{"id":8803,"date":"2014-04-21T14:08:25","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T18:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=8803"},"modified":"2014-04-21T14:08:25","modified_gmt":"2014-04-21T18:08:25","slug":"off-topic-did-emmert-actually-answer-any-of-these-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=8803","title":{"rendered":"Off Topic: Did Emmert actually answer any of these questions?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, embattled NCAA head<strong> Mark Emmert<\/strong> appeared on ESPN&#8217;s &#8220;Mike &amp; Mike&#8221; morning show.<\/p>\n<p>Some idiot at ESPN thought it&#8217;d be a wonderful idea to solicit questions live for Emmert via twitter using the #AskEmmert hashtag.<\/p>\n<p>What followed was hilarity. \u00a0As pointed out by three different outlets (blog <a href=\"http:\/\/awfulannouncing.com\/2014\/real-tweets-from-real-people-askemmert.html\">AwfulAnnouncing<\/a>), <a href=\"http:\/\/ftw.usatoday.com\/2014\/04\/mark-emmert-agreed-to-a-public-qa-on-espn-and-it-was-a-terrible-idea\/\">UsaToday<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/extramustard.si.com\/2014\/04\/18\/ask-emmert-disaster\/\">si.com<\/a>), people went to full snark mode almost immediately. \u00a0Each of the three links here posted different collections of tweeted &#8220;questions,&#8221; but they were awesome. \u00a0My favorites (pulled from these various links):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;remember that time you mismanaged a $150 million building project at UConn so badly the governor ordered an investigation?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;UCONN&#8217;s graduation rate is 8%. Are these really STUDENT athletes?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Why do athletic directors and coaches get bonuses based on player performance while the player gets nothing?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Can you explain amateurism and not paying players without using circular logic?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;I run a non-profit, where can we apply to get free labor like you do?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;When are you going to resign?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;what&#8217;s it like to rule a organization of thousands of schools and millions of student athletes using &#8220;because I said so&#8221; as logic?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Why do student-athletes&#8217; parents have to get permission from compliance office to take their kid&#8217;s teammate to McDonald&#8217;s?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;hey, do you think we\u2019re stupid, or do you really believe this stuff you say?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;I once gave a football player some gum in my class. Who do I contact to have his scholarship revoked?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Do you think slavery would still be around if they called them &#8220;student farmers?&#8221;&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Did you fly on a private jet to explain why the NCAA can&#8217;t afford to give athletes more than a scholarship?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;NCAA President says athletes are &#8220;taking seats from a paying student.&#8221; Wow.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That last one was from highly-vocal NCAA critic\u00a0<strong>Jay Bilas<\/strong>, joining in on the fun.<\/p>\n<p>There were a ton of other funny questions &#8230; the above only lists the &#8220;serious&#8221; questions about Emmert&#8217;s organization. \u00a0But creativity points to others; see the above links for more.<\/p>\n<p>All I can say is, wow. \u00a0I once heard a funny anecdote about the time that folksy SI.com NFL writer\u00a0<strong>Peter King<\/strong> was <a href=\"http:\/\/deadspin.com\/5392738\/live-chat-with-peter-king\">mercilessly made fun of<\/a> during a live Q&amp;A session on social media (instead of getting football questions, he was hounded with &#8220;questions&#8221; about inane topics &#8230; you kind of have to read the chat session). \u00a0This is what happens when the entire internet lives behind a curtain of anonymity sometimes.<\/p>\n<p>All I can say about Emmert&#8217;s Q&amp;A session is this: man I would have loved to be in the room to see the color drain out of his face.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, embattled NCAA head Mark Emmert appeared on ESPN&#8217;s &#8220;Mike &amp; Mike&#8221; morning show. Some idiot at ESPN thought it&#8217;d be a wonderful idea to solicit questions live for Emmert via twitter using the #AskEmmert hashtag. What followed was hilarity. \u00a0As pointed out by three different outlets (blog AwfulAnnouncing), UsaToday, and si.com), people went [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonbaseball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8803"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8809,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8803\/revisions\/8809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}