The lead article in the sports section of the Dispatch today was about the Glory Days of Ohio State basketball. I found this quote from Fred Taylor quite a contrast to what we have today.

"As much as any coach, ever, (Taylor) put his players first," Caryer said. "When he recruited you, he said, 'What I have to offer is this: You'll get a college education and you will compete for a Big Ten championship.' That was it. He didn't think there anything else that mattered.

Yes, I realize times have changed but for those of an age and/or belief that what Taylor said was/is enough, it's a very difficult time to be a coach and a fan. (Time for me to go watch Andy, Don and Opie). :)

"What I have to offer is this: you'll get a college education, you will compete for a Big 10 championship, and you'll get to earn and save a substantial amount of money in the process."

Curious what about that message is not "players first"?

It was, for the record, lawsuits from former players that were the catalyst to the massive changes in college sports. You've got to either be really naive or incredibly patronizing to insist a system that fell apart due to lawsuits from the players themselves was putting players first.

The ghost of Myles Brand came back as a message board poster!

Git! Back to the bardo!

Also, I’ve talked to too many people who were on Ohio State’s campus in the 1960s who saw the cars Buckeye football players drove to believe they weren’t paid under the table.

In the 60’s they could have jobs and they often had very very good summer jobs. That was legal back in that day.

And, some of those jobs did not require showing up for work. That also happened here in Athens with football and basketball players, but to much lesser degree. As a student I was personally aware of one such situation.

Well, Alan, we have a point of agreement here. Gentleman Jim was even more of a players' coach than Weeping Fred as we used to call him. He got that moniker by my group of friends because win or lose he'd be on his weekly TV show weeping about last week's games. If they had lost a game, he'd weep about the poor officiating, or some other reason they'd lost (never because the other team was better). If they'd won, he still find something to complain about. The crying towel was the biggest prop on his show.

That being said, Snyder and Taylor were very good friends and Jim spoke highly of him. I just liked Jim's style better.

One of my fondest Bobcat memories was being in St. John's Arena the night OHIO beat OSU for the first time in basketball. That game only occurred because of the friendship between the two coaches. That kind of thing seldom happens these days. It was a different era, and in some ways a better time.

Now it's time for me to time travel back to Mayberry with you, Alan!

I am well aware of that 😎