“Uncle John always says that everyone makes mistakes. The measure of a person is how they handle it. Admitting the mistake is the first step,” I said sagely.
He said to watch people, and they would either own it or point fingers and try to deflect blame. Uncle John advised that the best way to handle it was to tackle the problem first. Then, after the dust settled, figure out how to prevent it from happening again. Doing it this way kept people from becoming defensive and sometimes afraid to share that a problem even existed. You had to take the negative emotions out of the situation so you could tackle what was important.
“YouTube asked for our information because they said they needed to send us money based on the number of hits we’ve gotten from various video uploads.”
“How much are we talking?” Dad asked.
“Just over ten grand. That’s not the problem. Well, really, there are two problems. They’ve commingled the funds for your athletics channel and the one you do everything else with. I’ve explained that issue to them, and they’re going to straighten it out. The real issue is you’re making money with your live streaming videos that we’ve loaded onto YouTube. I tried to get YouTube to take the money back, but they refused,” Megan explained.
Oh shit! The NCAA was going to have my nuts in a vise. The one big no-no was making money with football or baseball. I had no idea you could make money just by posting stuff on YouTube. In my ignorance, I might have just invalidated my amateur status. I so wanted to yell at Megan, but that would defeat everything Uncle John taught me. I took a deep breath.
“What do we have to do to fix this?” I asked to get things moving.
◊◊◊
Duane Morris—my sports attorney who knew all things about the NCAA—and Ms. Dixon were on a conference call with my dad, Caryn, Megan, and me.
“Before we get started, Ms. Dixon, where did you find the idiot who was with me when the police interviewed me in LA? I think he was more interested in playing games on his phone than he was in looking out for my best interest. He didn’t even say anything when they wanted to read me my rights,” I complained.
“Wait. Did you say ‘he’? I hired Sue Li to be there,” Ms. Dixon said.
“Isn’t she the defense lawyer for the stars?” Mr. Morris asked.
“My dad recommended her. He met her in LA at a fundraiser. She was on the team that got Michael Jackson off when he faced his difficulties,” Ms. Dixon said and then gathered herself. “She must have sent some flunky to represent you. I’m sorry, David. I asked for her specifically.”
“It worked out all right. I just wanted to tell you that I don’t ever want that guy again.”
“I’m charging you by the minute; why don’t we get started?” Mr. Morris teased.
I had no doubt he was at least half-serious.
“Megan, explain to them what has happened, please,” Dad said.
“Before the call, I had time to clear some things up. I told David that YouTube paid us about $10,000 for views of his videos. I was mistaken. We were paid by AdSense,” Megan clarified.
“What is AdSense?” Ms. Dixon asked.
“They’re part of Google. It’s software that uses a complicated way of generating ads and paying publishers or content producers using what they call a CPM formula. It means that they pay us for every 1,000 YouTube ad impressions you get. If a CPM is one dollar, it means that they’re paying us a dollar for every 1,000 advertisement impressions a video generates.
“Of course, that’s just an example. The CPM can vary based on how desirable the content is. The big ones for David have been the
“Before you yell at me, I had no idea we could make money by doing any of that.”
“I don’t doubt that it was unintentional,” Mr. Morris said. “The key is that as soon as you found out, you let me know. We will self-report this to the NCAA. I suggest that you stop doing the streaming stuff for now. And I would also suggest that you donate the money to a worthy cause.”
“I can give it to my mom’s cancer support charity,” I suggested.
“Well, in fact, that would make it worse. It needs to be something your family isn’t involved with,” Mr. Morris said.
“No, you can’t give it to Duke’s campaign,” Dad said, shooting down my next idea.
“What are you talking about?” Mr. Morris asked.
I told him about us putting my dog on the ballot to face Thomas Fox.
“My dad loves it. I told him at lunch today,” Ms. Dixon said. “He said that he would fully endorse your solution to the party’s problem of not getting a candidate on the ballot. For my part personally, I can’t wait to get Mr. Fox in court again.”
“Do you think we could get your dad to endorse Duke?” Dad asked.
“I’m sure he would.”
“How about if Duke endorsed him? Do you think your dad’s campaign could put a blurb about that out to the press? Just so you know, I plan to ask Governor Higgins for the same,” I explained.
