A Grip on Sports: Everyone in college athletics, it seems, is on the hunt to fill up their baskets with as many golden eggs as possible

A GRIP ON SPORTS • What was your first introduction to wildly running around, chasing a big payday? If you’re anything like me, it was in your yard some random Easter Sunday morning. Or maybe the day before in the municipal park. A bunch of children competing to see who could put the most eggs in their basket. Seems like a good metaphor for college athletic these days.

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• OK, the better metaphor might be Halloween, but that holiday, in which parents drop their kids off in far-flung neighborhoods where the best candy is handed out, is still half-a-year away. This morning, we have little folks up and down the cul-de-sac looking for hidden gems.

Makes it’s hard not to think of college football. And basketball. And whatever.

In this long-in-gestation period of unlimited free agency, your favorite team may just lose its entire roster in the offseason.

Think that’s an exaggeration? It isn’t. Ask Scott Drew. And Baylor basketball fans.

Remember 2021? The Bears won the NCAA men’s title in the Indianapolis COVID-19 bubble. Blew out Gonzaga in the title game. Seems like an eon ago.

These days the Bulldogs are trying to fill a few spots on their roster. Haven’t been able to just yet. But the Bears? They are not just running on empty, they are empty. 

Of the 14 players on Baylor’s 2024-25 roster, four exhausted their eligibility, one headed to the NBA and nine entered the portal. Let’s see, nine and four, carry the … ya, that’s everyone.

Drew will rebuild. He’s got the recruiting chops, the NIL support, the ability to sell the opportunity for playing time. But what’s happened to his roster is an extreme case of what’s happening all over the nation this Easter Sunday.

Want another example? California football, though that seems to be a case of players voting no on the program’s new offensive staff. With their feet. Sure, there might be more money to be made in free agency but when five running backs all decide to take the nearest fire escape, there’s a good chance something is smoldering in the position room. Maybe throughout the program.

Like the eggs Malachi and Princess are hunting this morning, each individual circumstance is different. But when circumstances pile up and the school’s transfer-portal basket begins to overflow, it may just herald the need for a change. Before things turn rotten.

That’s why we are all in this mess, if a mess is how you view it. The folks getting their bag of money might view it differently.

Either way, for years the NCAA ruled by fiat. The masses who supplied the schools’ athletic department income through their labor not only were barely paid through a barter system – you work 60 hours a week and we will hand you a diploma, but only if you work in the classroom too – they were also shackled to their school via an illegal rulebook.

It wasn’t a secret. Some of us railed against it for decades. Sounded alarm bells. Campaigned for change.

But the NCAA stood firm, like a Magnolia tree planted by a creek bed. Then the hurricane hit. And the trees began to topple, one by one, knocked over via court rulings fueled by the organization’s long-standing pigheadedness.

Here we are. On the brink of the NCAA’s relevance disappearing, of college athletics moving from a collection of students who happen to wear “Michigan” across their chest toward minor-league employees who happen to wear “Michigan” across their chest.

The next blow? The NCAA will be stripped of its power to set time limits on eligibility. Five years to play four? Nope. Athletes will soon be allowed to dip their toe in college for a couple years, leave to test the professional waters and, if they are too tepid, return to swim in Whatsamatta U’s NIL pool.

What disappears after that? A limit of four years on eligibility? Academic progress requirements? In-season transfers?

After a hundred years of making every mistake possible, the powers that be in college athletics are paying the price. And can’t figure out a way, other than to ask Congress to grant them anti-trust exemptions so they can reinstate the rules that got us into this mess in the first place.

College athletics is in the Humpty-Dumpty phase. The eggs have all fallen from the baskets. Lie broken in the mud. And can’t be put back together again, no matter how many band-aids like the House settlement there might be.

It’s time for a rebirth. A new way.

What exactly that is may be hard to discern, what with all the egg shells scattered around. But it has to be based on the truth schools employee athletes. Part of the renumeration is an education. Part of it is a salary. From that baseline, some sort of working relationship between the two parties has to be negotiated.

What is in place now is not sustainable. For all involved.

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WSU: “Times have changed.” Is there a truer statement in every facet of life? Dave Boling gives example No. 1,925,377 this morning with his column on Kelvin Sampson’s tenure at Washington State and how his career was saved due to the patience of his boss, Jim Livengood. … Elsewhere in the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, Jon Wilner’s mailbag we linked yesterday? It is on the S-R website this morning. … Wilner also has a recap of the week’s news in the Mercury News today. … Washington held a scrimmage Saturday. Things happened. Christian Caple has thoughts. … Oregon State held its spring game Saturday. Things happened. John Canzano has thoughts. … Oregon held a scrimmage Saturday. Things happened. We can pass along thoughts. … Colorado held its spring game Saturday. Things happened, including a number-retirement ceremony. Just about everyone has thoughts. … Utah held its spring game Saturday. Things happened, especially with the starting quarterback. … Arizona held its final scrimmage Saturday. Things happened. … Boise State held its spring game Saturday. Things happened. … OK, that’s enough. San Diego State had a showcase. And, yes, things happened. … An Arizona State quarterback is doing something unusual. … UCLA is having financial problems throughout the university. How can the Bruins afford to pay former Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava? NIL isn’t a school thing, right? At least not now. … In basketball news, UCLA’s men lost their biggest big man to Michigan. Aday Mara explains why he left. … Another player joined the Arizona State roster. … Same with Washington. … Take a large NIL payday or head to the uncertainty of the NBA draft? An Arizona player faces that choice. … The women’s coaching staff at Arizona is better than it was. … Colorado State picked up a transfer from Indiana. … Finally, Stanford is playing its softball games on the school’s football field. Which allowed the Cardinal an opportunity to set an NCAA attendance record.

Gonzaga: We linked this Theo Lawson story on Jalen Warley yesterday. It was on the website early in the morning. It ran in the paper today. We link it again. … Don’t forget Theo has his WCC transfer tracker on the S-R website every day.

EWU: The defense leaves spring practice as a more experienced, establish group. Dan Thompson explains how that has happened in this summary of the last few weeks. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, Montana State’s new running backs coach has brought a different perspective to practice. … Portland State held a scrimmage Saturday. … Sacramento State’s new men’s basketball coaching staff seems to have a lot of connections to head coach Mike Bibby.

Preps: Cheryl Nichols has this roundup of Saturday’s high school events.

Chiefs: As my all-time favorite Star Trek captain, Peter Quincy Taggart, used to say, “Never give up. Never surrender.” OK, so “Galaxy Quest” wasn’t technically a Star Trek movie. But, hey, it was the best of them. As was Spokane’s third-period comeback in Victoria last night. The Chiefs, trailing 4-1 entering the final period, never gave up, never surrendered and, as Dave Nichols recounts in this story, never faltered, winning 5-4 in overtime. The Chiefs return home Tuesday with a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven WHL playoff series.

Indians: A third-consecutive one-run loss? Seems impossible. But Spokane has lived it this week, culminating in Saturday night’s 4-3 decision in Hillsboro. Dave has that coverage as well.

Velocity: Expansion team AV Alta had yet to lose a home match. Until Saturday night, when Spokane traveled to Lancaster, Calif., scored twice late in the first half and went on to a 2-1 victory.

Zephyr: The road wasn’t as kind to the Zephyr. The Carolina Ascent routed Spokane 3-0 in Charlotte.

Golf: Clarkston’s Joel Dahmen enters today’s final round in the Dominican Republic with the lead. Can he hold it? Jim Meehan has this story on Dahmen’s windy round Saturday.

Mariners: Speaking of flair, the M’s supplied all they needed in the top of the 12th inning. Eighty percent of it was the product of Rowdy Tellez’s grand slam, which thrilled at least one person in Toronto. Seattle won 8-4 on a day when Logan Gilbert didn’t have his best stuff. … Once again Julio Rodriguez isn’t off to the best start. Is optimism still warranted? … The bullpen did its job Saturday.

Seahawks: Ya, the Times story about Sam Howell on the market ran in the S-R today. … The Hawks are pretty middle of the road when it comes to recent draft success. Can they change that this week?

Sounders: Winning a professional contest is Job One. Seattle did that last night, routing Nashville 3-0 at Lumen Field. But Job One-A is winning with some flair. The Sounders did that as well.

Storm: A couple of young players will miss the season with knee injuries.

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• I got up this morning not expecting to write much. It’s Easter, after all. Wanted to let you ease into your day. Wanted to ease into mine as well. Then I started typing. And the words just flowed. And flowed. Oh well. Next weekend will have to be the next time I take a break. Until later …