Rebecca Mix’s 58-year-old dad, Jeff, lost his job at a hospital a year ago due to COVID-19-related cutbacks. For the past year, he’s spent his time hunting, fishing, and doing countless DIY projects around the house.
With the pandemic receding into the rearview, Jeff, like many of us, was ready to get back to his regular life and that meant finding a new job.
Late-in-life career changes aren’t easy, but Jeff thought that he’d do well working at Costco. He wanted a job where he could work with people face-to-face and he heard the company was good to its employees.
Costco has a people-first culture, pays better than most big-box retail stores, and consistently ranks among the country’s top large companies for employees.
“I want to work on my feet,” Jeff said, according to an article Rebecca wrote for The Guardian. “I want to work somewhere that appreciates me until I can retire. Can you help me apply?”
Rebecca thought that her dad’s career choice was amusing. She made light of it with a tweet and then logged out.
While Rebecca and her boyfriend got to work updating his resume, the tweet went viral. She updated the thread by noting that he was qualified for the job because of his amazing attitude and nacho-cooking abilities.
he is but a constantly cheerful man, extremely good at making nachos, who merely dreams of working for costco.
co… https://t.co/3P13CAvVvF
— rebecca mix would die for ted lasso (@mixbecca) 1620340272.0
The tweet made its way to the desk of Costco’s CEO Craig Jelinek. He reached out to a manager at a Costco location 40 minutes away from Jeff’s house and they contacted Rebecca through Facebook.
via Rebecca Mix / Twitter
“I called my dad, who didn’t answer, texted him a screenshot, and called him again. As someone who only FaceTimes by accident, he didn’t really understand why I was freaking out,” Rebecca recalled. “The sheer ridiculousness of a random tweet making it to the desk of the Costco chief executive mostly escaped him.”
Soon after, Jeff had an interview at Costco and the tweet was never mentioned. They called him for a follow-up interview but Jeff didn’t hear anything for a few weeks.
Then, Rebecca received the most amazing text from her father. A simple “thank you” with a picture of his new work badge.
GUYS. https://t.co/uLpo5av5QF
— rebecca mix would die for ted lasso (@mixbecca) 1623188146.0
Jeff was hired as a part-time employee and things appear to be going well. He told Rebecca he liked his new co-workers and was excited to have a new job working on his feet. One of his coworkers joked, “I wonder when they’re going to hire the Twitter guy?” to which he replied, “I am the Twitter guy.”
For Rebecca and Jeff, the new job is about a lot more than a stable source of income. It’s a jolt of positivity after a difficult time for the family. It was also a welcome break from the usual outrage that happens on Twitter.
“Mostly, after a nightmare year of record unemployment rates and unprecedented grief, it seemed people were just happy to share in a moment of weird, collective joy on a website often aptly described as a cesspool,” Rebecca wrote.
The Eastern Conference Finals now have the full focus of the NBA world with the Phoenix Suns punching their ticket to the Finals, where they will await the winner of the currently tied Hawks-Bucks series. Game 5 on Thursday night will be pivotal, everyone’s favorite word to use in a 2-2 series, and both teams will be without their top star.
Giannis Antetokounmpo’s hyperextended knee he suffered in Game 4 didn’t have any structural damage, happily, but it was announced early on Thursday that it would keep him out for at least Game 5. Trae Young, who missed the Hawks’ Game 4 win, was listed as questionable with the bone bruise in his right foot and a bit before tip-off word arrived that he too would be sitting out.
ESPN Sources with @malika_andrews: Atlanta Hawks star Trae Young (foot) is out for Game 5 vs. Bucks tonight. Young will continue to rehab with hopes of playing in the Eastern Conference Finals Game 6 on Saturday in Atlanta.
That is obviously a significant blow for the Hawks, even considering their Game 4 performance in which they blew out the Bucks even with Young sidelined. Lou Williams took the start in that game and figures to again for Game 5, as he was spectacular for the Hawks in the win. Bogdan Bogdanovic looked to be getting back to his old self as well in Game 4, while Cam Reddish gave them a two-way boost that was very welcome in his first real action of the postseason.
Without Young, the Hawks can deploy better defensive lineups and that was evident in Game 4. What will determine this game is how the Bucks counter that without Giannis and also how they change their defensive approach against a less explosive, but still good, offense.
Top Chef is still basically the only cooking competition show that I can reliably watch without feeling dumber for having done so. Even in the midst of a “cooking competition,” even after 18 seasons, there’s an authenticity to Top Chef that the imitators can’t match.
A lot of that, I think, comes down to the judges and the contestants. They seem to understand on a basic level that a cooking competition is a trifling concern in the grand scheme of things, but they love cooking so much that they can’t help but care intensely nonetheless. Other shows feel like they’re trying to sell you on the concept of food. Top Chef doesn’t have to pander in that way or try to whip up a studio audience into a phony frenzy. The passion of the contestants and judges speaks for itself.
Tom Colicchio is a case in point. I love to rag on his jaunty hats and hyper-specific nitpicking in my weekly power rankings, but every time I talk to him I come away impressed at just how damn good he is at his job. That steely competence he projects isn’t just an illusion created by his sled dog eyes. His occasionally esoteric critiques wouldn’t be compelling if he was full of shit, but talk to him for more than a few seconds and you get the impression of someone who’s practically allergic to putting on airs. Nor does he do it, Simon Cowell-like, because he knows that’s his shtick and he’s performing for an audience. Colicchio will bring up, unprompted, a contestant from past seasons, and rattle off all the reasons that contestant was eliminated in an episode filmed four years ago.
All of which is to say: Colicchio is voluble and food-crazy in a way I find endlessly entertaining. A five-time James Beard award winner, owner of a restaurant empire, and a Top Chef judge since 2006 (he’s now an executive producer), I spoke to Colicchio this week in advance of the season 18 finale.
—
How has this season been as a judge?
Well, we shot back in September and the challenges, obviously, were COVID and keeping our production safe. Which we did. We have about 150 people on our crew and no one got sick. We also shot during the fires in the Northwest, which was really challenging at times, because there were five days where there was really thick smoke in the air, so that was somewhat disruptive. But it was a good season. A lot of the chefs were out of work because of COVID, and, you saw this season, the chefs really came together. They’re very supportive of each other. I think COVID had a lot to do with that.
It was also great to get out of the house and do something that sort of took my mind off my restaurants being closed and all that stuff.
To me, this season seems like it’s been one of the more entertaining ones that I can remember. Do you think any of the COVID challenges of shooting forced you guys to do things that ended up working?
Sure. Obviously, the one big change was bringing back all of the ex-contestants as judges, and having them with us pretty much every meal. That was kind of neat. Restaurant Wars is clearly very different, and very successful, I thought. One issue that’s come up the last couple of episodes was Dawn leaving food off of plates, and why she was allowed to go through. This typically happens, only we don’t see it, and the audience really doesn’t see it, because a lot of times they’re not left off the judges’ plates. But because you’re actually getting comments from every diner, I think it showed up a little more.
In the last episode, I think they had to shell Dungeness crabs two ways, for 12 people. That struck me as one of the harder things that you’ve ever asked them to do. Where do you rate that, in terms of difficulty?
The crab, obviously you have to pick through it, but often what happens on the show is, number one, the clock is always running. And so you have to figure out what you can do considering the clock and considering that you’re plating everything yourself. It’s very different than if you were in a restaurant, where you have a team of cooks and sous chefs and there really is no time limit — with the exception of, people want their food on time. But there are systems set up to expedite food. And so, part of the process of putting together dishes, it all comes down to execution. If you make everything you’re doing too complicated, you can’t execute it.
Right.
And so it’s really a matter of what the chefs choose to do. That’s what makes it difficult, not necessarily the challenge. Part the reason I think why the show works so well is because there are chefs who think they can do a lot more than they can. Not in terms of talent, but in terms of time and what they think they can do, and all of a sudden they run out. I think all these challenges are difficult. Quite frankly, I thought the challenge where they had to make food for the frontline workers was hard because, it’s food that had to be delivered, there was a very low price point on it. And they did okay.
The crab challenge, you say it’s hard, but that was probably the best food we had all season.
That frontline worker challenge, I think it was Chris who did a chicken breast. I was surprised you guys didn’t penalize him more harshly for doing, what in my mind is the most stereotypical…
No, you don’t get penalized for doing that. You get penalized for doing it wrong. We judge on what they did, and how they executed it, not, they made a decision to use chicken breasts. That’s okay. It’s fine and a lot of people like chicken breasts for lunch. Did you overcook the chicken breast? Was it seasoned properly, was it cooked properly? That’s what’s more important.
Bravo
Obviously, judging the show, you guys are forced to sort of nitpick a lot, just to separate the chefs. Out in the real world, what do you think your most frequent criticism, or your most frequent food rant is?
I don’t criticize when I eat out myself. I don’t rant, I don’t criticize. I go out and eat dinner, and that’s it.
Even internally?
I’m just the opposite because I don’t want to be “that guy.” So I just eat my food, and that’s it. I’m just happy when someone else is cooking for me. For me… and this is sometimes not anyone’s fault except for the press, and I’m not ragging on the press here, but I think often new restaurants get hyped up. And you buy into that hype. Even knowing that I shouldn’t buy into the hype, I do anyway. You go there with a set of expectations that are so high that there’s no way that a restaurant is going to meet that. So, for me, I try to go in and not read stuff about it.
I don’t go out to nitpick food. A long time ago, when I was in my early twenties, with my first serious girlfriend, I would go out and I would start nitpicking food. And she just told me, you know “This isn’t fun. I just want to enjoy my food now, I don’t need to hear it.” Ever since then, I don’t do that. I just eat, I don’t make opinions. I mean, I have my opinion. I don’t make them known. If it’s good, I go back.
Because of who you are, do you ever sense people expecting feedback from you, or being hyper-aware of what your experience of their food is?
I think they’re hyper-aware, but I think that happened before the show. Chefs are always aware when other chefs are in a restaurant, and we kind of go out of our way to make sure that those tables are great. When we’re cooking for our peers, we pay attention to it.
Finale excluded, what do you think was the single best dish that you had this season?
My favorite was the hotpot rice dish that Shota made, with the help of everybody, for the Restaurant Wars episode. That was so good. In fact, I remember my 12-year-old asking me, “Which dish was your favorite, Dad?” And I was like, “I can’t tell you, but if we watch it, I’ll let you know,” because I don’t tell my family anything when I come home. This was the first year that my kids watched the show. And when they were watching Restaurant Wars, I told them, “That’s my favorite dish.”
That was stunning.
Bravo
Were you shocked that that turned out so well? Because they had so many people involved, and so many different things going into that?
No, listen, that could be a disaster. But we’re not privy to all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. The only time I spend with the chefs is on camera. And so, after watching the episode, I wasn’t surprised at all because they all worked together really well. There were fewer egos on that team, I think. And the other team, on paper, probably looked like they had a better team. But you saw what they did. [Shota’s team] said, “Listen, here’s the concept.” And the concept is a mashup of Latino food and Japanese food, and I think every dish had that in mind. As opposed to the other team, where they just said, “Hey, we’re all doing seafood dishes. I have my dish.” You went through that whole menu, there was not one piece of cooked fish. It’s crazy when you think about it. So these were just a bunch of chefs saying, “Hey, I’m going to do a dish, and I think it’s going to be good, and I’ll be okay.” And this other team, they really took it to heart and said, “We want to create something new, something that’s exciting.” And they all contributed to it, and no one tried to steal anybody’s thunder. And it was just extraordinary, to tell you the truth.
I think you guys did one challenge where you tasted the dishes blind, not knowing which chef was which.
First episode, yeah.
Is there a reason you don’t do that on every challenge? Just to sort of take whatever your bias might be out of it, or whatever?
Well, there’s no bias in it, that’s just it. I eat food, and for me it’s, “Was it cooked properly, was it seasoned properly?” Those are the first two things, and quite frankly, you can stop there and that’s how people get eliminated. From there you can go into, “What was the challenge? Did they adhere to the actual challenge?” And then if it’s close, then you could dig into it. But I think we did it just to do it, but the other reason why tasting blind is hard to do is because then we can’t connect a person to the dish. And therefore, the viewer can’t connect the person to the dish. So when we talk about it, often we say, “Gabe’s tacos are like, Shota’s sushi dish was…” Without that, what we’re saying is, “The taco dish, or the sushi…” And then it’s just hard to follow.
Right.
But none of us really care who wins. And again, the stuff that goes on behind the scenes where people tend to like someone for whatever reason? We don’t see that. So we don’t care. How can I say it? I don’t have a horse in this race.
And in terms of, not understanding, culturally, someone’s food? I can go back to Eric getting thrown off, it had nothing to do with culturally what he was doing. It had to do with he used a thickener in his tartare that was disgusting. You didn’t hear this on the show, but it had nothing to do with African food. It was like lecithin or something because he wanted it to have this mouthfeel, that was nasty. And we didn’t play that, because it would have been so obvious from the start that he was going home. So often, in the editing, we try to make it a horse race and people are left to be confused.
So no, I’ll say it to the end, there’s no bias in judging.
Right. I mean–
And then, if you go to the makeup of casting. Every season, we cast equal amounts of men and women. Our industry is not made up equally, of men and women. But we cast that way. If you look at how we cast for diversity, our industry is not as diverse as the makeup of the diversity of our contestants. So there’s that. Anyway, but people say, “You should just do the whole season blindfolded, because of bias.” Nah, whatever. You’d end up with no difference at all, I think.
Is another reason that’s hard — at least for me, when I’m drinking a cocktail or eating anything, I feel like the story is part of what I’m tasting. Do you think that the chef’s story through the food is part of the experience?
It’s part of the experience, it’s not part of the judging. Meaning, you have to separate the two. “It’s a great story you just told, but it’s not going to come into the equation when it comes to judging the dish.”
Now, unless it’s part of the challenge, then it could make sense. But no, again, it’s about, was it cooked properly, was it seasoned properly? I like to know what the intention is, I like to know what the chef was trying to do, because then it’s a question of whether or not they were able to accomplish that comes into play. So that’s important, intention. Composition, in terms of balance. You look at technique. You look at if someone’s protein wasn’t seared properly, if they wanted it seared properly. If something was fried, was it fried properly? If something is roasted, was it roasted properly? Is it properly rested?
So there’s a lot of technical things that go into it. You don’t hear us talk so much about it because, again, the editors would think that’s boring.
How much of a role do you take during the editing process? Do you have a say–
Zero. None, no.
But you think it’s mostly, pretty fair representation of what you’ve critiqued when you watch it?
Yeah, sure. I think so, but a lot is left out. For the most part, we’re almost always in agreement without discussing it. But we can’t just go there and go, “Yeah, this is the worst dish,” and they go home. That’d be boring. And so, nothing’s manipulated, but we have to discuss it. And you’re going to hear parts of that discussion, not the whole thing because that whole discussion would take two hours.
What do you think was the least successful dish that you had, this season?
I have no idea.
Is that just the nature of the good ones being more memorable than the bad ones?
Yeah. I just don’t remember. Some of the early chefs that went home were clunkers, but just because someone goes home doesn’t mean they’re a bad chef. Sasha, she did really great in Last Chance Kitchen, she was the second chef to go home. She messed up, it happens. It happens to all of us. Especially with the way this works, where you’ve got to think fast and commit.
So a few years back, I don’t know, three or four seasons ago, you had Wolfgang Puck as a guest judge. He stands out in my mind as one of the funnier guest judges. Do you have favorites that you’re looking to bring back?
I would love to bring back the same crew that we had this season. I thought it was really great, having them all there, plus having them passing [COVID] tests, they really can relate to what the chefs are going through. So, yeah. I would like to do that. But I don’t know if I have favorites.
Aside from Charlize Theron. Yeah, and Natalie Portman.
You brought up having to shut down some of your restaurants, for COVID this past year. How are your restaurants doing now? Are they coming back? What capacity are you at, since indoor dining has been allowed again?
Let’s just say, we’re coming back. We’re still not near a hundred percent of the business that we were doing pre-COVID. Capacity, we aren’t at a hundred percent capacity, but… restaurants are busy. People are still leery. Some people are still reluctant to go out into spaces with a lot of people. There are plenty of people that are not vaccinated. There are variants that are going around, are more contagious, so people are still concerned. And staffing has been an issue. So, no. We’re not at a hundred percent, at all. Our restaurant in LA is only open for dinner right now, five days a week. We’re not open for lunch. When we open for lunch, I think next week, we’re only opening two days. It’s difficult staffing the restaurants, and demand is not a hundred percent there yet.
Bravo
The season finale of ‘Top Chef’ airs July 1st. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.
One of the best horror games ever made, Dead Space, is reportedly getting a remake. Jeff Grubb of Venture Beat reported that Motive Studios, the developers of Star Wars: Squadrons is currently working on a remake of the first Dead Space game. He also hinted at a new game, but most of his report was in relation to the remake.
Electronic Arts has Star Wars: Battlefront II co-developer Motive working on a new Dead Space game. Eurogamer and Gematsu first reported the existence of the game, and GamesBeat can confirm parts of what each outlet has heard. While a new Dead Space is coming, Motive is rebooting the franchise with a full-fledged remake.
What this sounds like is EA is testing the waters on interest in Dead Space. Game companies will occasionally remake a game from a franchise that has been dormant to test the waters and see if further expansion could be lucrative. This could also be an excuse to get a new engine to build off of by remaking a game with familiar material on the new engine and then re-use that engine for new games.
Whatever the reason, a new Dead Space would be welcome news for fans of horror games, especially big budget horror titles. Resident Evil is currently the dominant force in that category, but with rumors of a new Silent Hill, and a reboot of Dead Space we could be witnessing a return of the AAA horror game.
The game would recreate the terrifying story of Isaac Clarke responding to a distress signal to a space station that has gone dark. Not only that, but Clarke’s girlfriend Nicole Brennan was among one of the many people on that space station. The last message Clarke received from Brennan was a distress signal of her own. Clarke’s motivations are clear, figure out why the space station has gone dark (spoiler: it’s monsters) and find Brennan.
Dead Space was new and innovative at the time. Horror stories had been told in space before, but everything about Dead Space was refreshing thanks to a cool weapon, some fun physics, and a silent protagonist making everything feel even more eerie. The game was popular enough to get two sequels, but after that it was never heard from again. After the development studio, Visceral Games, was closed in 2017 it was assumed that the franchise would not be returning. Maybe that assumption, however, was a bit premature.
E3 2021 may have come and gone, but that doesn’t mean we’re done with the summer parade of video game announcements. One of the giants of the industry, EA, has yet to do a presentation and that’s because they’re holding off until later in July. EA Play will take place on July 22 and nobody is really sure what to expect. Especially now that we know BioWare doesn’t plan on making an appearance at the event.
On Thursday, BioWare announced that it would not be showing anything at EA Play this year. That means no new information on Mass Effect 4 or Dragon Age 4. While Mass Effect fans should be fine since they’re still working their way through Mass Effect Legendary Edition, this must be disappointing news for anyone that’s a fan of the Dragon Age series.
We’re hard at work creating the next @dragonage and @masseffect games and have some exciting stuff coming to @SWTOR this year. While we won’t be showing anything at EA Play Live, be sure to check out our SWTOR Livestream at 12PM PT today for info on what’s to come!
We know that a new Dragon Age game is on the way, but the details on that game have been extremely minimal. We last saw a trailer during the 2020 Game Awards so we know that progress is being made, but fans of that franchise have been eagerly anticipating a release date for some time. It would have also been nice to at least see some gameplay, but obviously we won’t be getting that, either.
While it’s disappointing that BioWare won’t have anything to show it’s probably for the best. There’s no point getting a presentation together to show games that simply aren’t ready. If we reach EA Play 2022, however, and they still don’t have anything to show then it might be time to show some concern. But after the year or so of making games amid a pandemic, delays and no-shows are generally to be expected right now.
Answering a pressing query that was surely on everyone’s mind, Lucy Dacus has revealed what soda flavors most closely align with her Boygenius (herself plus Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker) bandmates’ personalities. Chatting with fans via Reddit AMA, the singer-songwriter, who just released her third studio album, Home Video, answered a fan question that went, “Which member of Boygenius is which soda?” Hey, inquiring minds need to know!
In response, Dacus said that “Julien [Baker is] probably Mountain Dew/Dr Pepper, Phoebe [Bridgers is] Monster/La Croix, [and] I’m Blue Gatorade/Sprite, if that counts.” The questions also swerved into more serious territory, with one fan wanting to know what it had been like to reveal so much about her evolving feelings on her Christian upbringing upon releasing Home Video. She said:
It’s not necessarily easy, I still get calls here and there from my mom because she’s upset about something I said in an interview. but I have a hard time not being honest (I wish I lied more, I think I would feel safer).
Dacus has recently made noise about wanting the members of Boygenius to play together again (in 2018, the indie supergroup made a splash with their self-titled EP). Speaking to Thandiwe Newton for Interview Magazine this week, Dacus said, “We want to play together again so bad. I think we’re so busy, but we would take any excuse, we miss each other so much.”
Tucker Carlson is one of the most visible supporters of Donald Trump on American cable television, but according to a report, not even the Fox News host could muster up a vote for Trump in November.
According to a Politico report, Carlson started telling people that he didn’t vote for Trump in the election the now-former president claims he won against all evidence. Instead, he apparently voted for, uh, Kanye West, seemingly as a way to differentiate himself from other Fox News hosts.
Shortly after the presidential election, the Fox News host started telling some program guests that he had cast his ballot for West, according to two people familiar with those conversations. Given Carlson’s fierce on-air commentary in favor of Trump, the guests were left wondering if Carlson was serious or merely joking.
“It’s his way of saying that he’s not just another Trumpette at Fox News like Sean Hannity,” one of the sources said, referring to Carlson’s fellow primetime opinion host and reputed internal rival.
Another source mentioned in the story said he mentioned his intentions before the election as well, citing that “he and Kanye get along” and have similarly restrictive views on reproductive rights. Despite all that, though, who Carlson voted for largely didn’t matter for a variety of reasons. As the story noted, Carlson votes in Florida, where West wasn’t officially on the ballot. That would mean he would have to write in West’s name, even if it ultimately wouldn’t count for much of anything other than bragging rights.
It’s unclear exactly who leaked this information and if it’s accurate, but from what we know about how Carlson himself is often the biggest source of information among people in Trumpworld, you can at least heavily infer where this kind of thing is coming from.
First things first — yes, you did read that right. Cocaine Bear. Cocaine. Bear.
Announced earlier this year, the upcoming film directed by Elizabeth Banks and inspired by a true story has caused quite a stir and countless jokes and memes. We now have a better look at who is joining in on all the fun and boy is the list stacked. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Keri Russell, Ray Liotta, Alden Ehrenreich, O’Shea Jackson and Jesse Tyler Ferguson are all set to star in the Universal project that begins shooting this August.
Cocaine Bear recounts a story reported by The New York Times back in 1985, in which a 175-pound black bear consumed no less than 70 pounds of cocaine that was dropped from an airplane by a local drug smuggler named Andrew Thornton. While some assumed the film would be a comedic romp a la Sharknado, Jimmy Warden, the film’s writer, said the script is a “character-driven thriller,” that, if it’s anything like the news story, will end in tragedy for the poor fuzzy guy. While, interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time this story’s graced our screens, based on this cast it sounds like it sure will elevate it to new heights.
As of right now, everything else about the project is being kept under wraps, but man are we ready to see where this goes.
Center for Disease Control infographics are usually not very funny, but when you mix in swimming, children, and, uh… diarrhea, well, anything is possible. After more than a year of dire updates and regulations about the deadly realities of COVID-19, perhaps the American public was waiting for a sign that they can enjoy their summers and share a laugh by the pool.
But the CDC really outdid themselves on Thursday with a graphic that went viral because it was, well, pretty graphic. The image was part of their pool safety awareness campaign that got right down to business. “Don’t leave your mark at the pool this summer,” the ad read, which is pretty cheeky because it’s an image about the dangers of diarrhea at the swimming pool. But what really got people talking about the graphic interchange format animation was the visual of a young smiling girl sliding down a water slide leaving a trail of brown in her wake.
And given the context of the rest of the image, it’s safe to say that the government paid someone to animate a little kid going Number Two down a water slide.
The tweet is oddly mesmerizing, and very funny despite it covering a very serious topic. Contaminated swimming pools can cause serious illness, especially for young people. But the image associated with the post was ripe for jokes, which is what social media was flooded with in the aftermath of the slide down the tube.
This is a pretty epic gif.. I bet a government employee actually got paid to make this too. (Tax dollars at work?) Who at the @CDCgov approved the image of a girl pooping on a water slide? https://t.co/5HtrqqA0eI
The tweet also linked to a CDC webpage simply called “diarrhea and swimming,” complete with an image of smiling children staring at the camera. Hopefully, none of them were currently… well, you know, at the time the image was taken. But the site itself does have plenty of good advice about what not to do in a swimming pool, starting with not relieving yourself in it. And if someone fails to adhere to those rules, well, don’t drink the water.
On Thursday, NCAA athletes could begin making money off of their name, image, and likeness in sponsorship deals, and plenty took advantage on Day 1. Over the coming months we will see more and more deals struck and athletes getting to make money, finally, off of their popularity while in college.
This is important for all athletes, particularly in the social media age, as many are able to cultivate massive social followings — particularly athletes in smaller, non-revenue sports — and now they can cash in at the peak of their popularity. There is also the obvious advantage for superstars in the biggest sports, as the best football and basketball players will be able to ink endorsement deals in college rather than having to wait for when they turn pro ahead of their draft day.
One of the conversations that has popped up on social media in recent days is what former players would’ve made the most money off of endorsements in college and a number of the same names came up regularly. Tim Tebow, certainly, has to be near the top of any list, as does Reggie Bush, who famously had his Heisman Trophy taken away for taking $300,000 in benefits while at USC — which is likely a drop in the bucket compared to what he could’ve been making under the current rules. Bush himself sees the irony in this now being legal and him being stripped of college football’s highest individual honor, and is seeking to get his Heisman reinstated, posting a statement on Twitter that, as of now, the Heisman Trust has refused to do so.
Bush’s quest has gained plenty of support from fans, and he has a fair point — particularly given that the Heisman Trust isn’t even an NCAA property and can just make this happen whenever they want. As Bush says, he never cheated the game and gave it his all on the field, his only violations were of taking benefits that, now, would be legal for him to get over the table rather than under it. Hopefully the Heisman Trust eventually listens to the people and reinstates Bush’s Heisman, as his 2005 season remains one of the best of all-time.
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Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.