Fear and Boring in Las Vegas: final thoughts from the Learfield Intercollegiate Athletics Forum

Good morning, and thanks for your continued support of Extra Points.

I'm finally back at Extra Points HQ after spending the last few days in Las Vegas for the Learfield Intercollegiate Athletics Forum. It was wonderful to spend time with my new coworkers and see so many people I've only known from Zoom or phone calls. I love every chance I get to get out of the ol' home office and be around actual humans. After a year plus+ of basically only wearing gym shorts and Homefield Apparel t-shirts to work, maybe I didn't love dressing up the whole time (the last time I wore a suit jacket all day for three days in a row, I was wearing a nametag and trying to talk to people about the Book of Mormon), but hey, that's the price you pay to be a Serious Professional.

I had a chance to record some high level thoughts on the conference in yesterday's Going For Two, but I wanted to open the notebook and share a few other thoughts on what I saw, heard, and talked about:

Okay, let's talk about that Mark Emmert quote everybody was getting all mad online about

There are some people that are really easy to dunk on. Mark Emmert is one of those people. Not only does the guy get paid a lot of money to advocate for increasingly unpopular decisions, but he has a habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, and then, well, everybody tees off. Writing an "NCAA is dumb and out of touch" column isn't hitting a softball, it's hitting a hot air balloon with a 2x4. You don't exactly need to work too hard to aim.

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