The Last Stand of the Old Guard: Damon Wilson II v. UGAA and the Attempt to Contract the Transfer Portal Into Extinction
This dispute is not “just” a $390,000 fight. It’s a prototype for the next era: schools (and their NIL ecosystems) trying to replace NCAA movement restrictions with private contract enforcement, and athletes answering with contract-formation defenses, penalty doctrine, arbitration formation challenges, and tort claims. If UGAA’s theory works, the transfer portal becomes functionally purchasable friction—a pay-to-leave system dressed up as “liquidated damages.” If Wilson’s theory works, then NIL “term sheets” that operate like retention handcuffs may become legally radioactive, especially when paired with public pressure campaigns and alleged interference with recruiting.
And yes: in the long arc of college football, this feels like a “final shot” at the old control model—because it’s the old model’s new suit: not NCAA bylaws, but contract and arbitration law.
THE SANDERS AUDIT: Stability, Sabotage, and the Miami Connection
Shedeur Sanders isn’t just fighting for wins—he’s battling the NFL’s toughest narratives. Dive into our data-driven audit of the Sanders legacy, franchise chaos, and what real leadership looks like in Cleveland. Is Shedeur the Browns’ future? Read the full breakdown. #NFL #ShedeurSanders #ClevelandBrowns #SportsAnalysis
The Holiday Eating Playbook: Stay in Shape Without Skipping the Fun
Discover healthy holiday tips for fitness-minded individuals: set a drink limit, avoid drinking on an empty stomach, and choose your favorite beverages to maximize enjoyment and minimize regret. Learn how to overcome guilt around food, embrace holiday traditions, and maintain a balanced approach to eating and drinking. This guide empowers you to enjoy the season, make mindful choices, and return to your fitness routine with confidence.
“The Character Clause” - Integrity on the Line: College Sports, Scandal, and the Mandate for Real Leadership
The Character Clause: Integrity on the Line This blog post explores the crisis of integrity facing college sports, highlighting recent scandals involving high-profile coaches at Michigan and Ohio University. The author argues that current culture prioritizes wins, rankings, and financial figures (NIL), often at the expense of character and ethical leadership. Misconduct by coaches not only damages programs and reputations but also erodes trust and morale among athletes, staff, and entire communities. The piece draws on biblical principles to emphasize the need for leaders to be models of good works and accountability.
This blog criticizes the double standard where adults in power are excused for ethical failings while athletes are judged harshly for transferring or seeking better opportunities. It calls for practical reforms, including “character clauses” in athlete contracts to protect them from the fallout of leadership failures. The author urges athletes, families, and coaches to demand transparency, accountability, and real character from their institutions, making integrity a foundation rather than a casualty of success.
Ultimately, the post is a call to action for everyone involved in college sports to raise the standard, challenge toxic culture, and ensure that sports build—not break—the next generation. The author encourages readers to share the message and help create a sports culture where character is central to true success.
The “CBA Blueprint” Is a Trojan Horse: Why Athletes.org’s Plan Fast-Tracks the Professionalization of College Sports
Athletes.org’s (AO) Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) Framework aims to replace the current NIL compensation model with a system that pays athletes for their athletic services, effectively treating them as employees. This shift towards a professional model raises concerns about athlete protections, centralized control, and the impact on non-revenue sports. While the framework includes athlete-forward proposals, it also establishes a framework for league-like governance and enforcement.
2025 MLB Rule 5 Draft: Final Breakdown, Verified Picks, and Who Will Stick
The 2025 MLB Rule 5 Draft delivered 13 Major League phase picks and 55 Minor League selections. This breakdown tracks every pick, explains the roster rules, ranks which players are most likely to stick in 2026, and identifies which organizations quietly won – and which ones took the biggest hit.
The Business of Winter: Inside the MLB Winter Meetings
Summary: The Business of Winter—Inside the MLB Winter Meetings
The MLB Winter Meetings, held every December, serve as the epicenter of baseball’s off-season business. While fans experience the meetings through media coverage and social platforms, the real action happens in hotel lobbies, where executives, agents, scouts, media, and job seekers gather for four days of intense networking, negotiation, and information exchange. Deals that shape teams for years often begin as informal conversations during these gatherings.
Agents play a critical role, balancing salesmanship, strategy, and emotional support for players who are in limbo about their futures. For players, especially free agents, the uncertainty is stressful—they continue training amid not knowing where they’ll end up. High school and college prospects are also impacted, as current market trends and contract values influence future draft strategies and their own career decisions.
The piece also explains key terms such as arbitration eligibility, Super Two status, DFA (Designated for Assignment), non-tendering, and the Rule 5 Draft, all essential to understanding the business mechanics at play.
Ultimately, the Winter Meetings blend the passion of baseball with the realities of business. They are where critical decisions are made, careers are impacted, and the foundation for upcoming seasons is laid—making these meetings a must-watch event for everyone involved in or following the sport.
The Status Quo Season: Breaking Down the CFP Top 25 — and the Three Brackets Championship Saturday Could Deliver
This year has been predictable for five straight weeks — boring, even — but all that’s done is stack explosive pressure behind one weekend. The lack of movement has created a single, unifying truth:
Championship Saturday is going to decide almost everything — and it will do it fast.
Six teams control byes.
Seven teams control at-large survival.
BYU and Alabama control the detonators.
Texas is the résumé wildcard.
Miami and Notre Dame exist in a constant philosophical argument.
BYU is the analytics darling trapped in the committee’s blind spot.
By Sunday afternoon, the status quo might be intact…
Or it might look like it got fed into a cotton gin.
The Sanders Standard: 5th Round to QB1 -How Shedeur’s Journey is a Case Study in Resilience, Family, and Faith
They said he was "too Hollywood." They let him slide to the 5th round—144th overall. They skipped over him five times over.
Sunday night, Shedeur Sanders didn’t just win a football game; he exorcised a demon. By leading the Cleveland Browns to a 24-10 victory over the Raiders, he became the first Browns QB to win his debut start since 1999, snapping an 0-17 streak of failure.
With Coach Prime watching from the stands, Shedeur showed us exactly what happens when you combine elite preparation with a support system that refuses to let the "hate" penetrate.
As a new agent, this is the lesson: Talent gets you drafted, but faith and family keep you standing when the world doubts you.
Read my full breakdown on why the Sanders family is the blueprint for modern athlete mental health. 👇
And join me next Wednesday as I break down Coach Prime’s 2023 Book Elevate and Dominate in the next ChalkTalk Book Club.
The Apex of Opportunity: A Strategic, Post-Lottery Look at the 2026 WNBA Draft Order
THE APEX OF OPPORTUNITY:
A STRATEGIC, POST-LOTTERY LOOK AT THE 2026 WNBA DRAFT ORDER
The envelopes have dropped, the ping-pong balls have been sufficiently traumatized, and the 2026 WNBA Draft Lottery is officially in the books.
The result: chalk.
The odds held exactly as advertised, and the top five picks now belong to:
Dallas Wings
Minnesota Lynx (via Chicago Sky)
Seattle Storm (via Los Angeles Sparks)
Washington Mystics
Chicago Sky (via Connecticut Sun)
If you’re an athlete, an agent, or a front office that actually reads the CBA instead of vibes-scouting it, this is the moment when hypothetical probability curves harden into actual leverage.
The CSC Participation Agreement: An Institutional Surrender of Sovereignty & the Bureaucratic Overreach of the New College Sports Commission
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In the wake of the House v. NCAA settlement, the "Power Four" conferences have birthed a new enforcement entity: the College Sports Commission (CSC). Ostensibly designed to regulate Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) markets and revenue sharing, the CSC has issued an 11-page "University Participation Agreement."
This “Participation Agreement” is not merely a regulatory framework; it is a capitulation. It demands that collegiate institutions sign away fundamental legal rights, submit to an unelected centralized authority, and police their own boosters and student-athletes as agents of this new bureaucracy. It represents a stunning consolidation of power that violates the spirit of American federalism, due process, and free enterprise.
The Modern Prometheus: Stitching Together the WPBL
In this article, former college English professor, athlete agent, and sports attorney, Lee Walpole Lassiter, draws parallels between the art of assembling a winning baseball team and the story of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Lee’s blog highlights the importance of key roles like the catcher, who acts as the team's eyes and central nervous system, and emphasizes the hidden value of versatile players such as Andreanne Leblanc.
As the inaugural WPBL draft moves into its critical late rounds, the piece warns that simply collecting talent isn't enough—team culture and identity are essential to avoid creating a dysfunctional group. The closing metaphor urges general managers to nurture their creation, suggesting that with the right approach, they could make history and build something extraordinary.
The Bell Tolls for Free Agency: Will Gleyber Torres Answer the QO?
Summary: The Bell Tolls for Free Agency: Will Gleyber Torres Answer the QO?
In this blog, Lee explores the high-stakes decision facing Gleyber Torres regarding the MLB Qualifying Offer. With a $22.025 million, one-year contract on the table from the Detroit Tigers, Torres must weigh immediate financial security against the potential for a more lucrative multi-year deal—complicated by recent injury and second-half of the season performance challenges.
The piece also delves into the strategic implications of draft pick compensation for both the Tigers and any potential suitors, highlighting how these factors make Torres's choice a nuanced and consequential one for player, team, and the broader free-agent market.
THE SERPENT'S STRATEGY: BREAKING DOWN THE INAUGURAL WPBL DRAFT ORDER
The WPBL’s inaugural draft marks a defining moment in the launch of professional women’s baseball. With six rounds and 20 picks per round, the 120-player structure forms the first-ever rosters for franchises in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Boston. The league uses a snake draft format—reversing order within each turn—to enforce competitive balance and force strategic, paired decision-making from front offices.
Though being drafted grants negotiation rights rather than guaranteed contracts, it secures each athlete a chance to compete during rigorous spring training and evaluation periods. This historic draft celebrates years of player development and sets the stage for a fully realized professional ecosystem in women’s baseball. Fans can watch history unfold during Thursday night’s official live stream.
The Fab Four: Introducing the Four Founding Teams Taking the Field First in the WPBL
Meet the four founding franchises of the Women’s Professional Baseball League—New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Explore each city’s identity, baseball legacy, and what to expect ahead of the WPBL’s historic inaugural draft and 2026 season.
Age Is Just the Count: How Micaela Minner and Homa Schweers Are Proving Experience Belongs in the WPBL (and Why that Makes Me Cheer)
In her latest piece, Lee celebrates the return of professional women’s baseball — and two athletes who refuse to let age define their game. As the Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL) prepares for its 2026 debut, forty-year-old standouts Micaela Minner and Homa Schweers are rewriting the rules on what it means to be “in your prime.”
From Minner’s powerhouse days at the University of Missouri and her career mentoring hundreds of young athletes, to Schweers’ decades of grassroots leadership and endurance, both women embody what the WPBL stands for: opportunity that doesn’t expire.
Lee draws a parallel to her own “second inning” as a sports attorney and agent, cheering for a league that values persistence as much as potential. Her message is clear — in the WPBL and in life, experience is the real MVP.
Setting a Precedent: The WPBL’s New Era and Its Trailblazers Mo’ne Davis and Kelsie Whitmore
This article examines the groundbreaking launch of the Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL), set to debut in 2026. The league marks the first professional women's baseball organization since 1954, moving beyond novelty to establish a sustainable, professional, and women-led athletic enterprise.
Breaking New Ground: The Women’s Pro Baseball League Arrives
After more than seventy years without a professional women’s baseball league, the Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL) is set to debut in 2026, signaling a major cultural and sporting milestone. Founded by Dr. Justine Siegal and Keith Stein, the WPBL will launch with six Northeastern teams, a seven-week season, and an innovative format designed for speed, sustainability, and visibility. The league’s first open tryouts in Washington, D.C. drew over 600 athletes from 10 countries, underscoring the global hunger for opportunity in women’s baseball. With production and media support from Fremantle, and an advisory board that includes icons like Ayami Sato, Cito Gaston, and Maybelle Blair, the WPBL blends authenticity with star power—highlighted by Mo’ne Davis, the Little League legend now chasing a pro dream. While challenges remain—financial sustainability, fan awareness, and the absence of a collegiate pipeline—the league’s independence, leadership, and timing place it at the forefront of a new era for women in sports.
🏛 THE NEW PLAYING FIELD | How college athletes took the NCAA to court and fundamentally rewrote the rules of college sports.
College and high-school athletes are increasingly turning to the courts to challenge NCAA rules and secure their rights to play and profit from their talent, thanks to new NIL regulations. Recent victories, like those in Ohio and the Pavia case, show courts are crucial in changing the landscape of amateur sports, even though outcomes remain unpredictable. Today, the law is actively shaping the future of athletics at every level.
NIL COLLECTIVES ON TRIAL — WHO REALLY PAYS?
The article discusses the rise of NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) rights in college sports, highlighting the initial enthusiasm for athletes profiting freely, which has since led to instability due to poorly regulated collectives. These collectives, often working closely with universities, face legal issues from unfulfilled promises and questionable deals, exemplified by the Jaden Rashada case. Regulators now enforce stricter rules to prevent pay-for-play schemes, and schools are establishing official NIL channels to mitigate liability. Athletes are advised to verify funds and clear contractual terms before entering agreements. Despite challenges, NIL collectives are expected to persist and evolve, emphasizing the need for accountability and careful oversight in the future.