Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick recently sat down with Mike Golic Jr. and Mike Golic Sr. for an episode of the the GoJo podcast, which was released yesterday.
The interview begins about 23 minutes into the show, and I've included links to it on YouTube and Spotify below. They discussed the Marcus Freeman's first year, the transfer portal, NIL, conference realignment, playoff expansion and more.
Here are a couple of quotes I thought were worth sharing:
On how Notre Dame fits into the changing landscape with the transfer portal and NIL:
"How long's this show? The portal's been very interesting for us so far. We have many fewer players go in the portal than other schools. I think that has to do a lot with the fact they pick Notre Dame. They don't just pick the football program.
"So when you net out grad transfers, and frankly often we're thrilled for grad transfers, right? They've got their degree. If they go someplace else, they are going to play more. They've been a great member of the team, and so that's all fine. But when you net out the grad transfers, we have very few. That's great.
"We now, like everybody else, have to pay extraordinary attention to the portal and who's in it and what help they might provide to us in areas of need. That's not easy. You sort of doubled your workload all of a sudden, especially with the number of young men who choose to go into the portal.
You want to stay focused on your needs. Don't just go shopping in the portal to see who's in the portal, and make sure you're bringing in people who fit. That's the biggest part of this. In the discussions I've had with Coach (Freeman) about specific prospective transfers, it's been much more about fit. How will this individual be in the locker room?"
How much more difficult has NIL made recruiting high school recruits and current players?
"NIL has changed everything. It's unfortunate. I believe Notre Dame was the first university to publicly support NIL. In an interview in the New York Times, I think now six years ago or so, Father John (Jenkins) talked about the importance of giving student-athletes that right, because every other student on campus had it. Why because you play a sport should you not have that right? So, we're champions of it.
"Unfortunately, we never anticipated it coming into effect with no regulation, no oversight. So what we've got now has nothing to do with name, image and likeness, quite literally. You do what used to be under-the-table payments and you now call them NIL. You not only pay it, but you celebrate it.
"I am all for student-athletes earning all the money they possibly can, but this is an unregulated process that's going to have some really sad results."
Who is going to eventually put some guardrails up for this thing?
"That's a great question. I think we've done a great job of conclusively proving it's not us (the NCAA). We can't seem to get there. And let me say, I have great hope and optimism about the new president of the NCAA (Charlie Baker). I don't know him, but the people I've talked to who do are very enthusiastic about his leadership style. I hope he can help us.
"But we can't, and we're just going to have to get to a point where Congress is going to have to save us from ourselves in one form or another. I was back there (in D.C.) recently, and a senator who has an important role in all of this looked at me in our conversation and said, 'Answer one question for me.' I said, 'Great, sure.' She said, 'Who should I talk to?' I couldn't answer it. She said, 'You expect us to help you, and you can't even tell us who to talk to.'
"We need leadership. We need a unified view of what should happen. And then we've got to go to Congress with our act together."
It doesn't sound like it's going to happen tomorrow:
"Yeah, I think there's likely to be trigger events. Yesterday, to no one's surprise, the NLRB in a case in California took the sentiments expressed in the NLRB general counsel's memo a while back and identified student-athletes as employees. There's a fair labor standards case in Pennsylvania which I think will likely result in the same place.
"I think that may be a bit of a trigger event, right? Where, OK, is this really the model we want? And where are we drawing these lines? Is the Golic who swims not an employee but the Golic who plays football is an employee? Why is that? I think this may be the external event that finally causes the realization we have to do something to solve this."
The interview begins about 23 minutes into the show, and I've included links to it on YouTube and Spotify below. They discussed the Marcus Freeman's first year, the transfer portal, NIL, conference realignment, playoff expansion and more.
Here are a couple of quotes I thought were worth sharing:
On how Notre Dame fits into the changing landscape with the transfer portal and NIL:
"How long's this show? The portal's been very interesting for us so far. We have many fewer players go in the portal than other schools. I think that has to do a lot with the fact they pick Notre Dame. They don't just pick the football program.
"So when you net out grad transfers, and frankly often we're thrilled for grad transfers, right? They've got their degree. If they go someplace else, they are going to play more. They've been a great member of the team, and so that's all fine. But when you net out the grad transfers, we have very few. That's great.
"We now, like everybody else, have to pay extraordinary attention to the portal and who's in it and what help they might provide to us in areas of need. That's not easy. You sort of doubled your workload all of a sudden, especially with the number of young men who choose to go into the portal.
You want to stay focused on your needs. Don't just go shopping in the portal to see who's in the portal, and make sure you're bringing in people who fit. That's the biggest part of this. In the discussions I've had with Coach (Freeman) about specific prospective transfers, it's been much more about fit. How will this individual be in the locker room?"
How much more difficult has NIL made recruiting high school recruits and current players?
"NIL has changed everything. It's unfortunate. I believe Notre Dame was the first university to publicly support NIL. In an interview in the New York Times, I think now six years ago or so, Father John (Jenkins) talked about the importance of giving student-athletes that right, because every other student on campus had it. Why because you play a sport should you not have that right? So, we're champions of it.
"Unfortunately, we never anticipated it coming into effect with no regulation, no oversight. So what we've got now has nothing to do with name, image and likeness, quite literally. You do what used to be under-the-table payments and you now call them NIL. You not only pay it, but you celebrate it.
"I am all for student-athletes earning all the money they possibly can, but this is an unregulated process that's going to have some really sad results."
Who is going to eventually put some guardrails up for this thing?
"That's a great question. I think we've done a great job of conclusively proving it's not us (the NCAA). We can't seem to get there. And let me say, I have great hope and optimism about the new president of the NCAA (Charlie Baker). I don't know him, but the people I've talked to who do are very enthusiastic about his leadership style. I hope he can help us.
"But we can't, and we're just going to have to get to a point where Congress is going to have to save us from ourselves in one form or another. I was back there (in D.C.) recently, and a senator who has an important role in all of this looked at me in our conversation and said, 'Answer one question for me.' I said, 'Great, sure.' She said, 'Who should I talk to?' I couldn't answer it. She said, 'You expect us to help you, and you can't even tell us who to talk to.'
"We need leadership. We need a unified view of what should happen. And then we've got to go to Congress with our act together."
It doesn't sound like it's going to happen tomorrow:
"Yeah, I think there's likely to be trigger events. Yesterday, to no one's surprise, the NLRB in a case in California took the sentiments expressed in the NLRB general counsel's memo a while back and identified student-athletes as employees. There's a fair labor standards case in Pennsylvania which I think will likely result in the same place.
"I think that may be a bit of a trigger event, right? Where, OK, is this really the model we want? And where are we drawing these lines? Is the Golic who swims not an employee but the Golic who plays football is an employee? Why is that? I think this may be the external event that finally causes the realization we have to do something to solve this."
