been around the block a time or two. When I played college ball, my coach did not cuss and as players we did not trash talk.

Fast-forward to 2010, and I have to ask the question daily to this generation of athletes, coaches, and fans of football and most will tell you that profanity has simply become part of the game. So when I asked people about Tony Dungy’s criticism of Coach Rex Ryan’s expletives on Hard Knocks, most feel it it’s just part of the football landscape.. Cussing, or demoralizing is done to motivate players.

I get the discussion and the debate. The question is, “Has it always been part of the game or has it evolved since I played back in the ‘60’s?”

What I like about Tony Dungy having courage to question the behavior is that he is not afraid to speak out about it.  I know when I wrote the Fan Etiquette book I highlighted that fans (remember, short for “fanatic”) should not have to tolerate cussing in the stands. In the book, I recommended a hotline where fans could use their cellphone to contact security when the language amongst fan was intolerable. Guess what? Progress is being made!

When I stand on the sidelines and hear the trash talking among teams throughout the game and the tolerance of officials and coaches to allow it, I realize that it will continue to get worse. After all, it’s a natural progression, right? “Progress”, as they say.Until someone speaks out and begins to question the necessity of cussing and trash talking to “win” games; a tool for motivating players, the trend will continue to deteriorate. As President and Founder of Sports Management Worldwide I choose to speak out about the concern I have for the tolerance of cussing.

It sure can’t hurt.

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When word broke recently that unscrupulous agents were using “marketers” to funnel money or conduct other activities with collegiate athletes that are bound for the pros in violation of the NCAA rules, I wrote that the NCAA has the power to clean up this issue by investigating matters in the off-season.

But, it’s certainly going to take more than that. It’s going to take assistance from the NFL Players Association, and it’s going to take remolding how high-profile coaches are allowed representation.

Nick Saban pulled together a group of high-profile college coaches including Florida coach Urban Meyer, Ohio State’s Jim Tressel, Mack Brown of Texas and Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops last week and conducted a conference call with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, and the NCAA. Afterwards, Saban said that he, “had a tremendous amount of respect for,” the NFL Players Association and a handful of athletic directors and agents.

The powerful group of coaches on the call have some of the highest profiles in NCAA football, work for universities that have high expectations for their football programs, and stand much to lose given the lucrative television and ticket revenues that might feel a pinch should one of these agents’ actions place the program under NCAA violation.

“We’re all trying to put our heads together to figure out what we can do to level the playing field so that everybody that’s in the agent community — which some of them are very professional — have the same opportunity to recruit players and that the bootleggers out there are guys that get punished and penalized,” Saban said. “And that the players that deal with them are going to have some of the same consequences.”

The conference call comes while North Carolina football associate head coach John Blake, who along agent Gary Wichard are part of an NCAA investigation involving senior players Marvin Austin and Greg Little.

And yet, each of these coaches has their own agents.

While these coaches are speaking out against agents I find it ironic that the NFLPA allows players agent to also represent college coaches.  It is an extreme conflict of interest and this is why the NBPA and the NHLPA do not allow it.

I remember when I was heavily recruiting Ryan Leaf out of Washington State.

I thought we were in the driver’s seat since I was a colleague with Ryans High School coach Jack Johnson when I was a graduate student at University of Northern Colorado.  I also was a colleague of Ryan’s Head Football Coach, Mike Price, when he was at University of Missouri as an assistant coach and I was the Assistant AD.

Then something weird happen.

Right before WSU was headed to the Rose Bowl, Mike invited me and Jim Steiner to visit his house in Pullman to get to know Jim better.  This was the same year that Peyton Manning was coming out as well and it looked liked Tom Condon was going to represent him.  At the meeting we were blindsided by Mike’s outburst that I was interfering with Ryan’s career and he didn’t appreciate the way I recruited.

It was bizarre.

I actually had met with Mike before the season to discuss my approach and he was very appreciative how we would never encourage Ryan to come out early and wished him good luck in the upcoming season. Simply put, Leigh Steinberg also represented Mike Price and before the Rose Bowl had renegotiated Mike’s contract with WSU before the New  Year’s Day game. To this day I felt I was a victim of the conflict of interest when a coach’s agent is injected into negotiations that should be outside their scope. The NFLPA needs to take the lead of other player unions in not allowing NFLPA certified player agents to represent coaches.

The incident all those years ago has stuck with me and from Day One at SMWW we decided that wewill not allow agent advisors to represent coaches.

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The New NCAA Head Coach Academic Progress Rate (APR) Portfolio where graduation rates of student athletes will be tracked to the head coach is a long overdue idea. The database (see it here) allows anyone with internet access to search the grad rates by school, sport, year, and thine coach’s first and/or last name. The fact that these numbers are open and readily available will place extra accountability on the programs to make sure that along with scoring points for a university on the field of play, the students are gaining the education in college that will serve the majority of the student athletes far more than a paycheck in the pros… if they ever get that far!

Simply put, when I as Assistant AD at University of Missouri as the Academic Advisor I jaw-boned and arm-twisted the coaches to require mandatory attendance for their athletes. My reason was that attendance is easily measured, cut-and-dry, and even though I couldn’t guarantee they will learn or will graduate someday I knew if they were held accountable, good things would happen.

Not only did we lead the Big 8 in graduation rates for football program during my five year tenure from 1980-85, I was also elected President of the N4A (National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics) in 1985. When I pushed what I termed the Never Miss; Never Fail mantra as the president, it was astonishing how many colleagues were skeptical of being able to get their coaches to require attendance of their student athletes.

But, experience proves otherwise. In my over 40 years of being a professor, I can’t recall ever having to flunk a kid who came to class every day. Hopefully the new NCAA Head Coach APR portfolio becomes the catalyst for Never Miss: Never Fail. Most coaches do not realize if they enforce this rule and bench those who break it that eventually no athletes will miss and few athletes will fail to graduate, an extremely important matter of life after sports.

Now with online education, it makes Never Miss; Never Fail even more attainable!

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There had to be a way to represent players, use my extensive background in sports business and academia, and yet, not wind up being a blood-sucking leech like It seems so many player agents have been portrayed. Certainly, players would seek, not just the money, but someone that had their best interests at heart, and would be honest and forthright with them as a client.

It was the 1996 Cameron Crowe movie Jerry Maguire that inspired me to start Sports Management Worldwide. The lead character’s “mission statement” and ultimately, the idea that greed as the motivating factor for agents is wrong, touched a chord with me. The story showed that large agencies, often times, can’t focus on the needs of each player.

The short shelf life of a pro athlete and the extreme challenges to mentor a client on management of lifestyle, finances, and second career was just too much for one agent and 20 plus clients. The more money the more challenges! Agents must be part of the solution and we need more agents with fewer clients, which keeps mega-agencies from cherry picking talent, while overwhelming the agents as each player added to a stable dilutes the amount of one-on-one time they so richly deserve. In other words, less is more.  It makes so much cents (npi)!

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We are witnessing a lot of rhetoric with the upcoming CBA’s for the NFL, and NBA coming up for expiration. Sides are jockeying for position, trying to make a case that, woe is me, we’re going to suffer if we give in.

We seem to be on the verge of a greedy war where the real losers could be the fans.

If any one of these negotiations ends with a lock out or strike I believe the fan outcry might be more substantial than previous times. Looking back at MLB’s 1994-95 strike or the NHL’s 2004-05 lockout should serve a lesson. Apparently, both leagues have figured it out as the NHL recently extended its CBA, and MLB seems to be keeping its labor peace in tact since the strike.

In this economic downturn, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Great Depression, fans will be less tolerant of the bickering between billionaire owners and millionaire players. People are having a hard time putting food on the table. Bickering sports personalities should strike them as pety. Throw in the non-stop news coverage that now sees blogs and social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and they will be able galvanize a strategic boycott on many fronts.

In football many will use college football as a singular focus as a statement, with some ignoring the NFL when the boycott ends. In an odd twist, it is likely television that could play a huge role in whether there is an NFL lockout next year. Like I said… the poor billionaire owners.

If you think I am overreacting about the potential grass roots backlash to the NFL, one need only look no further than the Tea Party movement. Let’s see how that plays out in November!

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Nick Saban sure knows how to grab a headline. Commenting last week on the proliferation of rouge agents that are willing to get coaches and athletic programs in hot water with the NCAA by funneling money to NFL eligible players, Saban said, “Agents that do this, I hate to say this, but how are they any better than a pimp? I have no respect for people who do that to young people, none.”

Pressure needs to come from the NFLPA on the agents by threatening decertification, and using outside “marketers”, such as Lloyd Lake and Michael Michaels in the Reggie Bush case, to get around that issue, laws should be enacted in States that currently don’t have the Uniform Athlete Agents Act. The UAAA puts fines in place for those that try to pass themselves off as representing players without certification.

But, simply put, the NCAA really holds all of the cards in preventing the agent from performing illegal acts which can affect a player’s eligibility.  What you are seeing now with the likes of Reggie Bush is coaches are scared to lose their star players before the start of the season through suspension.

In the past, the NCAA efforts were always after the season was completed and the player and/or coaches have moved on to the pro level. At that stage, once out of the prevue of the NCAA, these individuals have continually denied any wrong doing, and have, in most cases, skirted penalties, leaving the university programs to take the hit (at least Reggie Bush has to give up his Heisman!).

This concerted effort to catch the agent or “marketer” before the season resonates throughout college football.  As a friend of the NCAA for over 40 years (coach, academic advisor, compliance officer, athletic director, and agent), I love all the attention the industry is receiving right now.  When I became an agent 17 years ago, many of my colleagues were skeptical of my motives to join an industry which has a reputation of being a little shady. As the cliché goes, one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. I can assure you there are some very ethical agents in the industry but I do feel we need more. I have always said you cannot legislate integrity but you can attract people with ethical foundation, teach them the NCAA rules and how to illuminate their ethical compass.

Shining light on the problems will help clean up the industry and provide painful consequences to coaches and alumni for the loss of eligibility of their star players, which will eventually get the stakeholders of college football to assist the NCAA in preventing these violations from occurring.

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For decades, most Athletic Directors came from coaching backgrounds. The fraternity of college athletics was a closed shop where who you knew was more important than what you know.

The challenges of leading a multi-million dollar operation that is directing the collegiate sports programs at an institution requires more than just a letter jacket and coaching record, it requires a diligence to monitor programs that are under constant pressure of seeing NCAA rules violations, while making sure that boosters and fans are happy with the bottom line: a winning record.

College athletics is the front porch of a university; the institution’s most visible front. The AD is responsible for making sure that the porch is swept clean every day, providing a shining example that reflects well on the university. In some cases, a weak AD allows the dirt to be swept under the rug where often times, the rug is pulled out from under him or her as the dirt surfaces through the media.

While Pat Haden certainly wore a letterman’s jacket, when he left USC and eventually, the NFL, he became a successful businessman.

“We want to compete ferociously and win in every sport, but we want to do it ethically and within the rules,” said Haden, a former Rhodes Scholar who became a venture capitalist after an NFL career with the Los Angeles Rams. “We’re going to have a culture of compliance around here. Every meeting is going to start with the No. 1 item as compliance. … We’re going to try to be perfect. When we make mistakes, we’re going to fess up, and we’re going to try to do better next time.”

In this case, I believe Haden meets the qualifications as a bright and successful business person, that also has a football background, and in that order!. Yes, the letter jacket helps in the beginning but as in all jobs one has to take the jacket off and deal with sweeping daily that front porch

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Don’t laugh when I say that it’s time for the Cavaliers to go the route of other sports teams and embrace their home state, not just the city they reside in. With the loss of LeBron James and the PR nightmare created by owner Dan Gilbert, it is time for the Cleveland Cavaliers to reinvent themselves.

If Denver can call their hockey and baseball teams Colorado and Phoenix can call their football team Arizona why couldn’t Cavaliers call their NBA team “Ohio”?

And, I’m not done there!

As an old college AD, I would even take it a step further and announce that the Cavaliers roster will always maintain a 75% roster of Ohio natives or alums of any school in the state of Ohio.  What a recruiting coup for the nearly 100 institutions in Ohio. Before you begin laughing again about my idea you should note that Gilbert purchased Northcentral University (NCU) in 2008, a for-profit online university.

Simply put The Cleveland Cavaliers need to seriously consider a new approach! The Ohio Cavaliers has a nice ring to it and the idea could help the cash register ring!

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Growing up in Kansas City, team was the Athletics.  When they moved to Oakland, MLB granted us a new franchise and from there, the Kansas City Royals became the new team I put my allegiance to. Through the Royals,  I became a huge fan of George Brett and even named my son Brett after him.  I get the passion of having a player stay with the same team for his entire career and I admire it.  I also remember the days before Curt Flood, Andy Messersmith, Dave McNally the Seitz ruling when players were not allowed free agency.

With his announcement on ESPN, what LeBron James did was exercise his constitutional rights to the pursuit of happiness.  Now, there are no guarantees that his move will bring happiness or success but it is his choice and it was the intent of the Curt Flood, and eventually MLB’s Reserve Clause was lifted through the efforts of Messersmith and McNalley many years ago.

More importantly, the way LeBron marketed “The Decision” was brilliant and a slam dunk for the NBA! With 300 million following basketball in China one could say the decision could be labeled “Made In China” And we are talking more than jerseys.

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