The Rest of the Story: The Brandan Sorsby Debacle Has The Predictable Domino Effect, and Where It Stops, Nobody Knows…

In this post I wrote about the dispiriting tale of Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby, an admitted gambling addict whom a ADA-addled judge ruled could not be banned from playing Big 12 football this season. I wrote then,

“The larger issue is what kind of society this will become if the progressive obsession with empathy and forgiveness for all wrongdoing continues on its current path. Sorsby is an addict, not a bad guy! He shouldn’t be prevented from doing what he loves just because his addiction makes him likely to cheat. It isn’t his fault that he has this affliction! And really, aren’t all criminals just addicts or emotionally damaged in some way? They shouldn’t be in prison. This is why “restorative justice” is the only caring way to deal with our fellow human beings who deceive, cheat, rob, and harm us.”

Meanwhile, the loopy decision was throwing all of football into chaos. After the excessively empathetic judge granted a temporary injunction that allowed Sorsby to return to the team with a slap-on-the-wrist two-game suspension, The Big Ten considered a ban on playing Texas Tech altogether. Athletic directors at other schools erupted in anger. Kansas State AD Gene Taylor called the judge’s ruling “fucking bullshit.” “I think there needs to be serious conversations about not playing Texas Tech in any sports,” University of Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks said. “We cannot in good conscience put our student-athletes on a field where the competitive integrity of the contest is compromised and overridden by the courts.”

This month, Sorsby came to his senses and Texas Tech finally realized the school, its reputation and its athletic program would suffer more than any quarterback was worth if he wasn’t gone. Sorsby dropped his lawsuit against the NCAA and opted to enter the NFL Supplemental Draft, ending his Texas Tech affiliation. But yesterday the NFL announced that it was cancelling its 2026 supplemental draft, and that the decision was entirely because of Sorsby,. The NFL doesn’t wantito have to deal with the controversy. As of now, however, the player is still eligible for the 2027 NFL draft.

The gambling in sports pathogen is not going away, and will continue to spread because of greed, stupidity and the fact that most of the people running collegiate and professional sports, especially football and basketball, have no ethics alarms at all.

Combine The Societal Corruption Of Legal Sports Betting With The Ethics Void In Collegiate Sports With The Woke Delusion That Every Wrongdoer Is A Victim And You Get…

…the head-exploding court decision that Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby is eligible to Big 12 football this season.

Sorsby had admitted placing at least 40 bets on Indiana football while he was playing for the Hoosiers, and approximately $90,000 in sports wagers using other people’s sportsbook accounts. He spent four years concealing his gambling from three different schools and only came clean once law enforcement swooped down on him. Now he says he is a gambling addict, and it would be hard to dispute that. The NCAA was alerted to Sorsby’s gambling in March. The organization notified Texas Tech of its investigation in April, and Texas Tech made Sorsby ineligible while it fought to have the star reinstated. Then Sorsby’s lawyers sued NCAA on May 18, seeking an injunction that would prevent the NCAA from banning him. And they were successful.

You won’t believe why, or maybe you will if you have followed the slippery slope of progressive enabling of wrongdoing. The judge’s logic: The NCAA would be harming a recovering gambling addict—poor lamb— by enforcing a rule that every pro sports league in this country enforces. Sorsby’s gambling history is a mental health and addiction issue, so the NCAA must consider his well-being and support him rather than punish him. Judge Ken Curry ruled that the quarterback would suffer “irreparable injury” if he isn’t granted a temporary injunction allowing him to play for the Texas Tech Red Raiders this season. To deprive him of the ability to “benefit from the elite coaching, training resources, camaraderie and regimen that only being a member of a Division I college football team can provide”would be unconscionable.

The fact that there is no way to be sure the gambling addict calling the plays hasn’t placed bets on his team’s point spread or isn’t under the metaphorical thumbs of organized crime or angry bookies, and been told that if his team doesn’t lose, his mother will be fish food? Never mind.

Prediction: Stories Like This Will Be Compared To “Reefer Madness”

ReeferMadness_04

Because elite potheads love their weed, nobody has the guts to stand in their way, and consequences be damned.

The CNN story describes a new study that suggests that smoking a lot of pot, especially if you are young, makes you dumber.

It’s not conclusive, of course. Research seldom is. It also doesn’t matter, since a combination of relentless pro-stoner advocacy, resulting contempt for the law and the fact that a disproportionate number of minorities and poor are getting caught with the drug and going to jail—making the prohibition itself racist in today’s “race trumps everything” political culture—has assured that marijuana will join tobacco, alcohol and legalized gambling as socially destructive—but lucrative! Profits! Taxes! Yum Yum!—forces in our society. Lives will be ruined, shattered and lost, real costs in money and productivity will be huge, and little positive will be gained in exchange.

It just seems so obvious that we should know how harmful these kinds of things are before we legalize them, and not start looking into it after the horse is gone, the genie is out and Pandora’s Box is open and lying on the floor.

It just seems dumb to…Hey! Wait a minute…

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Pointer: Fark

Facts: CNN

The Ethics of Legalized Gambling: A Debate

Over at “The Economist” website, two articulate and well-qualified opponents are debating the wisdom of state sanctioned gambling. The debate will be “settled” by a vote of the site’s readers.

The two advocates cover the topic thoroughly and well, and I will  link to the debate rather than attempt to supplement it in detail, except to say this: Continue reading

California’s Confused Welfare Ethics

The Los Angeles Times has been running a series of stories detailing how many California welfare recipients have been using their state-issued welfare debit cards (which take money directly out of state coffers) at casino ATM’s. The millions of dollars in taxpayer money dispensed to eager, if poor, gamblers produced predictable outrage, and the state responded by blocking use of the cards at over 200 ATM’s and revising the pledge signed by welfare recipients to require them to only use the assistance to “meet the basic subsistence needs” of their families.

The outrage is misplaced, and the remedial measures are symbolic at best. Continue reading

Pennsylvania’s and Delaware’s Disgrace: Risking the Poor to Balance the Budgets

Delaware and Pennsylvania, facing state budget deficits that would require political courage and citizen sacrifice to address, has taken the craven route of other states (with more sure to follow) by legalizing casino gambling.

In Pennsylvania, State Republicans, the majority party in the state senate, had opposed the expansion of gambling , but capitulated when faced with the reality of having to choose between cutting jobs and services or raising taxes. Instead, the Republicans joined with Democrats, those champions of the weak and powerless,  to victimize the poorest people in the state for profit. Continue reading

The Casinos and the Whale

Japanese tycoon Terrance Watanabe gambled away nearly $127 million at the Caesar’s Palace and Rio casinos in 2007, and now is suing the casinos even as he faces criminal charges for refusing to pay them over $15 million in additional debts. He claims that the gambling establishments allowed him to gamble while intoxicated in violation of state casino regulations, and otherwise share blame for his outlandish losses, believed to be the most any gambler has amassed in a single year. Continue reading