Cowardly NCAA Shows Itself
Here is the reality, the University of Miami didn’t do anything wrong in regards to the Cavinder twins recruitment. Despite that, our head coach had to take a knock on her career resume just to appease the cowards in Indianapolis. Coach Katie Meier broke a rule that was not yet a rule, but because she wears The U on her chest, she was target number one in a laughably sexist NCAA NIL crusade.
Reflect on that. With all the money being spread around college football and basketball, they decided to go after woman’s basketball first. Additionally, they decided to target, arguably, the ONLY two college athletes that have the social media reach to warrant seven-figure endorsement deals anywhere in the country. So, if this was a giant nothing-burger, why did the NCAA come calling? Because we are Miami and he is John Ruiz.
I honestly can’t comprehend how many square feet of real estate the University of Miami occupies in the head of the NCAA, but we have to be talking at least 15 bedrooms and 30 baths. We’ve always been the ones they go after. But now, they and all the haters have a singular face they can put with it, billionaire attorney John Ruiz. (Full disclosure: One of his biz ventures was a sponsor of the OBB podcast) Mr. Ruiz is everything the NCAA hates. He’s rich and he’s loud. The minute his business ventures started doing NIL deals and making them so public, we all knew the cowards from Indy would come around sniffing. They sniffed for four months and came up with a text and a meal? Wow. I’m ashamed to be a Cane now. GTFOH.
Texas A&M paid how much for their recruiting class?
Florida bounced how big of a NIL check to a commit?
Tennessee paying $2m/year for a kid with 165k IG followers?
The NCAA are cowards. They are pissed off that they never did anything to address paying players during the 100+ years they had the chance. Now, they want to try and save face and so they decide to target three women who have done nothing wrong. You see they didn’t go after Ruiz because they knew he would punch them back in court, but knew that Coach Meier and Haley and Hanna Cavinder would have to take it. I personally find it disgusting.
In the past, I have spoken to the twins and spent an hour chatting with their father. All three said the same thing: They are at Miami because Coach Meier recruited the hell out of them and sold them on her vision. Here is what the NCAA doesn’t grasp. The twins have 4 million followers; they are getting endorsement deals wherever they go! National brands want them regardless of them being at Miami. To think they made the decision to attend based on a local NIL deal is fucking insane and shows the NCAA is clueless on what the value of Name, Image and Likeness is.
As for John Ruiz, he has been very open from the jump that his deals were rock solid and after having the NCAA bloodhounds go over all 100+, they found nothing improper. ZERO. Lastly, there has been a very vocal Anti-Ruiz crowd among some prominent Canes, to them I would say, you are going to have to take the L on this. You’ve earned it.