REGAN GUIRGUIS: Hi everyone. This is Regan Guirguis and you’re listening to The Gold Standard, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota sports. Today, I’ll be doing this podcast solo, but I do have quite a few topics to talk about. The first one being two articles written by my fellow sports reporter, Megan Davis.

The first article is about the men’s track and field performance at the NCAA Championships. They finished seventh, which is the highest finish for the men’s track and field team since 1948 which is quite impressive. 

And while the Gopher womens did not have enough athletes in attendance to place as a team as a whole, they did see some good performances from red shirt sophomore Ali Weimer and graduate student Dyandra Gray. I would highly recommend this article if you wanna learn more about track and field at the University of Minnesota and wanna see some of their successes. 

Now the next article I’m gonna be talking about is one that was also written by Megan. And it’s about the House v. NCAA settlement being approved on June 13. This is something that I think will be really relevant to not just college sports fans, but sports fans in America. It is basically as, as Megan describes, it means that colleges can now directly pay their student athletes.

Now, back in 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of what would be called NIL, or name, image, likeness. And that basically allowed college athletes to profit off of their likeness. But the money came from outside companies that weren’t related to the college. It would be like Koi Perich on the Gushers box, that is name, image, likeness, because they’re using his name and his image to increase sales. 

And Koi Perich would get a part of that because they’re using him. But now in this case, it is just that the colleges are directly paying their students for their work. This is a really interesting article. It has a lot of good explanations. Better than I could probably explain a lot of great quotes and statistics as well. 

I would highly recommend, if you wanna be updated and be in the loop with what’s going on. College sports with this next season because this is definitely a growing story, and it’s not gonna die out anytime soon. It will continue to expand and evolve. 

Something that I thought was interesting that Megan mentioned in this article was that ESPN reported that $2.8 billion will be given to student athletes who started playing in 2016 or later and never saw money from their likeness being used. This money is gonna be split between different colleges and it will mainly be for college football and men’s basketball stars. 

The last quote that Megan has in her article, I think really sums up this controversy around college sports and professional sports. I mean, the settlement means that colleges are directly paying their athletes, which a lot of people say are the same thing as teams directly paying their professional athletes.

It’s super interesting. And this quote is from Cal Stein, who was a sports lawyer, interviewed by The Athletic, and he’s basically saying that the NCAA made their job even more difficult for themselves. The direct quote is, “The house settlement started with the goal of the NCAA putting an end to the losses it has taken in these litigations. The great irony is that it’s really going to lead to more lawsuits.”

The next thing I’m gonna be talking about is the men’s basketball team. As many of you know, the Gopher’s basketball team has been going through a lot of changes since their last season with the firing of head coach Ben Johnson and bringing in new coach Niko Medved from Colorado State, and also the fact that majority of our players either went into the transfer portal or graduated.

I would like to highlight three players who did stay with the Gophers this year, Isaac Asuma being one of them. Then there’s Grayson Grove and Erick Reader. These three, I had the pleasure to talk to today. They’re all super, super excited to continue being Gophers and they’re really excited for the next season and to continue working under Medved as well as kind of introducing these new guys to the state of Minnesota and preparing them for those cold winters.

Which kind of leads into the next story that I’m writing, which is about some of the new players on our men’s basketball team. I’m not reporting on all of them, but there are a couple that I am talking about. Chance Stephens and Cade Tyson, I also had the pleasure of talking to those guys today. They’re excited to be Gophers. 

You know, it seems like the continuing, kind of like, red thread between all of this, between the people who stayed and the people who came was Medved, and talking to him and the values that this new coaching staff has. And it seems like this team is ready to win and not just ready to win, but ready to thrive and go farther than the Gophers have seen their men’s basketball team go in a lot of years. 

The last thing we’re gonna talk about today is not about Gopher sports, but it is about an article that I wrote last week, and it is about Mark Hulsey and Moses Cooper. Mark Hulsey is a competitive runner who has ran multiple different marathons throughout the U.S. and also on international levels.

He also does work with myTeam Triumph in Minnesota. And what myTeam Triumph is, it’s an organization that allows children, teens and adults and veterans who have disabilities to lead the team and experience endurance races, they are captains while the person who is pushing them or pulling them are called angels.

So in this case, Mark is Moses’ angel. Mark’s goal was to make it to a marathon with his captain. This is a goal that has been achieved by people in the past, like Dick Hoyt and Rick Hoyt. Who, Dick Hoyt pushed his son, Rick Hoyt, who had Cerebral Palsy in many races, including marathons. 

And they kind of built up this recognition for disabilities in sports and specifically disabilities and running, and that’s kind of what, you know, gave the inspiration to Mark to be able to do this. And it’s not something that has been seen in the Minnesota Team Triumph kind of  organization yet, but everyone was super supportive, including Moses Cooper and his mom.

And so Mark and Moses have been a team ever since. With Moses being his captain, Mark being his angel. They were recently gifted a new racing chair, which is quite incredible. A lot of people are cheering them on and supporting them through this process, and they are ready to go and try to qualify for Boston.

I think this article is just an important read because it proves that, you know, people are still fighting hard for inclusion, disability inclusion in sports, and they wanna make sure that people like Moses are able to have the support and have the opportunities that myTeam Triumph is giving him.

And yeah, I just think that this kind of stuff is important. It’s important to look at sports in Minnesota and not just Gopher sports, but general sports and see that the community is as strong as ever and that people are excited to support one another. 

That being said, that’s all I have for you guys today. Stay tuned for further Gold Standards throughout the summer months. Thank you for listening, and if you have any comments, questions or concerns, you can drop them in our email inbox at podcasting@mndaily.com.

I’m Regan Guirguis, and this has been The Gold Standard.