College Athlete Insurance

Daniel

I’m watching tonight’s Arkanas-USC game on Fox Sports Net, and I am aware of two things:

  • USC has a good football team, and
  • Arkansas has no business playing USC.

    • But what I really want to talk about is Matt Leinart’s decision to play his Senior year at USC. Leinart won the Heisman Trophy last year, and had he declared for the NFL draft, he almost certainly would have been the number one pick of the San Francisco 49ers.

    But he didn’t. I did a Google search for “matt leinart insurance,” and the first result was an article on Insurance NewsNet titled Premium Players; Insurance Policies Are Becoming Standard For Elite College Athletes.

    I was going to summarize the article, but instead I’ll suggest that you read it. The one fact from the article that really surprised me was that insurance policies have becomes something of a norm for “elite draft-eligible college football players.” Something much less surprising but perhaps more intriguing is that such insurance policies have increased in number significantly since Willis McGahee’s horrendous knee injury in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl — unsurprising because it was the final game of an elite college player’s senior year — intriguing because McGahee has seen none of that money, after signing a healthy contract with the Buffalo Bills. (Go Bills.)

    The article points out that because of advances in sports medicine over the past twenty or thirty years, these insurance policies may not be worth it, and McGahee is the perfect example. Carson Palmer’s father almost didn’t take out a policy on his son, but Carson asked him to do it.

    The NCAA offers injury insurance to athletes likely to be drafted highly — it does so in order to give sports agents one less reason to whisper in the ear of college athletes. It’s called Exceptional Student-Athlete Disability Insurance — ESDI. While I was thinking over this post I planned on saying some sentence like, “What does all this money mean in relation to the question of whether or not college athletes should be paid?” The answer? I don’t know. Maybe the NCAA should guarantee $1 million to every single college student who plays one of the four major sports — if an athlete suffers a career-ending injury while playing in an NCAA-sanctioned event, the NCAA pays up. I don’t expect to see that any time soon, though.

    College Athlete Insurance

    I Moved to Atlanta

    Daniel

    I moved in to my new apartment on Monday. I was at my sister Maureen’s over the weekend. The drive from Allegany to Arlington is about six hours, and the drive from Arlington to Atlanta is about ten hours.

    My apartment community has a website that allows residents to set up utilities before moving in, so gas and electricity were on when I got here. However, I didn’t get Internet until today, which is why I am writing this now.

    I have no furniture, but I was at Ikea yesterday and Target the day before. I found some stuff I like, and hopefully by Monday I’ll either have everything or at least ordered it.

    I Moved to Atlanta

    TinyURL.com

    Daniel

    Have you heard of TinyURL.com? No? What about this — have you ever gotten an email from someone that includes a URL so long that it runs over several lines? Then you click on it and your email program only recognizes the portion of the URL that falls on the first line? So the link doesn’t work? That’s what TinyURL is for. I first came across a TinyURL on Gamespot.com. It’s great for stuff like MapQuest directions. I just used it for the first time.

    TinyURL.com

    New Logo

    Daniel

    You may have to hit reload, or even shift-reload. Please note that this is more or less the logo for the planned layout/design/theme overhaul I’ve been telling people about, but have yet to deliver.

    New Logo

    Xbox 360: Too Expensive?

    Daniel

    Microsoft today announced pricing plans for the upcoming Xbox 360. Here’s the breakdown that I got from Gamespot’s article:

    Xbox 360 Core System – $299 (299 Euros, 209 GBP)
    •Xbox 360 console
    •Wired controller
    •Detachable faceplate
    •Xbox Live Silver membership
    •Standard AV cables

    Xbox 360 – $399 (399 Euros, 279 GBP)
    •Xbox 360 console
    •20GB detachable hard drive
    •Wireless controller
    •Wireless Xbox Live headset
    •High-definition AV cables
    •Ethernet cable
    •Xbox 360 Media Remote Control (limited time)
    •Detachable faceplate
    •Xbox Live Silver membership

    Alternate names considered for the Core System were “Dork System,” “n00b System,” and “Pokemon Edition.”

    In my E3 2005 wrap-up, I posited a $500 price tag for the PS3. I didn’t say it, but I anticipated a $300 price tag for the Xbox 360 with hard drive. I’ve always felt that three bones is acceptable, but four bones is a tad steep. Now it’s looking very much like both systems will hit the middle ground, and drop for four hundred bucks.

    Obviously, the Xbox 360 is “available” for under three hundred dollars. But let’s look at that package. No wireless controller, the latest promised addition to baseline console equipment; and no hard drive, the latest promised addition to baseline console equipment — five years ago. The pricier package comes with both, along with a wireless Xbox Live headset, HDTV cables (instead of standard RCA cables), an ethernet cable, and the mouthful Xbox 360 Media Remote Control (let’s just shorten that to 360 Remote). Both packages come with a detachable faceplate and an Xbox Live Silver membership, which is basically the crap version. Also, according to this News.com article, the Core system will be green, while the full version will be cream colored.

    But let’s be serious. No one is going to want the dumbed-down, crapped-out, stripped version of Xbox 360. First and foremost, Halo 3 won’t be out until April at the earliest, so anyone who owns Halo 2 will want the backwards compatibility. Include that group when you consider people who don’t want to keep two Xboxes sitting on their entertainment center.

    Analysts speculate that Microsoft may drop the price from $399 to $299 in time for the PS3 launch. I’m inclined to agree, and I suspect that rather than offer the light version for $199 or $249, Microsoft will simply phase it out.

    I was going to say that the Xbox 360 will be the first system I get so early in its life cycle since the Super NES, but I forget that I got a Gamecube on day one. Poor Gamecube. Poor, stupid Gamecube.

    Xbox 360: Too Expensive?

    Bob Novak: This is Bullshit

    Daniel

    In case you didn’t hear, Robert Novak cursed on-air and then stormed off the set of CNN’s Inside Politics during Thursday’s show.

    If you watch the clip (here on iFilm.com), it looks like Bob got pissed at James Carville’s zingers. But if you’ve ever seen CNN’s kaput Crossfire, you figure that Bob has taken — and dished — a lot worse. So why did Novak drop a BS-bomb and walk off? I suspected that it had something to do with the Valerie Plame business.

    But it still didn’t explain why Bob chose that moment to flip out. Then I read an article in yesterday’s USA Today, which seems to wrap everything up in a neat little bow.

    Last week in his column, Novak wrote of the outed CIA operative that “she could be identified as ‘Valerie Plame’ by reading her husband’s entry in ‘Who’s Who in America.'” Again, if you watch the clip, you’ll see a large book sitting on the desk. It’s a copy of “Who’s Who in America.” The theory here is that Ed Henry, host of Inside Politics, planned on questioning Novak about his column, his involvement in the Valerie Plame mess, etc. Novak saw the book and decided he wasn’t going to deal with the Plame story. He decided he wasn’t even going to give Ed Henry the chance to ask him about it. So during discussion about Katherine Harris’s Senate bid, Bob decided to get huffy and walk out.

    I wrote about Karl Rove a few weeks ago, and ultimately I believe that Rove leaked Plame’s identity to Novak, who was more than happy to do the White House’s dirty work. I don’t know if Novak will ever face jail time for this, or be forced to give up his source. I don’t know if Karl Rove will lose his job over this. But it would be poetic justice if jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller gets out of jail to see her career flourish based on her integrity, while Novak gets drummed out of television. On the other side of coin, a reporter doing time to protect her source strengthens the freedom of the press and more importantly, the notion that we live in a free and open democracy — while a talking head like Novak proves once again (see: Armstrong Williams) that getting in bed with subject matter you’re supposed to cover objectively can cost you your credibility.

    Bob Novak: This is Bullshit

    Mile: Wikipedia

    Daniel

    Something that I’ve found very interesting over the years is units of measurement and their conversions, particularly those that record linear distance. I’m talking about inches, feet, miles, centimeters, meters, kilometers, etc. I even find it interesting that you can say KILLO-meter or kill-LOM-eter.

    One thing I’ve always been curious about is how it came to be that a mile is 5,280 feet. I did some Google work, and the best hit I found was a copy-and-paste from Wikipedia. The article was about inches, but I really wanted to know about miles, and Wiki had an article for that, too.

    Apparently miles come from ancient Egypt or ancient Rome. A mile was the length of 1,000 pairs of strides by a Roman soldier. The word “mile” is derived from mille passus, thousand paces. But in 1593, England’s Queen Elizabeth I changed the mile from 5,000 feet to 8 furlongs. A furlong is 660 feet, so that’s where we get our current value of 5,280 feet. So where does the furlong come from?

    A furlong is the length of a furrow in a one-acre plot of land. Okay — what’s an acre?

    The acre is today defined as 4,840 square yards, but it was originally come up with to describe the amount of land that could be plowed by one person with one ox in one day.

    So in a nutshell, that’s what a mile is.

    Mile: Wikipedia

    Lance “Frenchy” Armstrong

    Daniel

    Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France for the seventh straight year. Seven. There is no accomplishment against which to compare this feat.

    Michael Jordan won six NBA titles in eight years, but basketball is a team sport.

    Pete Sampras won Wimbledon seven times in eight years, but there are four majors in tennis.

    Tiger won seven out of eleven majors, but that streak took only about three years, and there are four majors in golf.

    Toward the end, Lance competed in fewer events. This might be comprable to winning the Daytona 500 every year (the Superbowl of NASCAR) for seven years. Nobody’s done that.

    But did anyone hear Lance’s speech on the podium after he won? I’ve noticed this before — when Lance is among the French, his English almost sounds like it has a French accent. From what I understand he lives over there for six months out of the year, or at least he used to back when he was in more events. When in France …

    Lance “Frenchy” Armstrong

    PTI on SportsCenter

    Daniel

    ESPN has started this new thing where PTI airs in its normal time slot from 5:30 to 6 PM, but instead of ending the show at 6, Wilbon says, “See you in six minutes.” Then SportsCenter starts, recaps the latest big thing, previews the 90 (ugh) minute show, then says, “Coming up after the break, PTI.”

    So at about 6:12 we see the last two minutes of PTI. Stat Boy actually points out mistakes before 6 PM. I haven’t seen the 6:30 ESPNews replay of PTI, but I’m curious to see how it ends there. Perhaps the final two minutes are just tacked on the end of the first thirty.

    I never published my massive ESPN post, but it’s still saved and I still think about it sometimes. In it, I mention how basically every show on ESPN at one time or another has tried to emulate PTI, most noticeably SportsCenter. I did not enjoy when they brought in people like Mitch Albom and Dan LeBatard to give op-ed pieces. I don’t think anyone else did, either, or they would have stuck around. There used to be head-to-head stuff on specific sports, but “Fact or Fiction” seems to have evolved out of that, which is much less confrontational but still entertaining to a point.

    Moving the final two minutes of PTI to 6:12 appears to be a very weak attempt by ESPN to get people to watch ninety minutes of SportsCenter. At 6:14 I turned the channel.

    PTI on SportsCenter