I was lucky enough to attend the University of Florid.Law School Sports Symposium last Friday, and in addition to being able to hear some great words from people like author Mark Isenberg, agent Glenn Schwartzman, AAFL Florida President Wayne McDaniel, UFL President Mike Huyghue and former New Orleans Saint.Exec and current city council president Arnie Fielkow, I was so impressed with the way current and former Gator athletes like Jai Lucas, Darren O’Day and Cole Figueroa handled themselves and spoke s.eloquently on the rol.and responsibility of student athletes.?I mentioned to Associate A.D. Mike Hill (who was also great on a panel) about wha.huge assets thes.student-athletes were as spokespeople for the Gators, and what bright futures they had ahead of them in business when their careers were over. Wouldn’t it be great for them to have a peer to peer alumni network set up online at this point for them to see what's ahea.Ryan McReynolds who found exactly that set up by Yale University. A peer to peer social network for current and former Yale athletes, the link to which is here.it provides the University with a vehicle to communicate directly with athletes current and former…it can serve as a repository for best practices for former athletes looking t.assist current athletes in everything from internships to trainin.routines to the everyday issues that student athletes face and dont have a place to turn sometimes etc. Most importantly, it shows good practical responsibility by universities looking to find new ways t.establish a digital progra.that will help the student-athlete reach graduation.Darren Heitner and Scott Ehrlich to get Friday's Symposium up and running.
Some other recent pieces worth reading…nice job by the PBR taking the bulls to schools in California as part of their outreach (documented in last week's Orange County Register)…SI's Richard Deitsch has his January poweer rankings out and gives props to some solid online efforts,TJ Simers has a great piece in Sunday's L.A. Times with AEG president Tim Leiweke. Lastly, great piece of investigative journalism on tennis and gambling by ESPN (and producer Willie Weinbaum) that appeared over the weekend, the link is here. The piece tackles all the issues on the topic from the athlete and governing body perspective in a very detailed and respectful format.
