“You really are a ‘stupid boy’ if you believe it’s only a hookup for Lexi,” Cassidy said.
“Pfft. Lexi has no interest in me beyond my mad skills in the sack,” I said dismissively.
“Whatever lets you sleep at night,” Cassidy said.
My ego was stroked when Cassidy didn’t contradict that I had ‘mad skills.’ But we would have to agree to disagree about Lexi Andon. She wasn’t interested in a relationship beyond a professional one and the occasional hookup. How did I know? She told me so.
◊◊◊
At lunch, I had to take a conference call with Ms. Dixon, my lawyer; Mr. Morris, my sports attorney; and my dad. They had news on my exemption.
“We’ve come to an impasse in our negotiations with the NCAA,” Mr. Morris said to kick off the call.
“I thought they signed a letter of understanding,” Dad said.
“They’ve had some new developments that have made them reconsider what they’re willing to agree to.
“The state of California has passed a bill granting student-athletes the right to negotiate endorsement deals. From what I can glean, the NCAA plans to fight that vigorously. Rumor has it they may ban schools in California from participating in NCAA-sanctioned championships,” Mr. Morris shared.
“Wow. That would be a double-edged sword. I can see where in basketball, the one-and-done types would probably want to go to school in California so they can start getting paid legally. I doubt they would care if they won a national championship. For the majority, they would go elsewhere,” I reasoned.
“The good news for you is that if you pick USC, the law won’t go into effect until after you graduate,” Ms. Dixon said.
“So, if that’s the case, why are they backing off on what they agreed to?” Dad asked.
“They aren’t totally. They’ve agreed that any work David does before he steps on campus, he can continue to either do or promote. What they’re not willing to do is give him the right to continue to do acting or modeling while he’s in school. They are afraid that it might be used as a precedent when they take the state of California to court,” Mr. Morris explained.
“What about David’s agreements with Oklahoma and USC? Do we need to worry about those?” Dad asked.
“No. They signed agreements that protect his full image rights, as long as it doesn’t interfere with their ability to do their normal sports and event marketing. Those apply while he goes to school at either place. I would, however, advise that David not do anything new when he’s in college,” Mr. Morris said.
Schools wanted your image rights for games so they could be shown on TV, which made no sense to me. I mean, some of my high school games were shown on TV. My guess was it had to do with other things, like jersey sales.
“This is so frustrating,” I complained.
“I recommend you go ahead and take what they’re offering. If anything changes, you can come back at them. But keep in mind that it would probably end up in court,” Ms. Dixon advised.
“You didn’t plan to do any movies or anything while you’re in school, did you?” Dad asked.
“It might be nice to have the option to do something like the sunglasses commercial if I suddenly needed extra money,” I said.
“This will allow you to finish the projects you started. I got an education from Saul Gessler, your manager,” Mr. Morris said. “He explained that you might have to go back and do CGI or voice work. Saul explained that part of your contracts to do the movies included promoting them. That made sense to the NCAA, and they are granting waivers for those activities.”
At a bare minimum, that was what I needed.
“Okay. Do the deal and let’s put this to bed,” I said.
“Tell them that this is literally as far as we are willing to go. If they try to go any further, tell them we’ll have to put David’s side of the story out there,” Dad said, looking out for me.
Mr. Morris and Ms. Dixon both started talking at that point, but Dad cut them off.
“Look, every dealing we’ve had with the NCAA has been an exercise in frustration and broken promises. They need to understand that enough is enough,” Dad said.
I knew in my heart I wouldn’t take it that far, but if push came to shove, I would back up what my dad had said.
“I’ll get the paperwork completed,” Mr. Morris said.
“Duane, go ahead and drop off the call. I need a moment with David and his dad,” Ms. Dixon said.
When Mr. Morris hung up, Ms. Dixon told us what was on her mind.
“I didn’t want to say this in front of Mr. Morris because he’s negotiating your deal with the NCAA. I didn’t want him to feel compromised in any way,” Ms. Dixon said.
That didn’t sound ominous at all.
“Compromised how?” Dad asked.
“They’re leaving a huge loophole in their agreement. It says you can’t do anything new.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“You currently have contracts to model for Range Sports, Dakora, and Jade,” she said to clue me in.
“But those are annual contracts,” Dad said.
“What if you were to sign a ten-year deal?” Ms. Dixon asked.
“You would have to drop Range Sports,” Dad said to me.
