Dan Murphy, ESPN Staff Writer

A Congressional committee voted Thursday to move forward with a bill that would prevent college athletes from being deemed employees of their schools, conferences or the NCAA.

The vote in the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce represents the first tangible signs of progress the college sports industry has made in its years-long push for a federal law to help reshape college sports. It comes just weeks after the NCAA and its power conferences announced they have agreed to share significantly more revenue with athletes as part of an antitrust lawsuit settlement.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Bob Good (R-Virginia) on the same day the antitrust settlement was announced, is in the early stages of the legislative process. It is likely to face opposition from Democrats in the Senate as well as legal challenges if it's passed.

The NCAA is currently a defendant in multiple ongoing court cases that argue college athletes should be granted the rights of employees. One case in federal court -- Johnson v. NCAA -- is seeking minimum wage and other workplace protection for college athletes. Two other active cases in front of the National Labor Relations Board are seeking to give college athletes the right to form unions and collectively bargain.

NCAA president Charlie Baker said earlier this week that he hoped the recent antitrust settlement, if it's approved by a judge, would provide the framework for a college sports model that allows schools to compensate their athletes without turning them into employees. Baker said he does not believe most college athletes want to be considered employees.

"A lot of the conversations I've had with people in Congress is: 'The reason we're interested in employment is because of the compensation question,'" Baker said earlier this week. "If the court blesses [the antitrust settlement], then it puts us in a position where we can go to Congress and say one of the three branches of the federal government blessed this as a model to create compensation without triggering employment."

The NCAA and power conferences have lobbied Congress for laws that would limit their legal liability and prevent athletes from being employees for the past several years. College sports leaders say these laws are necessary to preserve many teams and athletic departments that cannot afford to pay their athletes like workers. Both the NCAA and power conferences have publicly stated their support for Good's bill.

The bill is intended to be a narrow part of a broader package of federal legislation that guarantees more benefits for athletes in the future while preventing them from being employees. However, no partner bills that would guarantee athlete benefits have been introduced yet.

The Workforce and Education Committee voted 23-16 to move forward with the bill. All 23 votes in favor came from Republicans. All 16 votes against came from Democrats. The debate over whether Congress should weigh in on the college sports business model has been a partisan debate for the past several years.

Democrats in the House and Senate have previously co-sponsored bills that would have the exact opposite effect of Good's bill -- codifying college athletes' right to unionize. Those lawmakers and other advocates say athletes need the ability to bargain collectively to make sure they can negotiate for items such as improved medical care and a fair share of the money they generate for a multibillion-dollar industry.

Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) -- a former college volleyball player who has been an active participant in the Capitol Hill debate on the future of college sports -- said she will vote against Good's bill if it reaches the House floor.

"Once again, Republicans in Congress have decided to plow forward with legislation to limit the rights of college athletes with little to no input from athletes themselves," Trahan said in a statement after Thursday's vote.


If passed, Good's bill would stop the ongoing efforts of the NLRB and in the Johnson v. NCAA case to make athletes into employees. Paul McDonald, lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the Johnson case, said he believes the bill as written would violate federal equal protection laws. McDonald said it's against the law to prevent some college students from being employees while others in that category -- like cafeteria workers or teaching assistants -- are allowed to earn wages and unionize.

"If enacted, [the bill] would never survive judicial challenge. To wit, it is a waste of time," McDonald said in a statement provided to ESPN after Thursday's vote. "Dilatory tactics have consequences. The only thing accomplished by the NCAA in needlessly dragging out the recognition of college athletes as hourly employees like their fellow students is to significantly increase the cost of resolution borne by its membership."

In a news release issued prior to Thursday's vote, Good said his bill was aimed at making sure the tradition of college sports wasn't "ruined by reclassifying student athletes as employees."

"My legislation will help maintain a balance between athletics and academics, ensuring that college sports programs remain viable, beneficial, and enjoyable for all student athletes," he said.

247 Composite Score - High School Recruit Ranking

Psyched to see Dual and Middleton play - Tons of talent!

Top 75 talent usually makes an impact.

Whitehead #10
Dual #47
Delgado #50
Middleton #60
Kadary #92

China has been buying gold like a drunken sailor which may be the key part of their plan to replace US dollar as reserve currency.By offering a gold backed currency they might be able to get more countries to use their currency for international trade transactions .This would crush the dollar

Take a shot.

Here's mine. 40 minutes per position. Total 200 minutes.

PG

Garwey Dual 21 MPG
Zion Harmon 14 MPG
Chaunce Jenkins 5 MPG


2G

Chaunce Jenkins 13 MPG
Dylan Addae-Wusu 12 MPG
Scotty Middleton 9 MPG
Garwey Dual 3 MPG
Jahseem Felton 3 MPG

SF

Isaiah Coleman 23 MPG
Scotty Middleton 14 MPG
Dylan Addae-Wusu 3 MPG

PF

Prince Aligbe 18 MPG
David Tubek 11 MPG
Emmanuel Okorafor 6 MPG
Gus Yalden 5 MPG

C

Yacine Toumi 22 MPG
Gus Yalden 9 MPG
Emmanuel Okorafor 6 MPG
Godswill Erheriene 3 MPG

Part 3 of our Jerry Carino interview

By Colin Rajala

Trove: It really is a slippery slope. So many people forget how much is on the plate of these student athletes and that’s all before even considering their personal background and relationships and whatever may be happening with friends and family near them. When thinking about this new era of college athletics with NIL, the transfer portal and the new sit out rule in play, how do you think these mechanisms are changing the sport? What do fans need to understand in this new era of collegiate athletics?

Carino: I was having this conversation with a college coach about his roster. The coach was calling guys in the portal and the stuff they were saying to him was crazy. It was A) I want this amount of money, B) I want to play this position, C) I want this many touches D) I want the offense to run through me and this many minutes. It was just like a crazy laundry list of demands. I asked him, how did you not just say, ‘eff you’ and hang up the phone?

That's what coaches throughout the country are dealing with and I think it’s easy to blame it on NIL, but the real problem is the free transfer rule. That's the problem here because that now makes everybody a free agent every year. For example, one of the reasons Seton Hall was good last year was because Richmond, Davis and Dawes couldn't go anywhere. They had to stay otherwise they would have had to sit out a year. That doesn't mean they didn't get any NIL, of course they did, but it was doable for Seton Hall. They didn’t get held over a barrel and get extorted.

Now you’re going into open free agent negotiations annually. I think Steve, at first, was a little surprised. He has this team with every other piece and an opportunity to be really successful, like don't you want to come and be a part of something special? Don’t you want to play with these other super talented players in a high profile setting like the Big 10? The answer was still, how much are you going to pay me? How many shots am I getting?

When you think about the shots thing, it's the money now and money later. You want to get your numbers up so your valuation is high next spring. Most people don't want to play a role, for most it's not about winning, it's about me, me, me and what has really caused that more than the ability to make money is the ability to change schools every year.

I also think that its going to lead to people not graduating college. We all joke about nobody's there to go to school, but you know what, some of these guys get degrees that help them later in life. Ask Jerry Walker what the degree has done for him, ask any number of players that have gotten a degree that have used it and the difference it made. The degree is not nothing, it's important. I talked to Doug Edert last year and after transferring from St Peter's to Bryant he lost a whole year of credits. He had to attend Bryant for an additional year and that's after one transfer; there are guys that transfer two or three or four times. You can’t tell me they’re graduating; they’re not progressing toward their degree.

Now you're going to send a bunch of people out without eligibility and most of them are not going to play in the NBA and make those millions, and they're not going to have a degree to fall back on. Where's that going to get them in 10 or 15 years?

By Bradley Locker

Dan Hurley is opening up after choosing to stay at UConn instead of coaching the Lakers.

The reigning two-time national champion coach of the Huskies joined “The Dan Le Batard Show” for his first interview since Monday, when he rejected a six-year, $70 million offer from the storied NBA franchise.

“One of the worst takes I’ve heard is this was a leverage play by me to improve my situation at UConn,” Hurley said. “I don’t need leverage here. We’ve won back-to-back national championships at this place.”

One of the major storylines regarding Hurley’s decision was his contract, with reports circulating that he intentionally considered NBA candidacies to catalyze a raise in Storrs.

Hurley, though, referred to that idea as a “conspiracy” and “lazy.”

On the program, Hurley said he’s had a “contract in place for a couple of weeks” and mentioned that the “financial part in terms of salary has been done for a while.”

Hurley signed a six-year, $32.1 million contract extension after winning his first title in 2023.

In the meantime, Hurley noted that he’s still “not comfortable with” contractual components such as NIL and staff salaries.

Regarding a timetable for a possible move to the pros, Hurley said he first talked to his agent June 3 about other job possibilities, and referred to his choice as “gut-wrenching” — even entering the morning of June 10, when he ultimately chose to stay at the college level.

In advance of UConn’s scheduled practice Monday, Hurley remarked that his situation “had become a circus” and “was weighing on me and my wife and my two sons.”

As for the appeal of the Lakers, Hurley mentioned the allure of the franchise’s past coaches and having both LeBron James and Anthony Daivs.

“It was something I wanted to potentially explore,” Hurley said.

Additionally, Hurley mentioned he didn’t talk to James throughout the process, but claimed it “would have been a thrill to coach him.”

While t’s still have to be crossed on Hurley’s new deal, the coach can now focus on aiming for a three-peat, which hasn’t happened in college basketball since UCLA accomplished it in 1973.

On April 17, 1953, baseball history was forever altered in Washington D.C.'s Griffith Stadium. The young and prodigious Mickey Mantle hit a colossal 565-foot home run that day not only left spectators in disbelief but also gave birth to a new term in baseball lexicon: the "tape-measure home run."

Hurley's flirtation with the Lakers only lasted a few days but here's who came out ahead and behind​

By Kyle Boone & Sam Quinn

Winner: UConn keeps their man​

Let's get the obvious out of the way first. The University of Connecticut, bar none, walks away today as the biggest winner of the ordeal. It went toe-to-toe with the Los Angeles Lakers and successfully fended off the historically proud franchise to retain its coach. Hurley is negotiating a new deal with the school, but it's unlikely the money is in the same ballpark as the deal he turned down. For UConn, that says a lot about the state of the program and the comfort he and his family have with where they're at right now. — Boone

Loser: Jeanie Buss can't get deal done​

This is at least the third time that Jeanie Buss has failed to secure her preferred coaching candidate. The 2012 pursuit of Phil Jackson was stymied by her brother, Jim Buss, who preferred Mike D'Antoni and technically controlled basketball operations at the time. The 2019 pursuit of Ty Lue was a much more direct representation of her shortcomings as an owner. The Lakers offered Lue, a former champion, only three years and $18 million to coach the team. He justifiably balked. When the Lakers landed Frank Vogel, they also committed to him for just three years. When he won the 2020 championship, he was rewarded with a one-year extension ten months later.

Obviously, a $70 million offer for UConn's Hurley represents a significant jump in the sort of money the Lakers are willing to offer a coach, but yet again, it's short of what the market dictated. The Pistons, a team with far less revenue to work with, paid Monty Williams more last offseason on a $78.5 million deal. Proven NBA champions like Lue, Steve Kerr, Erik Spoelstra and Gregg Popovich are making even more than that on a per-year basis. Perhaps Hurley shouldn't be paid as much as the best coaches in the NBA on merit, but if you're going to lure a lifelong East Coast resident to California and away from his shot at a three-peat, you'd better come at him with a godfather offer. The Lakers didn't. Once again, this team's hesitance to spend on anything other than star players has come back to bite them. That's a reflection on the owner. – Quinn

Winner: College basketball keeps its best coach​

In an offseason in which college football national champion-winning coach Jim Harbaugh walked away to join the pros as coach of the L.A. Chargers, college basketball gets a boost in hanging on to its reigning, repeat title-winning coach. It would have been understandable had Hurley bounced -- it's LeBron James, it's L.A., it's the Lakers -- but in staying at UConn, the college hoops world keeps its best coach in the fold. Bonus: Hurley also happens to be the best quote in the game and a true wild-card who could at any point create a viral moment from the sideline. — Boone

Loser: College basketball teams still chasing UConn​

Yes, yes, I know: I just listed college basketball a winner. But make no mistake: college basketball in general is absolutely a loser here. Losing Hurley might've leveled the playing field a bit for schools vying to win titles. With Hurley back, UConn for the foreseeable future will remain one of, if not the biggest, hurdles to doing so for other college basketball teams. This is a dynasty that might just be getting off the ground. Good luck, teams not named UConn. Good luck. — Boone

Winner: Whoever ultimately gets the Laker job​

Suddenly, the optics of hiring a risky candidate like JJ Redick are a bit better. They're no longer positioning him as a generational young coaching prospect as reports were before the Hurley flirtation. Now, the Lakers can at least say they tried to go the traditional route. That takes some pressure off of Redick, or whoever is ultimately hired, because the expectations won't be nearly as high. It also likely doesn't hurt that the Lakers have tipped their hands financially a bit. A $70 million offer for Hurley might have been a low-ball, but by the standard of most coaches, that's a windfall. No other candidate we know of at this time is going to command such a salary, but it's hard to imagine they'll cheap out on their ultimate selection after throwing that much at Hurley. They won't want to make it seem as though they're settling, after all. – Quinn

Winner: Hurley's bank account will get a boost​

Hurley signed a deal last year after leading UConn to a championship but he is once again in line to sign a new deal in the immediate future after repeating with the Huskies. Matt Norlander says he expects the new deal to topple the $8 million mark annually, which would make him one of the highest-paid coaches in college basketball. And turning down Kentucky and the Lakers in the same offseason likely guarantees UConn will smash the piggy bank open and do everything it can to get Hurley and his staff paid handsomely. Here's more from ESPN: — Boone

Loser: Rick Pitino still in Hurley's shadow​

There are several candidates who could've made runs at the next King of the Big East had Hurley hoofed it to L.A. -- Shaheen Holloway, Shaka Smart, Sean Miller among them -- but none were more qualified than Rick Pitino at St. John's. Instead, Pitino and his Johnnies remain an afterthought not only in the Big East, but also in the northeast -- where Providence and UConn remain the big dogs of the region in the conference. — Boone

Obviously against very good competition- fired up!

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Age 86, iconic RIP

Player profile

• Height 6-10
• Class Senior
• Hometown Meudon, France

2022-23

• Ranked 15th in the MVC with 5.68 rebounds per game
• His 18 free throw attempts was second-highest in the MVC for the season
• Led the Purple Aces with 5.7 rebounds per game while finishing third with 10.4 points per game
• Reached double figures in the opening four games of the season including 15 points in the road win at Miami Ohio (scored first 8 UE points of the game)
• Picked up 18 points in home win over Campbell hitting 7 of his 11 attempts
• Recorded 18 points in home game against Valparaiso before scoring 19 against Indiana State
• Top effort of 20 points came versus UIC where he hit 9 of his 18 shots
• Had three double-doubles (14 pts/10 rbs at Saint Louis, 11 pts/10 rbs at SMU and 15 pts/11 rbs vs. Bellarmine)

Prior to UE:

• Joins the Purple Aces after spending the 2021-22 season at Indian Hills (IA) Community College
• As a sophomore at Indian Hills, he recorded an average of 4.5 points and 3.5 rebounds per game while seeing action in 30 games
• Toumi played for Arkansas Little Rock as a freshman where he played in seven games
• His top outing saw him score seven points while his season average saw him finish at 1.9 points and 1.4 rebounds per contest over the course of his seven games
• Attended Lee Academy in Maine for his senior year of high school
• Native of Tunisia and competed for the Tunisian National Team in the FIBA U18 African Championships in 2018

Personal:

• Son of Olfa and Jalel Toumi
• Has three siblings – Khalil, Kenza and Idriss

Mixtape

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Stats

Women's Soccer Schedule​

South Orange, N.J. — Seton Hall women's soccer will go up against their toughest slate in years this fall as the Pirates' 2024 schedule features five NCAA Tournament teams from last season.

Two of those five fixtures will come in the non-conference part schedule when Seton Hall travels to Princeton on August 29 before heading to Chapel Hill to take on North Carolina on Sept. 1. Both the Tigers and Tar Heels won games in the NCAA Tournament last season with North Carolina advancing to the quarterfinals.

The Pirates will open the season against Marist on August 16 at Owen T. Carroll Field before matches at FDU on August 18, against Lehigh at home on August 22 and at Rider on August 25. Following its road trips to Princeton and North Carolina, The Hall will face NJIT (Sept. 8), Lafayette (Sept. 12) and Yale (Sept. 15) before the start of BIG EAST play.

The league schedule kicks off with Villanova at Owen T. Carroll Field on Sept. 22 followed by road fixtures at Georgetown (Sept. 26) and St. John's (Sept. 29). After away matches at Xavier (Oct. 13) and DePaul (Oct. 17), the Pirates will return to South Orange on Oct. 20 as they host Butler on Senior Day. The Hall will play three of its final four games on its home pitch to close out the regular season against the Bulldogs (Oct. 20)

In year two under head coach Josh Osit, the Pirates registered their most BIG EAST points in a season since 2011 and finished with their second-most wins in a season since 2012. Natalie Tavana and Chiara Pucci made All-BIG EAST teams, which was the first time multiple Pirates received All-BIG EAST honors since 2013. Tavana was also named the BIG EAST Offensive Player of the Year, becoming the first Pirate to receive the honor since SHU Athletics Hall of Famer Kelly Smith won the award in 1999.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fetterman-wife-gisele-doing-well-195335068.html

Glad no one was hurt seriously. Is it really a good idea to let him drive though?

I know it’s always a crap shoot but my lord the rosters are stacked on paper this year. Should be a fun summer of hoops.