Chapter 2

Coach Michaels
Oklahoma’s head football coach, Bob Michaels, had been summoned to the athletic director’s office. While it wasn’t unusual for him to meet with Dr. Wilken, they’d just met two days ago to talk about their upcoming bowl game. The athletic department was in charge of the logistics, and he’d wanted to make sure everything was on track.

In the past, he’d been confident that everything was being handled. But Dr. Wilken had suddenly been thrust into the job as the interim athletic director. Bob’s old boss, Tug Candis, had unexpectedly retired due to health issues.

Tug had been in charge for the past seventeen years. He knew all the ins and outs of running a smooth operation. In contrast, the best characterization that Bob could come up with was that Dr. Wilken was ‘muddling through.’ The coach didn’t think anyone in the department would be happier than him when they found Tug’s permanent replacement.

“Hey, Becky. I’ve been summoned,” he said as a greeting to Tug’s long-time assistant.

Truth be told, she was probably more responsible for the success of Oklahoma’s athletics than anyone else. Coach Michaels knew that if you really needed something done, you went to her.

“Bob,” she said, which brought him up short. Becky had never used his first name before. “I tried to stop it, but they’ve made up their minds. Don’t lose your job over what he’s going to tell you.”

As she was saying that, she’d pushed him out into the hall so her boss couldn’t overhear them.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“The new compliance guy we hired from the NCAA rejected the waiver we were granting David Dawson.”

“Son of a B ... We had that worked out,” he said, stunned.

“Go make your case, but I’m telling you he has made up his mind. Dr. Wilken is worried he’ll look weak if he grants it,” Becky shared.

“Why couldn’t Tug have waited to retire?” Coach Michaels complained. “This will cost us, mark my words.”

She simply nodded and went back into her office, where she announced him. Bob put on a neutral face and walked in. He saw that Dr. Wilken was with a man who looked to be in his mid-20s. How anyone thought that the interim AD was fit for the role was a mystery to Coach Michaels.

“Bob! Thanks for making time for me today,” Dr. Wilken said, a bit too excited.

“We need to make this quick. I’m meeting with Darren Ludlow for lunch today to talk about signing David Dawson, Tim Foresee, and Wolf Tams to financial aid agreements. He’s doing a piece to welcome them to Sooner Nation. He plans to write a big spread for Sunday’s paper. It’s not every day that we pull in the number one recruit. The timing couldn’t be better, with Hayden planning to go pro.”

Dr. Wilken visibly flinched. Coach Michaels really didn’t have a lunch meeting with the local paper’s lead sports reporter, but he soon would if this meeting went south.

“Bob, I’d like you to meet Stewart Chadwick from the compliance department. He has something to share with you.”

A glimmer of hope cracked through when he saw Dr. Wilken toss the grenade to the source of all this nonsense.

“It concerns David Dawson. We’re not going to be able to provide him a waiver for his image rights. The long-term implications are too grave to allow it,” Stewart announced.

Both men braced themselves for the coming explosion, which would have happened if Becky hadn’t warned him. Instead, Coach Michaels put on a confused face before trying to reason with the two ... well ... idiots.

“Tug Candis already agreed to it and signed a letter of understanding to that effect. David will probably take in more money from his movies than all of us together make in a year. Part of that pay requires him to help with promotions when the films are released. At the time he verbaled, he made it clear that giving up those rights was a deal-breaker.

“What I need to know is, what changed? What is making us go back on our word?” Coach Michaels asked.

“Nothing changed. It has been our policy all along that all student-athletes sign a blanket document granting us the use of their likeness. Without it, we couldn’t function,” Dr. Wilken explained.

“Even the NCAA provided him with a waiver because what he needs it for is something he’s created on his own before he steps on campus. This isn’t going to change how we do business. A little common sense would dictate that we work with the young man on this. Unless we all missed something before, I would strongly recommend we stick with what we promised,” Coach Michaels said.

“We have several concerns. A good example is our upcoming bowl game. We, as a university, had to grant them image rights for all our football players, coaches, and anyone affiliated with the program to allow them to both promote and televise the game. If we give up those rights to David, he could potentially refuse to grant the bowl committee the use of his likeness for the promotion of the game. That could be a huge problem for us,” Mr. Chadwick said.

“Did you even read the letter? He is granting us the rights to his image for football and baseball activities,” Coach Michaels countered.

“There is a clause that says that for marketing purposes, David has veto power,” Mr. Chadwick added.

“That was explained at the time. David has a public image beyond football. One, I might add, he pays a PR firm to manage. What he’s protecting himself from is some marketing guy deciding he’s the bad boy of football or being asked to make excessive appearances. It’s intended to limit us from turning him into some kind of show pony as the face of the program. He is serious about getting an education and doesn’t want his athletics to affect that,” Coach Michaels reasoned.

At the time, Coach Michaels had wondered why David would be worried. Then the whole Heisman hype had hit for Hayden Walsh. He’d had to step in to limit all the press requests for Hayden so he could focus on football. The marketing arm of the athletic department had naturally wanted the exposure that one of Oklahoma’s players winning a Heisman would give the university.

“The decision has been made. I suggest you get David to sign it,” Dr. Wilken ordered to show that he wasn’t backing down.

Coach Michaels would have taken this to the Board of Regents or the university president if he’d had time. He suspected that Dr. Wilken had deliberately waited until this morning to spring this on him. David and his friends would be here in a couple of hours to sign the financial aid packets that would give them scholarships. Part of that paperwork was the document granting the university the almost exclusive right to use their likeness.

He could try to sell David on the idea that he could make this right after that fact, but once David signed away his rights, there were no guarantees. Coach Michaels couldn’t, in good conscience, do that to the young man. If he couldn’t get this worked out, he would advise David to not accept a scholarship.

“He’ll walk, and I predict the other two will as well,” Coach Michaels said. “Wolf Tams is one of the better tight-end prospects and one that I planned to use next year. Tim Foresee is a bit of a project, but he could start his junior and senior years for us. Those were three key recruits I was counting on to fill out this class.”

Coach Michaels had another thought.

“And you two need to remember something: none of these three has signed a National Letter of Intent. Without those in our hands, they can walk and enroll at another school without any consequence to them. They won’t have to sit out any time at all.”

From Dr. Wilken’s stunned expression, Coach Michaels could tell that the idiot had thought they were locked in. If they’d signed the National Letters of Intent and decided to transfer, they would have to sit out another year before playing ball at their new school. Glancing over at Chadwick, though, Coach Michaels could see he was trying mightily to hide a smirk.

“That’s not really a problem. All you have to do is have them sign their enrollment and scholarship papers before you tell them,” Chadwick said, showing that the man had no morals.

Coach Michaels had to fight hard to master the upwelling rage that now threatened to consume him.

“I doubt David will leave,” Dr. Wilken said doubtfully, but then he firmed up, obviously reciting a prepared litany. “We are the University of Oklahoma and just produced the latest Heisman winner. He picked us because he knows that we are his best shot at both winning a national championship and landing in the first round of the NFL draft.”

Coach Michaels shook his head in disgust. This idiot was making a colossal mistake. Heaven help them if they ever met David across the field of play.

“David can make one phone call, and every top program in the country will roll out the red carpet for him. We’ve never had a quarterback with his raw talent step on this campus, and I include Hayden in that statement. I have him penciled in as next year’s starter, and everyone knows that I hate playing freshman quarterbacks. He is the exception to that rule,” Coach Michaels tried one last time.

“Like I said. The decision has been made.”

“That’s fine and dandy,” Coach Michaels said and then turned his gaze unblinkingly on Stewart Chadwick. “However, if you think for one second I am going to be the front man for your little scheme to defraud these young men, you’re dead wrong. I will not be getting them to sign binding documents without telling them about what it means for David.”

He thought for a second and turned back to the interim AD.

“Like you said, we’re the University of Oklahoma, and we do things the right way. I’ll meet with them and try to salvage this, but I don’t hold out much hope.”

Coach Michaels made a mental note that as soon as Dr. Wilken was gone, he would make it his life’s mission to get Stewart Chadwick drummed out of the university.

He went back to his office, where he found his brother, Tom, who was his defensive coordinator, waiting for him.

“You will not believe what Wilken did this time,” he said without preamble.

“I have a healthy imagination. Why don’t you just tell me?”

“He just jerked the waiver David Dawson needed so he could promote his movies.”

“I thought we agreed to that already, and him coming was a done deal.”

“It was, but some jerk in the compliance department got into Dr. Wilken’s ear. The long and the short of it is we just lost our starting quarterback for next year,” Coach Michaels said.