“You might be an investigator at the NCAA and able to cause me problems with my eligibility. I’ll get back to how little I care about that in a moment, but I need to make a point. I’ve been to the NCAA offices. As with any organization, there are a few bad actors,” I said, looking him in the eye.
I knew I was golden when he looked down.
“What I found was that most of the people who work there are good people. They embrace the NCAA’s purpose, which is to help govern and support its member institutions and their student-athletes. I believe that you are merely a cog in a much bigger organization. And, despite what you’ve said, I have faith in your fellow employees to consider the facts and understand that I am only trying to help the NCAA.
“I’ve pointed out that you have a problem and given you enough to go on from here. It’s not my job nor desire to get in any deeper. I’m sorry, Stewart, but I will not pretend to want to go to Southwest Central State so you can build a case against them. You’re the investigator, investigate,” I said.
“So, you think the NCAA is benevolent and will just roll over because you believe you’re in the right?” Stewart asked.
“The honest answer is, I don’t know. I would hope so. But I have found that when you deal with a large organization like the government or the NCAA, what is fair or true rarely matters,” I said.
Then I decided to finish this up.
I looked at Stewart and realized I wasn’t going to win him over. But that had never been my intention from the beginning. He’d made his threats like I knew he would. He would learn a valuable lesson if he followed through.
“Would I like to play college ball? The simple answer is ‘yes.’ The truth is that you pulling football off the table might make life easier for me. I’ve been struggling to decide what I’ll do after high school. This would help me narrow down to three options: sign a baseball contract, do movies full time, or just be a regular college student.
“You see, Mr. Chadwick, you don’t have as much on me as you think. I’m not in desperate straits, and I don’t need football to make a living. That being said, I would hope you would rethink your threats and just let it go,” I said and gave him my hopeful look.
“I’m sure you’ll come around to my thinking and decide to do what’s right and help us.”
“It seems we’ve come to an impasse. I really do hope you investigate this shoe link further. Springbok and Southwest Central State are the tip of the iceberg. Cleaning up the lure of shoe money would go a long way toward making college sports fairer,” I said as I stood up.
Stewart wasn’t happy when he left.
◊◊◊
Dad, Fritz, and Lexi came in as soon as Stewart left. I had Dad call Mr. Morris. While they did that, I ran upstairs to get my tablet. When I came back, they were all staring at me.
“I hope you didn’t do anything to screw this up,” Mr. Morris said when he knew I was back.
Rather than reply, I walked over to the buffet and unplugged my drone. I’d started charging it there because Lexi had almost spilled her iced tea on it the other day when it was charging on the kitchen counter. I’d made the executive decision not to keep it in my bedroom, for obvious reasons. The video decision was spur-of-the-moment when I remembered the drone.
I pulled the memory card and plugged it into the tablet.
“Why, you sneaky little genius,” Dad said.
“What?” Mr. Morris demanded.
“David recorded the meeting,” Dad said.
“Give me a minute, and I’ll email you the video,” I said.
I quickly found the beginning and the end of the meeting with Stewart and created a file that I uploaded into the cloud. I sent a text to Mr. Morris to let him know it was in the folder I’d given him and my legal team access to.
“Why don’t I call you back once I’ve had a chance to review it?” Mr. Morris asked.
I let it play for everyone here. While they were watching, I stepped into the kitchen and found we had a few leftover tacos. Something had to be done about that. If I kept this up, no amount of working out would keep me from getting fat.
I took my plate of tacos back into the dining room, and I suspect everyone thought I planned to share. I decided to take the high road and reminded myself that I had my figure to consider, so I only ate one.
Mr. Morris called back in and was laughing.
“What do you think we should do with this?” I asked.
“I’d shove it down their throats,” Lexi said.
That made me do a double-take. I should have realized that Lexi could be a hard-core mercenary. It was an excellent reminder to be on my guard with her.
“I guess this will get you out of helping with their investigation,” Dad said.
“I can probably get Stewart fired for this,” Mr. Morris said.
Fritz hadn’t said anything. I looked at him a curiously, and he sighed.
“Do you really want to use this for that?” he asked.
“Enlighten everyone,” I suggested.
“This is the kind of thing that you can use for bigger problems than the kid investigator giving you a hard time.”
