Friday, August 7, 2020

The thinning etc., etc.

Well, now. That didn't take long.

A day after a USA Today report alleging Texas Tech women's basketball coach Marlene Stollings was, essentially, a nutjob presiding over a reign of terror, Texas Tech showed her the road. Athletic director Kirby Hocutt announced the firing in one sentence and said he would have more to say today.

And once again I'll say it: Organized labor is having a hell of a week in big-top college athletics.

Stollings, of course, was apparently Exhibit A for mismanaging the workforce, and finally the workforce rebelled. A dozen players had left the program since she was named head coach in 2018, seven of them players Stollings recruited. And season-ending exit interviews indicated the ones who left weren't the only ones fed up with Coach's alleged abuse and general battiness.

Texas Tech so swiftly moving on all this is yet more evidence that the hired hands now command a growing clout in a landscape where they've traditionally had almost none.  And now you've got Pac-12 athletes and Big Ten athletes banding together to demand answers to a fairly basic question -- Why should we put our health on the line in the midst of a pandemic, and what are you going to do about it? -- and some athletes are already opting out of the fall season, having not heard what they needed to hear.

That includes standout Purdue receiver Rondale Moore, who's decided his time this fall would be best served preparing for the 2021 NFL draft. Because clearly he and others realize there's no way the 2020 college football season will happen anyway, at least in its entirety.

The revolution continues apace.

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