BA: “We had some instances where some retail places in town were aggressively … trying to use our athletes. They buy this here; they do this here. They’re trying to tie themselves with the athletes and would have gotten very aggressive with it. It was just getting started when word got back to us and we were able to cut it off before it really got started.”

BA: “No one wants to read that. They’d rather talk about paying athletes or giving them a chance to go pro. It’s like everybody’s going to go pro when in fact you probably have less than 1 percent going on to play pro athletics. … My whole thing in recruiting was we want to get you a degree. We want to prepare you for life after if you play pro football. That’s a way for you to get a nest egg. That’s a bonus. It was never to sell someone to play pro football first. … I spoke to one of the classes and someone asked about paying athletes. I asked, ‘How many of you have loans? How long is it going to take you to pay those loans off?’ There happened to be a football player in there. … I said, ‘You’ve got a degree and now you’re in grad school and we’re paying for that. When you’re finished (with school) how much do you owe?’ Nada. Plus you had medical training. You had specialized strength training, trainers, equipment. You had access to academic support. That all costs money. You have special meals, training table. That all costs money. But you don’t pay for it. No one really thinks of that.”