SCOTUS Sides with Student-Athletes -- Other News -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 Happy Tuesday, Cards fans! This week seems to have started off with plenty of news to talk about. The sports world had plenty to talk about yesterday and then a pair of former Cards had positive announcements.

SCOTUS Rules in Favor of Student-Athletes

It was a great day for student-athletes as the Supreme Court of the United States sided with them and against the NCAA yesterday. The Supreme Court unanimously voted in favor to uphold a district court judge's decision that the NCAA was violating antitrust laws by placing limits on the education-related benefits that schools can provide to athletes. Schools can now provide athletes unlimited compensation as long as it is connected to their education.

"The NCAA is not above the law," said Justice Brett Kavanaugh. "The NCAA couches its arguments for not paying student-athletes in innocuous labels. But the labels cannot disguise the reality: The NCAA's business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America."

Student-athletes still aren't at the point where they can profit off of endorsements and other benefits, but we continue to see things move in the right direction. Unlike your profitable sports, many of the non-profit teams don't get the luxuries of football and men's basketball. Even worse, walk-ons for different sports have an extra difficult time.

Although the NCAA technically allows student-athletes to make a profit from jobs not directly tied to their sport as well as be self-employed, the NCAA has consistently contradicted themselves over that. Former UCF kicker Donald De La Haye lost his eligibility in 2017 after amassing over 90,000 subscribers on YouTube and profiting off his videos. De La Haye chose to keep making videos and the profit from them. Was De La Haye on track for an NFL career? Most likely not. So he was making more off the videos than football would ever do for him.

There are all dozens of reasons you could lose your eligibility or have your name erased from the record books. On April 21, 2021, former UMass women's tennis player Brittany Collens wrote an article about how a minor scholarship error cost her her career even after she had graduated. Collens played at UMass from 2014-2017 and ran into a nightmare in 2020. She and her roommate had received an extra $252.00 in scholarship intended for a landline phone jack. The school self reported the error when they discovered it, but the NCAA decided the $504 gave UMass a competitive advantage. Collens and her teammates were stripped of their wins and UMass lost their 2017 A10 title.

I should make it clear that these cases are way different than point shaving or academic fraud, both of which are illegal and should be an immediate loss of eligibility and removal from office for those involved.

Student-athletes, especially those in the non-profits and those who walk onto their respective sport, don't have the extra benefits and often need more assistance so these athletes hopefully being able to make a profit off of their name would be beneficial to them.

The concern is still surrounding how it will change media and coverage. It's one thing for businesses and brands to market their products but you want to have your media out there promoting and highlighting the successes of someone's career.

We here at Cardinal Couple are aware of the compliance regulations and make sure we stay in compliance. This can range from buying someone food, to giving them a ride in the car, to giving them gifts, and so much more. Nearly all of our direct interaction with the student-athletes will come with the supervision or assistance from coaches or SIDs just as a cushion to make sure everything goes smooth, among other reasons such as providing resources such as stats and figures.

We will discuss the SCOTUS decision more on Saturday and see how this will lead to a domino effect with other laws.

Asia Durr Part of Jordan Brand Representation

On a much less confusing topic Asia Durr was one of 11 WNBA athletes to be signed with Jordan Brand. This is the largest ever roster of WNBA players for the brand as they want to give more women large contracts and give them a voice.

Durr is joined by Maya Moore, Kia Nurse, Aerial Powers, Satou Sabally, Dearica Hamby, Arella Guirantes, Chelsea Dungee, Crystal Dangerfield, Te'a Cooper, and Jordin Canada.

As a website that covers the Joy and Excitement of UofL WOMEN's Sports, we smile whenever the rest of the world acknowledges how great of athletes women are and they receive the recognition they deserve. Even better, this deal features one of our own!

Softball Alums

(Running with Wolfe -- a possible sequel for Kevin
Costner's Dancing With Wolves ? )  

Former UofL softball player Jordyn Wolfe announced she will pursue her MBA at Saint Leo University where she will also use her final year of eligibility. Wolfe spent four seasons with the Cards and saw action in the outfield and as a pinch runner, but was often seen dancing and cracking jokes in the dugout. We focus on the importance of academics fairly often here so we are glad to see Wolfe continuing her education. She's also playing in the FGCL summer league this year for the Saratoga Circus. 

Sticking with recent softball alums, we had a wedding this past weekend. Riley Schindler Bachman married Nathan Bachman up in Ohio. Riley was part of the Schindler twins at UofL (Paige), but sadly both had battled injuries during their careers. Nonetheless, we wish the newlyweds a congratulations!

USA Olympic Team Roster 

Sadly, neither Kelsi Worrell Dahlia nor Mallory Comerford made the final cut for the 2020 Olympics. Dahlia was an alternate in the 2016 Olympics and was part of a gold medal team. Both swimmers are on the current 2020-2021 Team USA roster, which is different than the roster for the Olympic team.

Louisville did have one person represented on the men's side: Zach Harting. Harting will compete in the 200 butterfly. We do wish our Cardinal the best of luck!

All eyes were on a Katie on the women's side, but not Katie Ledecky, who, to no surprise, made the final roster. It was 15-year-old Katie Grimes attracting all of the attention. Grimes touched second behind Ledecky in the qualifier. Ledecky, who also first qualified at the age of 15, told Grimes "You're the Now".

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics starts one month from yesterday with softball and football (American soccer) starting this Olympics off. The opening ceremonies doesn't actually happen until the third day with the closing ceremonies on August 8.

Now that we've gotten through all sorts of news - dang, it was a busy Tuesday write - you can get back to harassing Paulie for not hooking us up with free Bojangles yet.

Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!

Jared