Fixin' to fix ... something

The Fearless Leader of America, President Donald John "Do What We Say Or We'll Bomb You Back To Antiquity" Trump, took time out from his latest military adventure to discuss college athletics yesterday. And I don't know about you, but I feel better already.

I mean, with F.L. on the case, this whole NIL/transfer portal mess will be solved lickety-split, or at least in the blink of an eye. We'll go back to the way things used to be, when college kids played for the love of the game and their school, and let the athletic departments scoop all the dough from it.

F.L. said all of this, or something akin to it, in a two-hour round table at the White House,  attended by the media and various luminaries who mostly just listened to him ramble. None of the various luminaries were college athletes, of course, because this wasn't about them. This was about  getting them back under control.

And, OK, yes, that is way cynical of me. Mark it down to 38 years of covering college sports as one of those cynical sportswriter types.

But if it's my natural state, it's hard to depart from it in this particular case. Not when the "Saving College Sports" roundtable was co-chaired by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, New York Yankees president Randy Levine and Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

"What do any of these people know about college sports?" you're saying now. "And why, in a roundtable about college sports, are the New York Yankees involved?"

Hey, don't ask me. I'm just the messenger here. 

As far as I know Rubio, Levine and DeSantis don't know jack-all about college sports, except DeSantis' state contains Florida State, Florida and Miami, college football powers all. Also Rubio went to law school at The U, so, go, 'Canes.

At any rate, Fearless Leader, as is his wont, says he has a grand plan to solve all the problems in college athletics. It's all contained in the executive order he promises to issue in the next week.

"It will be very all-encompassing," F.L. bragged, er, said. "And we're going to put it forward, and we're going to get sued, and we're going to see how it plays, OK, but I'll have an executive order, which will solve every problem in this room, every conceivable problem, within one week, and we'll put it forward."

Awesome. Terrific. Sounds wonderf--

Wait a minute.

Did he say "and we're going to get sued"?

He did. In fact, he said it's the only thing he knows for sure right now. Which suggests a couple of things to the cynical old sportswriter in me:

1. His Big Fix is supremely half-baked. (Which, let's face it, is pretty much par for the course for F.L.)

2. And a lot of it probably is illegal. (Ditto)

Now, understand, the cynical old sportswriter in me does not disagree with Fearless Leader and his various minions. The whole NIL/transfer portal deal is out of control, thanks to the NCAA's sudden passion for laissez faire stewardship. College athletics is threatening to become the Major League Baseball model, with the Power 4 conferences using the Rest Of 'Em conferences as a de facto farm system. 

Play a couple years at say, Eastern Michigan, then get called up to Ann Arbor -- or Columbus or Tuscaloosa or Athens, Georgia. That sort of thing.

However, Fearless Leader's executive order fixin' to fix everything sounds a lot like Richard Nixon's "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam. And, look, maybe you still trust the guy, and vaya con Dios if you do. But at this point I wouldn't trust him to unclog a toilet.

Especially when even he admits his Secret Plan To Restore College Sports To Greatness has some flaws. Such as, for instance, legality.

Remember that famous line of Ronald Reagan's (speaking of cynicism), about how the worst thing you could ever hear was, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help"?

I've got a new version of that, cynic that I am:

I'm your Fearless Leader, and I'm here to help.

Yikes.