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Song Godly.
They mane.
Sad base.
I want a song. Tell them No one's written a song for me. Hey, I'm John and Caldera in for Mandy. Check out my little organization, Independence Institute. Go to thinkfreedom dot org. That's thinkfreedom dot org. Sign up for a newsletter. At the very least, for nearly four decades, we have pointed to true north in Colorado when it comes to limited government, personal and economic freedom. If you like our flat tax, if you like that the flat income tax
has been lowered to what it is now. If you like the taxpayer Bill of Rights, if you like term limits, if you like educational choice, if you like concealed carry permits. All of these things were made possible by the work we've done at Independence Institute. Also, we offer a great news service called Complete Colorado dot Com. Check it out
every day Complete Colorado dot Com. We aggregate stories from around the state and make sure that they are paywall free for you, So definitely check it out Complete Colorado dot Com. You've been hearing on the news breaks the excitement about my Alba mater Cu going to the Alamo Bowl. I'm about ready to weigh into a topic which I have very little knowledge.
It is.
It's exciting to see the Buffs in a bowl game. It's great to see them ranked. It's been fun to watch. But there's something about new college football I really don't like, and it's that these players are now multi millionaires. It used to be a kid would go to college and if he got a scholarship, that helped him. Are you ready for this? Get an education? I know it's crazy. It would help that kid get an education he could afford, so he'd play on a team. In exchange, he'd he'd
get a free education or discounted education. That's pretty cool. And then money perverts it. You've got superstars who are now selling what are is it called image, likeness and name something like that. That they they have control of their own image, they have control of their likeness, they have the control of their name, and if they want to sell those things for endorsement purposes, well shouldn't they be able to? I mean, come on, Caldera, you like
all this liberty stuff and free market stuff. Isn't that really what we're talking about? Like, yeah, I see that. I particularly see that for some sports. Think of I don't know, gymnastics, gymnastics where by the time you hit eighteen, you're over the hill. It's not like some gymnast who's out out of school is going to graduate and then have the peak of her career afterwards where she can then trade in and get those endorsements and get paid.
She's gonna be She's going to be top of her game when she's sixteen, sometimes fourteen, So if she doesn't cash in, then she might not be able to cash in on her celebrity. I get that, really, I really do. I get that. And so why not let this person
cash in while they're hot? Even though college had these rules that you couldn't you couldn't do that, or if you made money, you couldn't be in the Olympics, And so you had a lot of people who skipped college or deferred college so that they could go off and do their sport and do some advertisements and make some money, maybe use that money to go to college. All Right, I see it, I really do. I get it. I can see that point. But there's something that just rubs
me the wrong way. Of football players driving around in their maseratis being multi millionaires while they're students. So you've got you've got a very good quarterback at CU, You've got a Heisman Trophy winner at CU. These guys are cashing in money and they haven't even gone to the big leagues yet. They're not they're not professionals yet, they're not getting paid to play ball, they're getting paid to do advertisements. And I just think the purpose of college
sports is college more than it is sport. Help me wade through this one three h three seven one three eighty five eighty five seven one three eight five eighty five. If you could, would you go back to the way back before times where hey, if you wanted, if you wanted to make more money and you're in college, you gotta wait until you're a pro, particularly in football, football and basketball, the big big ones. I really miss that. It has taken away the oh, I don't know how
to put it. It's taken away the magic of the game of it being about a college. So you've got all these kids in a stadium and they're no longer in the same boat it used to be. That. You know, the guys who are the cheerleaders throwing girls up in the air. Maybe they're getting a scholarship for being on the cheer team. Maybe some of the folks on the marching band also get a scholarship. I don't know. And they're all the same, They're all in the same boat.
They all go and live on the same campus for the first year or so, they're all taking the same classes, they're all going to the same student union. They're all having a shared experience. And then you know, some kids get a job on campus. I had a job on campus, and you make a few bucks an hour working at the student center, or I used to work security at some of the ballgames or things like that. All right, so there's a way to make a little extra money.
But then that guy over there, because people love what he does, is getting paid millions millions, you know. So now now you've got a hierarchy in college that didn't exist before. I don't know how it doesn't mess up college educations, that it doesn't put the emphasis on the wrong thing, which is making money rather than learning and going to school. And also just I don't know, it just feels so ugly. Help me with this one three h three seven to one, three eighty five, eighty five.
Let's talk to Mike. Good, Good afternoon, Mike. You're with John Caldera.
John, nice to talk to you. Thank you, long time listener.
Glad to have you.
Yeah, so I was kind of weigh in on what you're talking about here with the college athletes. You know, I received the Division one scholarship to play basketball in the late nineties, and that was it.
You got what school?
Three school? I'm at the Boise State.
Ah, the mighty mighty Boise.
State, good old Broncos. With the blue field. I hate that thing. I used to run up and down that thing all the time.
That is so weird, isn't it. It's just yeah, I mean I like the concept of a different colored field. If you're gonna have fake grass, why not do something something crazy? Maybe maybe zebra stripes, well, something something that really weird. Did you get a full ride?
I got a full ride and you played and I you know, I wasn't the best player up there. I played here and there, you know, had some injuries and stuff. They sold my jersey number, not my name, because we didn't have our names on our jersey but they sold my jersey. I think they sold maybe one and then had one return good.
So your mom bought it and then returned it.
My mom bought it and it was too small, so you returned it. But yeah, I mean that was the big deal.
You know.
I didn't have a lot of money coming out of you know, we weren't rich college. Yeah, that's that's what you know. And I took advantage of it. I got my degree up there and and uh but yeah, now these this portal situation and all these kids you know making money off there, like me, like me, Like.
You say the portal situation, Educate me a bit on that, because I college football still confuses me. The whole playoff system confuses me. The conferences confused me. The rankings confuse me. So why I like the NFL. I can understand the NFL.
I'm with you one hundred percent. I'm with you one hundred percent on that. I like NFL football and I like college basketball. I'll me crazy.
So when you say the portal.
I don't know too much about the portal system, but it just seems like every year there's a handful of kids who can go to as many as can you go to four different schools and four years do that system. I don't know how it works very well. But I remember back when I if I wanted to transfer, if if my head coach didn't get fired, or I wanted to transfer. So if if you lost a head coach, you could transfer without losing a year because you went to that school to play for that man or woman.
Now it seems like you can just pop around. So I don't like this guy, or I don't like my situation here, I'm going to go here.
So it's almost like they're free agents. Now. Yeah, the idea of be true to your school doesn't work.
How do you hear that last part?
I'm sorry, I was just saying that the old Beach Boys song be true to your school, No, doesn't. It just doesn't happen anymore because you're thinking about money. You're thinking about you know how I can make more money right now? And I get some of that. You know, you're one injury away from from losing your livelihood.
Yeah, but isn't payment for your livelihood to make you to the next level of free education? How much does school cost these days? You said you went to see you. I miss hear that.
I sadly went to see you. Let me, let me, let me put myself in the group of what a waste of money from that communist factory. So, I mean, if you're an engineer, great, maybe their business school, but their liberal arts program is just there to perpetuate socialism. And I you know, so I love it when they call me for money from the alumni association and I'm like, are you kidding? Let me tell you why I'm not
going to give you money. And then afterwards I always say, would you like us to take us take you off our solicitation list? Like no, I love having this yearly conversation to complain about what you teach at to see you anyway, But if you had to do it over again, would you.
Yeah? I think so? Why not? You know, I probably would have done you know, obviously few things different, but you know that's from a young age. That was you know, I went to a family where you know, sisters were getting volleyball scholarships to you know, Nebraska and Arizona State, and basketball scholarships to Arkansas for my brothers and some football.
So it was like it came from a jock family. Yeah, so you got a jock family, and you got a college education paid for. Your parents must have loved that.
Yeah, And then you look at the professional athletes in the as a whole. They're broken five years after they're playing. You know, that's why they get paid so much money up front, is because their their work history is going to be potentially very short, and you need you need to make those first three million dollars for the first three years last. And it just it doesn't work that way, you know. Whereas with my degree, I got it for free.
I was I was a midrage player, got to go to school for free, and I got a great degree, and I've got a great career, I've got a great family, and I'm not a multi millionaire by any means. But but you.
Also you also must have had a great memory of being on a college basketball team. Would would be you know, you're kind of living the classic American dream of Yeah, I played it, got through school playing sports.
It was so great. It was so great, state of the art equipment. I mean when I was in school, Boise was just switching over. Their football program was just switching over from one double A to one A and state of the art equipment. Multi million dollar investors in the nicest court TV almost every night, the only show in so how first class flying you know, per deems during the day. And that's another thing too which I kind of struggle with, is these kids can make a
lot of money on their likelyhood. But when I was in school, if you made more than twenty five hundred dollars during the summer, you weren't allowed. Right.
It was the Mexicans.
They didn't want boosters giving you money to do nothing.
Yeah, exactly, And so now boosters can give money by by renting out your likeness. There's just it just feels so very wrong. And I understand the logic behind it. I understand that somebody's somebody's making money off you, So why can't I make money off of myself? I mean, I get that, but I think it just spoils, spoils the college education, and it spoils college sports. Hey, Mike, thanks for the call. Let's chat with Bill. Bill, welcome you with John Kelder. Glad to have you Bill.
Hi.
Hi, I'm in Western Nebraska, so I'm a Husker fan. But we'll forgive if your thing goes, say, yeah, the same thing goes. Are these guys that are getting engineering degrees and paying for their credits. Are these football players and athletes are they going to pay for the credits that the college is teaching them.
A career well, their career.
Are they going to be charged? Yeah, Well they get out and they go to the pros, and they're making all this money. Just like an engineer would if he paid for his credits and went out and got a job. These athletes need to start coughing up and paying for the training that the college has given them.
That's an interesting thought. Let me see if I'm understanding you. So you go to school and you get a degree in engineering. You've got a bunch of engineering professors who get paid and you are paying them, and they teach you stuff. You then take that knowledge and get a career out of it. Here the college player, the multi
millionaire is getting a free ride scholarship. Yet the other kids, the other tuition givers or boosters or somehow else people are getting paid to train you how to play football. That is your stock in trade, not engineering, and you take that knowledge with you when you leave and go become a pro.
Yeah, or even the coach somewhere they're learning their trade of from the athletic side of the college, and they're not paying. I don't know what you call it. I'm a the tuition part of it that the normal guy that has an engineering is going for engineering is paying. They're getting a free ride from the taxpayers and the supporters and stuff, and not putting back into the for what they were getting trained for.
You know.
It's it's there's something that perverts education. And I know we don't want to talk about education because we love college football so much, but there's just something that treats one kid differently than the other kid. And there's just something weird about I'm I'm going to class with somebody and next to me is this guy and he's making five million dollars a year in school and I got a part time job, you know, for fifteen bucks. Life life,
you know, it just doesn't. We no longer have a shared experience as colleagues in school.
That's what I'm saying. I mean, if you're getting if the college is teaching you to become something in athletics, like I say, a coach, a player, anything like that that you learned by by playing the game, you should pay the tuition for it, not just have the taxpayers pay for you.
That's an interesting It's like, all right, Sanders, you're you're making millions of dollars off your likeness. You're only making that millions of dollars because you're playing football, which for our for our team. So how about you pay your own tuition? At least I could get behind that there. You know. The idea of tuition was to help people who couldn't pay. The Sanders family can pay their tuition and their room and board. They could sell one of
their cars and do that. That's an interesting point. The other the other thing that's kind of weird for me is when I went to college, they had the college uniforms. I even remember those powder puff blue and gold uniforms, see you had, and they were awful. They were just awful. Black and gold is much better. But they played the same uniform the whole year. My god, these guys seem to have a different uniform every game. Who pays for you know, five different styles of uniforms and helmets that
seems to get switched up every game. It just it's mixing school football with professional football, and I just don't like that mix. All right, Hey, thanks for the call. I appreciate it. What am I getting wrong on this one? What? What? What am I thinking wrong? Would you go back to to the way where you could not sell your likeness? And if so, who are you to tell somebody else what they can do with their face? Three oh three seven one three eight five eighty five. I'm John Caldera
in for Mandy. You're on KOWA thirty four minutes after Good Afternoon. I'm John Caldera in for Mandy. Please be part of the conversation at three three seven one three eight five eighty five. I'm trying to make sense of this relatively new system where college football players can become millionaires while they're still playing college ball. I think it really taints the game. I think it really perverts education.
But I'm also struggling with it this way. I mean, come on, I run a not for profit that pushes freedom and free markets, free people in free markets. And if a guy wants to sell his services as a spokesman for Kentucky Fried Chicken, who am I to say he shouldn't? Can I just say I don't like it? Help me understand this one. Let's go down to a fountain and talk to Bob Bob, Welcome. You're with John Caldera.
John, it's just one more step in the march that we are doing towards commercializing everything. I got a free ride for college education back in the sixties from the church. I had to serve the church a certain number of years to earn that.
I mean, you had to like be pope for a while.
It's the wrong church, but that's the right idea. But the whole thing is that back when I was a kid and young man.
Growing up, there was a loyalty to my school that I could not participate in a portal if that even existed back then, because what's.
Upon a time. I was good enough in high school to play varsity ball, but I wasn't good enough at college.
Interesting, Yeah, the idea of I guess there's a couple of different factors going on.
On a bunch of money.
Yeah. One of them is is you know, the idea of a portal if if you're really kind of a free agent in college, you don't have to make a lasting decision. I don't like it in this school, I'll go to the next school. It'll be good for my career. Now you can do that if you're going to business school, and you're going to business school at you know, Idahost State or something, and you go, you know what, I just got offered a scholarship to be at University of
Denver's Leeds or Daniel's Business School. I'll think I'll take that. No one would blame you for giving up your old school to get a better education at a higher rated, better school that's going to help you. So why would it be different If I'm a football player and my career I plan on is professional football, and I got an ability to go pay a play for a better team that will highlight me more, that will increase my marketability. Why shouldn't I be able to go and go play for that team.
The way you've explained it, you could all goes persuade me. The only thing is that I still have but Broncos whether they're winning or losing, And here lately they started winning and I don't have the tears that I used to have. You know, there's at the same time, commit but these more than just the ability to change your mind easily.
Yeah, there's there's And I might be thinking this too too much here, but there is a growing age of emancipation. I think about kids during World War Two. I've met some older gentlemen who snuck away at fifteen years old to try to go join the Navy, only to get turned back and sent home to mom and dad. And I think, my god, kids became adults so early by today's standards, and now you can stay on your parents' health insurance plan until you're twenty six years old. It's
really pretty wild. In the same way a high schooler would make a decision, I'm going to take the scholarship offer from this college, and I'm there for four years now. It's like I can make that decision, but I can get out of it if I want to, So the cost of making decisions like an adult are less and less. I keep thinking about this from the college kid's point
of view. What is best for the college kid, and not just the football player, but all the college kids and other than you were able to make more money. I'm having a hard time coming out why this is good for you for all college kids.
The whole thing is I changed my major while I was in undergraduate school. I ended up with an MD degree and I've never used it, never practiced once, never completed any of my medical work, But at the same point in time I did not enjoy the money that would be created as a medical practitioner. I feel that we sell too much of ourselves for the price or for the income that we get. And I wonder whether or not that applies to our college professors as they
earned more and more. And I also wonder about the tuition and the scholarship. If I got a free ride as a player, I would play. And if a school table around an offer be bloor, I don't think I could accept that as a person.
Although when you get older and you have a job and one of your company's competitors starts to pursue you and offers you more money, you could take it. So are we saying kids shouldn't grow up sooner? If you're more of a free agent, isn't that more like being an adult? I mean, this whole thing confuses me. All I know is I don't like it. I don't like kids becoming multi millionaires while they're still in a dormitory.
But at the same time, I don't know if I'm just being some nasty, grumpy old guy and I just don't like Jay And that might be the case. All right, good stuff. Thanks for the call. Three all three seven to one, three eighty five, eighty five. I'm thrilled see who's going to a bowl game. But it just seems it just seems like we're missing some of the innocence. Maybe that's it, some of the innocence of college football. Help me understand it. Three all three seven one three
eight five eighty five. John Calderic, keep it right here. You're on KOA. Got about eleven minutes to the top. I'm John Caldera. Thanks for spending some time with me. I hope Mandy is having a great time on our day off. My job is to scare away her audience. I'm doing a good job. Give me a call. Three oh three seven one three eight five eight five. Big big football day tomorrow. Glad I've got a big screen TV.
It's gonna be oneful. But as I've been talking about, I just feel really queasy about these new new college rules that allow kids to cash in while they're college kids. And I'm finding myself in that unfamiliar area where my logic goes in one direction, but my old man crankiness goes in the other direction. I get it, if a kid wants to make some money on the side. Who am I to say, don't do it. It's his face, it's his voice. And if Colonel Sanders wants to give
him money to sling chicken, ain't my business. More power to them. But there's just something that feels like it's taking away the innocence of college sport. I've had this fight with my daughter, who is into gymnastics, and she's like, come on, man, and her very best Joe Biden, come on, man. Her point is a a college gymnast has a remarkably short career. I mean, you're eighteen years old and you're over the hill. So if you have to wait until after you get out of college to cash in, there's
nothing left to cash in. It's like, well, that's that's a pretty good point. I don't have any problem with that. If you know, the guy on the college ping pong team wants to endorse his very favorite paddle, great, it's not like that's big stuff. That's that's small peanuts. This track and field guy wants to do a commercial for his running all right, fine, It's different when you've got Hunter and Sanders making millions and millions of dollars everywhere
because football is so ridiculously popular. We can keep going with this and say does it anger any of the pros? What I mean by that is Colonel Sanders needs someone to advertise his chicken. Yeah, he could go to bow Nicks, but now he can get the quarterback Sanders. Get it, Colonel Sanders, Man, I could I could write this ad copy right now. Anyway. I wonder if any of the pros think I don't want the competition in the endorsement industry. I make my money off of endorsements. I just I
just hate the high cost of everything, particularly sports. We're chatting in the previous hour about three hundred dollars plus lift tickets for ski resorts now, so regular people can't enjoy them. College players, professional players make so much money it becomes unheard of, absolutely unheard of. As a complete aside.
Let me give you my thought on equality. So we keep hearing things like teachers are underpaid, teachers are underpaid, the sun comes up in the morning, teachers are underpaid, to which I say, there's actually not really proof of that, because we have enough teachers to fill the spots, and if not, well, then then we raise the price and we get more teachers. Football players make so much more
than teachers. Why is that because to do what bo Nicks does or Peyton Manning did is such a rarefied talent. There's not much there. There's not a lot of competition. They are worth it because they bring in more than that in money. The reason these guys make this much money is because it is worth it to the owners to pay them that much and their operations get more money. It's an investment. If they are only a handful of teachers that could do teaching, they might be in the
same situation. I also like to think about the diversity issue. Having a couple of minority owners of the Bronco, those who are African American, including Condolleza Rice was largely performative. It was largely for show. It's not like the Waltons really needed that extra investment money to pull the deal together. They needed the pr cover And I think, why couldn't
we do the same thing on the field. You know, so the NFL does all this talk about equality and equity, Black lives matter, and you see it on the helmets and on the sidelines and on the end zones. How about this? Would you like the Denver Broncos to have the same racial makeup as the nation that you know, you could only have twenty percent African Americans on the team. Yeah, you'd have to have so many of this race on the team. Even the most craze socialists will go, well, no,
you can't have that, Like, well, why not? Are you saying that racial diversity isn't important? Well, it's important in your office, but apparently it's not important on the field. Someone explained that to me. All right, let's take a quick break for news. I'm John Caldera three oh three seven one three eighty five eighty five. Keep it right here. You're on KOA