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First to domino to topple: MAC opts out of fall sports

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Neutral 0bserver

Well-Known Member
Sep 6, 2002
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On Saturday AD's from the MAC conference - which includes Central Michigan, Western Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Toledo, Ball State, Kent State, Buffalo, Akron, Northern Illinois, Bowling Green, Ohio, U Mass, and Temple - voted to cancel their 2020 fall sports schedules and this, of course, includes football.

Conference officials insist that the decision was driven by concern for the safety and well-being of players, coaches and support personnel, but who's kidding who? The primary concern has to be the matter of financial responsibility. Even players who suffered mild symptoms with little or no effects would hire attorneys and sue Universities up the ying yang.

U.S. personal injury attorneys will undoubtedly go into a period of mourning over the loss of the 2020 season. They've been dealt a crushing blow. Trillions of dollars in legal fees from decades of potential CoVid 19 lawsuits will swirl down the drain once that the rest of the dominoes fall (i.e., as football is cancelled by all 5 power conferences).

Fact of life. Praise the Lord and pass dat settlement money around. Sure Grampa D'Shaun lived to be 90, but arybody know it was that bug he caught 70 years ago in 2020 which killed him. Where my damn $150,000 ... plus interest???
 
Pretty simple formula, friends. If colleges agree to allow football in 2020:

1. Player somehow comes down with Co-Vid.
2. No one can prove how it happened.
3. No one can prove who gave it to him.
4. He could have been infected at a strip club.
5. Player hires attorney.
6. Attorney sues College.
7. College settles for megabucks.
8. Player becomes rich overnight.
9. Colleges empty their endowment funds to pay-off.

Is there anyone stupid enough to allow this to happen?
 
Neutral 0bserver said:
Pretty simple formula, friends. If colleges agree to allow football in 2020:

1. Player somehow comes down with Co-Vid.
2. No one can prove how it happened.
3. No one can prove who gave it to him.
4. He could have been infected at a strip club.
5. Player hires attorney.
6. Attorney sues College.
7. College settles for megabucks.
8. Player becomes rich overnight.
9. Colleges empty their endowment funds to pay-off.

Is there anyone stupid enough to allow this to happen?
Click to expand...

So are you anticipating a large percentage of players becoming infected and subsequently suffering some sort of physical impediment that would negatively impact their ability to pursue a professional football career? Beyond the players potential professional career being negatively impacted from a Co-vid infection, on what basis would a player bring a civil suit against the University.......(keeping in mind that the risk of physical injury is there for college players with something as simple as doing conditioning drills, to say nothing of the risk of injury from participating in football practice or a game)?

Please also provide the data showing college football players as a specific age group, if confirmed with a co-vid infection are at a risk greater than suffering a physical injury from playing college football which would subsequently negative impact a potential professional career in sports?

Negligence that results in death of a student/athlete on the part of the university in as far as its potential culpability from a co-vid infection, is the only thing that seems to make the University vulnerable to a civil suit. The Data I've been watching however, seems to indicate mortality rates for this age group is even less than remote, in addition to recovery for this age group being on par with that of a seasonal flu......so help me understand your dooms day scenario of a colleges endowment fund due to allowing kids to play college football?
 
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Well, it's pretty evident that you're fairly naive when it comes to being sued. No problem. I was once that way myself. I thought "right" and "wrong" had a great deal of bearing on damages that might be awarded. Wrong on that assumption. Very wrong.

I'm not an attorney, but am a person who, through no fault of my own, had my life turned upside down for several years by virtue of a personal injury accident lawsuit and I was the person totally innocent of ANY wrongdoing.

The police investigators found the other person 100% culpable. Witness statements verified that the other person caused the accident. Medical records indicated the other person had a BAC 5 times the legal limit. How's that for starters?

My insurance carrier was sued for the maximum amount of my liability policy, which happened to be a very, very healthy amount. But the attorneys for my insurance company informed me from the outset of the ordeal that a jury award "could possibly" exceed the limits of my policy.

Even though I was totally convinced that no jury in the world would ignore the massive amounts of evidence in the case and find me liable, my attorneys clearly did not want to risk going to court.

After years of depositions and ridiculous legal maneuvering, a settlement was finally negotiated out of court. The award involved an obscene amount of money. Less than my policy limit, but still an obscene amount of money all the same. And the award did NOT include legal fees expended by my insurance carrier, nor any fees that I incurred out of my own pocket.

In the end, I asked my attorney, "What if I had been an uninsured driver or had minimum coverage and no real assets?"

His answer was very simple. "None of this EVER would have happened."

So the question begs, what would my attorneys have advised if I'd had several million set aside in an endowment fund all ripe for the picking???

That aside, you're a football fan and a very avid one. So believe whatever you want to believe on matters of culpability. I don't expect you to believe me. I'm just one more idiot on a message board ... and peezy can verify that if you ever threaten to take my @ss to court.
 
Neutral 0bserver said:
Well, it's pretty evident that you're fairly naive when it comes to being sued. No problem. I was once that way myself. I thought "right" and "wrong" had a great deal of bearing on damages that might be awarded. Wrong on that assumption. Very wrong.

I'm not an attorney, but am a person who, through no fault of my own, had my life turned upside down for several years by virtue of a personal injury accident lawsuit and I was the person totally innocent of ANY wrongdoing.

The police investigators found the other person 100% culpable. Witness statements verified that the other person caused the accident. Medical records indicated the other person had a BAC 5 times the legal limit. How's that for starters?

My insurance carrier was sued for the maximum amount of my liability policy, which happened to be a very, very healthy amount. But the attorneys for my insurance company informed me from the outset of the ordeal that a jury award "could possibly" exceed the limits of my policy.

Even though I was totally convinced that no jury in the world would ignore the massive amounts of evidence in the case and find me liable, my attorneys clearly did not want to risk going to court.

After years of depositions and ridiculous legal maneuvering, a settlement was finally negotiated out of court. The award involved an obscene amount of money. Less than my policy limit, but still an obscene amount of money all the same. And the award did NOT include legal fees expended by my insurance carrier, nor any fees that I incurred out of my own pocket.

In the end, I asked my attorney, "What if I had been an uninsured driver or had minimum coverage and no real assets?"

His answer was very simple. "None of this EVER would have happened."

So the question begs, what would my attorneys have advised if I'd had several million set aside in an endowment fund all ripe for the picking???

That aside, you're a football fan and a very avid one. So believe whatever you want to believe on matters of culpability. I don't expect you to believe me. I'm just one more idiot on a message board ... and peezy can verify that if you ever threaten to take my @ss to court.
Click to expand...

I don't know what peezy could ever verify in as far as the message board personality "Neutral Observer" is concerned. He swears...(not in the literal "on a stack of bibles" sense of swearing), that he has no idea about who you are other than your message board persona.

I asked the questions I asked because I'm not a lawyer either, I've assisted and still assist here and there with EEO filings as a behind the scene advocate, and worked as a union steward which involved filing grievances for alleged violations of the CBA between the Postal Service and the APWU. My time as a steward in hindsight was probably the closest I'd ever come to being a public defender, in that you end up fighting for folks that were typically guilty as sin, Not providing representation even for non-members however, would leave the APWU subject to potential labor charges..........so that's extent of what I know in as far as how it relates to labor law and labor agreements..........

Oh and just a bit ago there was this:
 
As expected, Big Ten and Pac-12 schools have cancelled their fall sports schedules due to concerns over the Corona virus. Other Power 5 conferences will most certainly follow suit.

If you consider the staggering amount of financial liability that's involved, every big name school with a massive endowment fund really has no other choice.

We all realize that many, many players have zero respect for the schools that gave them a scholarship. Any number of players will openly admit that they place absolutely no value on a college education. Some NFL players have so much contempt for former schools that they won't even mention the name of the school they once attended.

Anyone who thinks current college athletes with such a mindset wouldn't jump all over the opportunity to hire a personal injury firm and go straight for a University's jugular vein is living in La La land.

Even if they wound up with nothing more than a runny nose, certain athletes who contracted the virus would be looking to wring every cent possible out of a big name program ... and any number of football fans with no vested interest in the school would have their backs.

Very sad, but true.
 
gatorman001 said:
I don't know what peezy could ever verify in as far as the message board personality "Neutral Observer" is concerned.
Click to expand...
Pretty simple. He could verify that the message board personality known as "Neutral Observer" is an idiot ... and furthermore, "Nu'Trelle" right in the same damn category. :eek:
 
I understand your concerns with the potential liability issues, if the university presidents were to allow fall sports to be played. While I'm sure that was a weighted portion of this decision, I cant help but feel that much of the present sentiment however is weighed by what in my mind has become the highly controversial director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr Fauci. He individually and more than any other any other groups combined, has allowed this to become a highly political one. Last week while it wasn't mentioned much by the national media, Trump mentioned at his Friday press conference the addition of newest adviser to his Corona-virus committee, Dr. Scott Atlas who is the former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center and now a senior fellow at Stanford’s ultra-prestigious Hoover Institution. What I for now am calling the anti-Fauci doctor, had this to say following Trevor Lawrence's tweet about playing this coming season "College students are at an age where they have little to no risk from the virus, while players or coaches with comorbidities have the option to opt out.“We have to become rational here,” he said. “The risk for people that age is less than seasonal influenza. I mean, you have to really look at the data …You can’t say it’s all about the science and then act contrary to science.”

With the current political effort among many to stymie the economy, I see sports in general as means to support that cause. Morbidity rates for kids and young adults nationally remains less than 1%, even with the massive US testing effort that dwarfs any other country, Confirmed cases nationally continues decline with a as of today 7-day average of 7.4%, from a April percentage that was over 21%. Even in Florida the 7-day average as of today of 17.2% continues to decline from a high early July 7-day average of 19.6%.....the science says that the elderly and already ill are susceptible to this virus, and we should doing everything we can to protect those individuals and groups, but the science also says that every other part of this virus is presenting data now that parallels that of most seasonal flu's.
 
First, I've done no research on what you just posted. However, lets simply agree that every point you made is 100% accurate and thousands of medical experts and insurance writers would support every one of your contentions. In order words, no other person's opinion could be held in higher regard.

That said, here's the part that you definitely do not understand. None of those issues mean a damned thing if you get sued and wind up in court at a jury trial.

How do people protect themselves from being taken to the cleaners? If you have assets that you cannot afford to lose, the first thing you do is buy insurance to protect yourself. An intelligent man covers his a$$.

If you become involved in any type of legal dispute and wind up being the unfortunate target of a personal injury attorney firm, the first certified document you will receive is a questionnaire.The first question on the page is what every lawsuit is all about. They get right to the point. They ask, "How much are the limits of your insurance coverage?"

If/when you are served notice of their intention to file a lawsuit, that notification will most likely include an "Initial Offer in Settlement" amount. If you or your insurance carrier agrees to pay that amount, that makes everyone on the Plaintiff's side happy.

Only problem is this: The amount they'll accept to make the lawsuit go away will be at least the maximum dollar amount of your insurance coverage. If you have $1,000,000 in coverage, rest assured that you will be sued for at least $1,000,000. That's an absolute guarantee.

At that point, mr. gatorman001, you sit at your desk staring at the paperwork and come to the hard realization that - as the old expression goes - your tit is now officially in the wringer and your fate is now in someone else's hands. It's a very sick feeling. Especially if you did nothing wrong.


The problem facing our places of higher learning is that there was no way of preparing for (i.e., insuring yourself against) something as serious as this virus. So what's your number one priority if you're entrusted with running a place that has billions of endowment money stashed away?

Answer in plain English: Keep your tit completely out of the wringer.
 
Mr. Neutral, how do you suppose the University system keeps its proverbial tit out of the ringer, when it comes to liability issues as it relates to university sponsored sports and student injuries that result from participation in university sponsored sporting events? Particularly injuries that might negatively impact the student from making a significant income at the professional level?

A study conducted by the University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurological Surgery in 2018 found the following concerning just concussions in college football. Among college football players, 34 percent have had one concussion and 30 percent have had two or more concussions. As the University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurological Surgery reports, if you have a second concussion, even a minor one, soon after the first concussion, you might die!

Between 2001 and 2005, U.S. males of all ages made an estimated 1,060,823 emergency room visits with football-related injuries, according to an analysis of data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-All Injury Program performed by the Injury Prevention Center at Rhode Island Hospital. The results, reported in the March 2009 issue of the journal “Academic Emergency Medicine,” showed that for boys 7 to 11, 29 percent presented with fractures or dislocations

Seven cervical cord injuries with incomplete neurological recovery occurred to football players at the high school level and one occurred at the college level, according to the 2009 Annual Survey of Catastrophic Football Injuries. This makes the rate of this serious injury 0.46 and 1.33 per 100,000 players, respectively. The majority of cervical cord injuries occur during games.

Between 1977 and 2009, 41 percent of catastrophic injuries to players below the professional level happened while tackling and 20 percent of those while tackling with the head down. Catastrophic injuries have the potential of leaving the player physically or mentally impaired for life, but some players have complete recovery. Tackled players represent 8.8 percent of serious injuries. Players making a tackle on the kickoff accounts for 5.5 percent.

What I'm trying to point out here is the data indicates that the potential for a physical injury or even death from playing football exceeds the fatality/morbidity rate of becoming infected with the Chinese Virus......and somehow the University systems avoids the emptying out of its endowment fund due to potential liability issues related to physical injury related to university sponsored sporting events.........why? When the data shows via the enormous amount of testing conducted nationally, results that parallel a typical seasonal flu.........why does this virus suddenly become the death nail for 2020 fall collegiate sports................ I'll stick with hanging my hat on "Its all political, in an attempt keep the economy stymied & to hopefully win a election come Nov 3rd."
 
gatorman001 said:
...how do you suppose the University system keeps its proverbial tit out of the ringer, when it comes to liability issues as it relates to university sponsored sports and student injuries that result from participation in university sponsored sporting events?
Click to expand...
Are you serious? They buy injury insurance. The premiums for football must be staggering. Additionally most schools probably have language in their grant-in-aid agreements that stipulates the maximum loss limits attached to their liability. One way or the other, any well-run school takes adequate measures to remove the chance of catastrophic losses from the equation.

Here's a routine example: Team flies to an away game and the plane crashes. The University will have required the charter company to provide proof of insurance to cover a specific dollar amount for each soul on the flight. Payout to each soul would be equal to or greater than the University's liability limits. If you can't provide the insurance in your quote, the school finds another charter company.
 
As a footnote, several years ago a kid who punted and played WR for Ohio State took a bad hit in practice and was paralized from the neck down. He will spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair and require very expensive care. Soon after the diagnosis was made, Ohio State announced that the University would cover all the expenses for the duration. If the school hadn't stepped up, our Alumni Association probably would have committed the funds.
 
Neutral 0bserver said:
Are you serious? They buy injury insurance. The premiums for football must be staggering. Additionally most schools probably have language in their grant-in-aid agreements that stipulates the maximum loss limits attached to their liability. One way or the other, any well-run school takes adequate measures to remove the chance of catastrophic losses from the equation.

Here's a routine example: Team flies to an away game and the plane crashes. The University will have required the charter company to provide proof of insurance to cover a specific dollar amount for each soul on the flight. Payout to each soul would be equal to or greater than the University's liability limits. If you can't provide the insurance in your quote, the school finds another charter company.
Click to expand...

Give that man the prize! So apparently there are ways to take care of liability issues, and the university takes those steps to insure the University interests as well as some interest of the student are protected as well!

So you're on a roll now, so would you care to lay out the specific concerns that the science data hasn't already covered as it relates to the Chinese virus that is preventing the University from committing to fall sports? I've already covered the scientific data that is on a daily basis, illustrating more and more that this virus and its fatality/ morbidity rate is on par with that of a typical seasonal flu.................what is it about this virus......that the scientific data isn't providing sufficient information on, to make fall sports possible this year? I understand you feel it relates to a liability issue, but what you haven't covered, is what is it about the existing scientific data that isn't able to put this concern to bed?

Devon Gales moves into new, specially built home
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/ex...oves-into-new-specialty-built-home/966057041/
 
"I don't get it".....................and you wont answer my questions? (no worries, its all good)
 
I didn't waste my time answering your questions because I've already explained that you're right. Didn't you read that??? No? Then allow me to say it again in larger print.

gatorman001 is right​

Lawsuits are rarely settled by debating. You want to debate things. That's great, but it just doesn't work out that way when you get hit with a major personal injury lawsuit. Few cases go to trial. Thus, arguments rarely occur. Get it?

I'm not going to type everything in this thread all over again. If you're still confused, just scroll up and re-read what I've already written.

This part has not yet been said: A personal injury lawsuit is nothing more than a vehicle for LEGALIZED EXTORTION. Facts have very little bearing on outcomes. Insurance carriers pay billions of dollars in settlement money every year to simply stay out of court. And personal injury lawyers know this all too well.

Two monetary amounts go into settlement offers: (1). Estimated cost of legal defense fees, (2) estimate of an eventual jury award if the Plaintiff prevails. Number 1 is easily calculated. Number 2 is usually nothing more than a damn guess.

It's a fool's game. I hope no one reading this ever has to go through it. It would all come to a screeching halt if laws were enacted to prevent lawyers from skating scot-free after failing to win frivolous suits. If a personal injury lawyer had to repay a defendant's legal fees PLUS damages, the extortion would come to a stop, court dockets would be cleared and insurance rates would drop like a rock.

Have a nice day ... and above all else, remember you're right. o_O
 
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