Idiots, Spoiled Brats and Congress

0:00Hello, I am welcome to Happy Friday. It is the second of October, 2026, and it is a glorious, glorious Friday. I'm Derek Hunter. This is the Derek Hunter podcast. Thank you for listening. Don't forget midnight tonight, one minute after Eastern time, the week and have a review patreon.com slash Derek Hunter podcast. That's where all heroes go. It really truly is. All right, let's get to, I've been putting this, I've been watching football, I've been watching videos online. It's like, oh my god, I gotta do this. So let's do this because we can. I want to play something that I find very interesting. And it's a bit of a criticism of Republicans. But it's also an expression of ignorance as well because there is the college, the

1:06big college sports bill that is working its way through Congress. And you know, well, they need to do it. Maybe it's the Protect College Sports Act. On a regular year, whatever, it would be fine. This is one of many, many things that they do. But 30, couple of 30 some odd days before an election. At a time when every poll issue, I took, I take issue polls much more seriously than I do voting polls because it's what do you care about and not who you're going to vote for because you can always change your mind. Are you going to vote for? It's unlikely that you're going to change your mind about what you care about. But it matters and they care. The things they care about matter. It is like affordability, inflation, the cost of things. All of that is stuff people genuinely care about.

2:08I'm like, okay, I can see that. That makes sense. And I agree. I have issues with those things as well. Would you look to government and the people who are asking you to vote for them to retain them, put them back in power or depending on the race, put them in power in the first place and you go, well, what's the big issue? What are you going to do for me? And they go, we're going to make sure that we regulate college sports, that we limit how much people can make in college sports. But we also make sure that people can make a fortune in college and they go, wait, it isn't what? So do I take this piece of legislation with me to the gas station and get 25 cents a gallon off or 50 cents a gallon? Is that what do we do? It struck me as odd that there are so many things that Republicans wanted to do that President Trump wanted to do that weren't codified in law.

3:09They were codified by executive action. But not in law. Well, that doesn't make any sense because then there can be undone by executive action. Now I get it. You're not going to get everything you want. You're not going to get much of what you want in this situation where you have, you know, you don't have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. But you got to try. Don't show you. I mean, you've got to try and it didn't seem as though the leadership in the Senate really tried. And that was kind of the problem. And so they finally they passed it just the other day, the Protect College Sports Act, 77 to 22 by partisan. No, it's what everybody wants. So they say it's a big kumbaya moment. I don't think anybody really wants by partisanship. They want to get what they want to get. And they want to get it their way. And the only way to get it is with help from the other side.

4:09So I'm not sitting around thinking that people genuinely give a damn about by partisanship. I don't. But this passed. And I'm a past the Senate. It still hasn't passed the House. It's probably not. It's certainly not going to the House is not going to come back for this. If the House comes back for this, it is elect or old malpractice and people should be fired. If this is what they do, this is not something. That is going to move the needle. That being said, it's an interesting thing. I want to play for you a clip that I have found fascinating and really peeks my interest in this. I've never heard of this guy. I'm not a big college sports fan. I prefer professional sports. As I'm watching, you know, the Browns and the Steelers right now and the Steelers just scored with a minute 42 left to come within two. And so they're going to, I assume, try for the two point conversion to tie the game.

5:12But he's apparently a very successful coach. John Calipari. He's at Arkansas. The Arkansas razor backs that much I know. And he was speaking about the need for this. His support for this. Look, college, I prefer my college. Part of the reason I don't pay attention to college sports really is because so much of college sports, it's just a business. Let's not pretend these people are going to the college. They want to class. Some of them do, I suppose, but most of them don't go to class. They're not there for anything more than to try and make their money in and try and make it to the pros. And I don't blame them. If you're at that level, good, you should do it. And good on you. But it, it cheapens it.

6:15That's why, you know, if you just watch the movie Miracle, the Miracle on Ice was a miracle because it was amateurs, US amateurs that kicked ass and beat the greatest team that the Soviet Union could put together. Wow, that's an amazing accomplishment. It should not have happened. They'd kicked the crap out of them in exhibitions. It just everything. It all came together. And you're like, that is an amazing story. It is there. I say, a miracle. And it became, oops, let's just tie that with a quarterback sneak. You can't do that anymore. The major sports that nothing against track and field, I'll watch track and field. I actually enjoy track and field. But it's not the same. The, you know, the NHL players playing for their country.

7:17Okay, that's, that's good. It's definitely the best athletes in the world. But they're all rich. They'd like to have the victory. They'd like the pride of it and all of that. But it's, it's different when it's a 19 year old college kid who is scrap and is scraping by because he can't afford the money or he can't afford to live or he's not making any money yet and maybe he makes it to the pros, maybe he doesn't, but whatever. That's different. It doesn't exist anymore. And so in that sense, I don't like it. I guess I'm a little bit get off my lawny. That being said, you got to make a while, the sun is shining. Most of the people playing college, you put it this way. There's a lot of people in college sports.

8:21There are not a lot of people in professional sports. There's like a lot of people in junior high sports and then there's, you know, it, we knows down to you've got a bunch of P. We leagues and then you've got university and junior university in high school. And that's it. And then you've got one team at colleges. So it's winnowing down. You have to be the best player at junior university. You have to be the best player in the varsity team. You have to be the best player in your college. And then you have to make it into the pros and not get injured the whole time. I don't blame people for going, I want to make some money off of this. And if they're going to put you in a video game, you damn well, better get paid for that, that kind of crap. But now that universities are paying these guys and recruiting and they're, you know, I'm going to transfer to this one because they're giving me more money. It's, it's not even the minor leagues anymore because some of these people are making a ton of money. It is its own industry and it's not as enjoyable to me.

9:26And this coach from Arkansas puts it in perspective about how perverted it's already hard enough out there for a lot of coaches and sports. How does a manager who's making, you know, to say $10 million a year, telling athlete making $35 million a year, what to do? And I'm like, you're going to get bent, dude. They've got more money in my contract. Invest in, they've got a half a billion dollars invested in my contract. Yours expires in two years. And they could fire you if I refuse to play for you. Like how do you maintain order in those circumstances? I don't know what the answer is. I mean, there's a, a bit of professionalism. Some people are jerks and don't do that. Most of these professional athletes recognize that this is their business and they act professionally even if they have petty squabbles, they handle it outside of the limelight. College students are a little bit different. College students are dumb.

10:27Every teenage boy in the world is dumb. It doesn't matter. They'll do stupid things. You add money. You add women and a dumber, dumber, dumber. So it's a mess when you just start adding money to this situation. And so the coach said this. Right now we need something to give us some semblance of order and some guardrails. And there'll be people against it that think there should be unions. They should be unionized. Agents should have a free hand to do what they want. You know, they talk about, well, what about coaches? I'm going to say this. I probably should. Nine of my players make more than my assistants. And the other three make more than all my staff. And we are not one of the highest payers. We're just not. Then you could say, what about you? I've been doing it 40 years. Started as a volunteer, two years as a part-time assistant.

11:30And that kind of done OK at different programs. So yeah, they're paying me. But how about this? All the coaches on this campus in every sport make less than the revshare, which is 22 million, and it's much less. So the players are getting more than the coaches. I just don't understand who could be against it. Now, the coaches need to be paid, but they don't need. It's the players who are putting their lives on the line. Their livelihoods on the line. They used to be a junior blows out as near a senior blows out their knee. They're not going to get to it. They're done. They're shot at the pros are done. So the riches that were at the end of the rainbow are gone. They can make money now. I don't like the idea that they're doing it. But I don't know how to put the genie back in the bottle. I don't know how to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

12:30And so do you just kind of have to let it go? Or what? I don't know the answer. It's an interesting thing. It's weird to me that our government is caring about this right now, and they're going to get involved. And in the middle of an election, Republicans are prioritizing this. That just seems stupid, but the concept and the questions are very interesting. Should we scrap college sports altogether? And then the idea of a student athlete, how many of these people really are going to class and going to get anything out of it? I hope a lot of them are because they're more than likely not going to end up becoming a pro. That being said, if they make a bunch of money while in college, good on them, I don't begrudge them that. I don't begrudge them making more than their coaches. But it changes the dynamic. How do you, you know, it's, I realize that there's more to measure success than money.

13:32But among young men, there's not. There's chicks and money. That's it. And so the mentor relationship that a lot of coaches have becomes a little more difficult to manage, a little more difficult to create if the player is making a million dollars a year or like making more than the coach, it just seems out of control. Now it's weird because a whole bunch of people are very upset with this coach coming down on the side of it. I can see both sides and I don't have a passion about either way, but they point out that he's coached for 35 years on at least getting paid and he's made somewhere around $125 million over those 35 years. I think, okay, that's fine. It is ridiculous. You know, if you want to talk about how much a quarterback's going to get and they can transfer and blah, blah, blah and sort of extort money, I get it. But I remember when Nick Sabin was a coach at, was the coach at Michigan State University

14:35and then the job at, I think LSU came open. Any quit, any ran down there as quickly as possible. It was dedicated to it. It was, it was sketchy. It was ski-vy. I'm Spartan, I'm staying. Oh, wait, no, this is a better job. I'm done. I'm gone. I mean, it worked out for him, but it was unseemly to those of us in Michigan, even people who weren't particularly Spartan fans, which I wasn't. I'm a Wolverine. But is this going to move the needle for anybody? I know college sports are wildly popular. I know that people love them. But is this the issue that's going to bring people out? Shouldn't Republicans who control both chambers? I mean, I guess you get this done, but you should have got this done a long time ago, honestly. And then you, you try to get other things done, which are more important than this.

15:40I'm curious to know how this plays out, but I don't think that, I mean, if the house comes back in an immersion, I can come back here and vote on this, even though the president wants them to, it would be malpractice, it would be political malpractice, and people should be fired if that's the case. I'm speaking of political malpractice and people being fired. I want you to listen to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She has a genius idea. This thing that we can do to rain in, runaway costs to private institutions is by having fixed, affordable high quality services of public institutions. Which means tuition-free public colleges and universities across the United States of America. Yeah, that's great. Hey, people are spending more money for different things going on. We need to compete. Why do you care where somebody goes to college? Yeah, see if they go to a private institution, what do you care? I mean, I think it's stupid, especially for undergrad, as it's a complete waste of money.

16:45But if you want to spend $250,000 on a freaking bachelor's green knock yourself out, and you want to do it at a for-profit university, private university, I don't care. But the idea that people will, well, I don't want to go to a cheaper state school because they suck. Oh, really? Well, would you take suck for free? No. And some people will, but most people would go, no, I'm going to wear ever's best for me or whatever I want to go. What's every garbage night, there's free everything out on people's curbs. Food. You want to dig through it. It's just gross stuff mostly, but it's everywhere. It's free. Do people go for it or do people for food go to the store and buy food? People, of course, go to the store and buy food. I should have to think there's some people who don't, I'm not talking about homeless people, but there's just weirdos everywhere.

17:47But it's one of those things where you sit there and you go, what is it that these people think they're accomplishing by making promises that they're never going to be able to keep? And that are bad for the country and bad for the economy. Because realistically, there's not going to be anything free. Nobody at those universities is going to go, all right, I forego my salary. It is us paying for it. I don't think she's genuinely means this. And I don't think it could get done right now, but it's just a stupid idea. And it's a testament to the fact that these barking seals in this crowd applaud this and go, oh, yay. This is exactly what we should do. Joe Biden wanted to forgive all student loans. And the Supreme Court said, you're can. You can do it legislatively, but you can't just do it. And you shouldn't, everybody. It's never been popular.

18:47It's never been popular. And Joe Biden tried to do it anyway. Did a bunch of it anyway. And this is the same thing. It's just on the different end when we're eating the debt. The other end is we're going to pick up the costs rather than we're going to take up your loan. It's stupid. And of course, all these universities will go straight to hell the same way that pretty much everything government gets involved with regulates and tries to run does. Just stupid. Anyway, what's not stupid is the week and after review of patreon.com slash derrick under podcast five bucks. Two night one minute after midnight, I've got something that's been known at me. I saw my kids running a grocery store and it reminded me of childhood trauma, not real trauma, but one of those annoying things that you just did because adults told you to do it and you're a kid. But when you think about it, it doesn't make any damn sense. So I might have a rant about that on top of whatever else we get it.

19:50Otherwise, have a good weekend and hopefully see you in a minute.